The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror game with a dual-reality rendering gimmick, places a heavy load on the graphics card. The benchmark data for the Intel Core i7-12700KF with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti reveals a system that is firmly GPU-bound, where every frame rate shift across resolutions and settings mirrors the demands of the renderer. The measured frames per second (FPS) tell a story of a card that needs careful settings selection to maintain smooth gameplay.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep, indicating that the RTX 3070 Ti is the primary bottleneck. At Low settings, the game runs at 127.1 FPS at 1920x1080, but this falls to 106.4 FPS at 2560x1440, and then plummets to 86.8 FPS at 3840x2160. This 40.3 FPS drop from 1080p to 4K shows that even at the lowest quality, the sheer pixel count is taxing the GPU heavily.

The scaling pattern across the other presets reinforces this. At Medium settings, the transition from 1080p (80.7 FPS) to 1440p (67 FPS) is a 13.7 FPS loss, and the further drop to 4K (52.8 FPS) represents another 14.2 FPS loss. The load is clearly on the graphics card, as the CPU is not showing signs of holding the system back at lower resolutions.

When going from 1080p to 4K at High settings, the frame rate drops from 56.6 FPS to 39.6 FPS, a 17 FPS loss. At Ultra, the drop is from 45.6 FPS to 31.4 FPS, a 14.2 FPS loss. The data implies that the fixed-camera perspective and the game's rendering of two simultaneous worlds create a raw pixel throughput challenge, making resolution the dominant factor in performance.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured data, the Low preset is the only one that consistently delivers a frame rate above 60 FPS at all tested resolutions. At 4K, Low yields 86.8 FPS, which is smooth, while Medium drops to 52.8 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a horror title that benefits from fluid motion. At 1440p, Low provides 106.4 FPS, but Medium is still viable at 67 FPS.

For the best experience that balances visual fidelity with smoothness, Medium is the sweet spot at 1440p, offering 67 FPS. At 1080p, Medium (80.7 FPS) is a great choice, but High (56.6 FPS) is less optimal because it falls below the 60 FPS threshold. The data suggests that players should avoid Ultra entirely, as it only reaches 45.6 FPS at 1080p and drops to 31.4 FPS at 4K, which is likely to feel choppy in a game that relies on atmosphere and tension.

The High preset is a poor middle ground. It offers a small visual upgrade over Medium but comes with a significant performance cost, dropping below 60 FPS at every resolution tested. The measured rows indicate that the jump from Low to Medium is the most efficient way to increase quality while keeping frame rates high, whereas the jump to High or Ultra offers diminishing returns for the performance hit.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, with its 8 GB of GDDR6X memory and 608.3 GB/s of bandwidth, is the defining component in this system. The benchmark scores show it has a PassMark G3D score of 23356, placing it in the 74th percentile of all GPUs. Its 21.75 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 48 RT cores are the tools needed to render the game’s dual-reality effect, but the data shows that even with these resources, the card is struggling at higher resolutions.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity appears to be a limiting factor. The game’s High and Ultra presets at 4K push the frame rate down to 39.6 FPS and 31.4 FPS respectively, which suggests that the card is running out of memory bandwidth or capacity, forcing slower data transfers. The card’s boost clock of 1770 MHz and its 192 texture mapping units are working hard, but the performance cliff between Medium and High settings at all resolutions points to a VRAM constraint.

The GPU’s performance relative to its rivals is interesting. Its average benchmark score of 30849 is just 0.3% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME, but it is 0.8% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 6700. This places the RTX 3070 Ti in a competitive but not dominant position, and in this specific game, the data shows that it is the component that requires careful management to achieve playable frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

In the context of all tested combos for The Medium, this configuration ranks 668 out of 1689. This places it in the 60th percentile of all systems tested, which is a respectable position, but not a top-tier one. The rank suggests that while the CPU is very capable, the GPU is holding the system back from reaching the upper echelons of performance.

The combo’s ranking is likely dragged down by the GPU’s inability to maintain high frame rates at 4K. The CPU, which ranks in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, is not the limiting factor. The data indicates that a system with a stronger GPU would likely achieve a much higher rank, as the frame rates are consistently tied to the graphics card’s workload. This pairing is a balanced mid-range setup that performs adequately, but it does not excel in this particular game’s demanding rendering scenarios.

The 668th rank out of 1689 combos means that a significant portion of other systems outperform it, likely due to having more powerful graphics cards. The data suggests that this combo is a solid 1080p and 1440p machine, but it is not designed for 4K gaming at high settings, which is where its ranking suffers.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS is 45.6.

Q: Does the game run at 60 FPS at 4K resolution with any settings?

A: Yes, with the Low preset, the average FPS is 86.8. All other presets at 4K fall below 60 FPS.

Q: How does the GPU benchmark compare to its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6700?

A: The RTX 3070 Ti has an average benchmark score of 30849, which is 0.8% lower than the RX 6700's score of 31112.

Q: What is the best setting for a smooth experience at 2560x1440?

A: The Medium preset provides an average of 67 FPS, which is the highest quality setting that maintains a frame rate above 60 FPS at this resolution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the main bottleneck in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the bottleneck, as the CPU is in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, while frame rates drop significantly with resolution, pointing to the graphics card.

Q: What is the rank of this CPU+GPU combo among all tested systems in The Medium?

A: The combo is ranked 668 out of 1689 tested combos.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 127.1 FPS, Medium drops to 80.7 FPS, High falls to 56.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 45.6 FPS. This shows a clear hierarchy, with Low being the only preset that provides a very high frame rate, while Ultra struggles to stay above 45 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates are 106.4 FPS for Low, 67 FPS for Medium, 49.1 FPS for High, and 39.1 FPS for Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across all presets, with an average loss of about 15-20%. The Medium preset remains the best option for a balance of performance and quality, as it is the only one above 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the story changes dramatically. Low still manages 86.8 FPS, but Medium drops to 52.8 FPS, High to 39.6 FPS, and Ultra to 31.4 FPS. The data shows that 4K is only playable on the Low preset, and even then, it is a significant step down from the 1440p results. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is a heavy hit, with an average loss of nearly 35% across all presets.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor from the Alder Lake generation, with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its benchmark scores are impressive, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28979 and a single-core score of 4091. It ranks in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, showing that it is a high-performing processor.

However, in The Medium, the CPU’s role is secondary. The data shows that frame rates scale almost entirely with resolution and settings, which are GPU-side variables. The CPU’s max threads benchmark score of 9983 in 3DMark and its PassMark multi-thread score of 34092 indicate it has plenty of headroom. The game’s fixed-camera angles and the rendering of two worlds likely rely more on the GPU’s shader and rasterization power than on CPU physics or AI.

The CPU’s performance relative to its rivals is tight. It is 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i5-14400 and 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i9-12900HX, but 0.2% behind the Intel Core i7-13800H. This shows that the i7-12700KF is in a very competitive performance tier, but its advantages do not translate into higher frame rates here, because the game is not CPU-bound. The processor is not the limiting factor, and its power is largely untapped, as the GPU is the component that dictates the final performance numbers.