The Medium

The Medium is a horror title that leans heavily on atmosphere and fixed-camera storytelling, but its performance demands are surprisingly steep. With the Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, the data reveals a combination that is powerful enough for high-refresh 1440p gaming but begins to show its limitations when pushed to 4K with maximum settings. This pairing ranks in the 90th percentile of all tested combos for this game, coming in at rank 162 out of 1689, which places it firmly in the upper echelon of systems capable of running the title smoothly.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 165.8 FPS at 1920x1080 to 149.5 FPS at 2560x1440, a modest decline that suggests the CPU is still keeping pace. However, when jumping to 3840x2160, the frame rate plummets to 118.9 FPS, a significant 30% reduction from the 1440p result. This pattern intensifies at higher settings; at Ultra, the average drops from 60.3 FPS at 1080p to 54.1 FPS at 1440p, and then further to 39.3 FPS at 4K. The scaling indicates that at 1080p and 1440p, the RTX 4070 Ti is the primary driver, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU’s compute and memory bandwidth are stretched to their limits. The gap between 1080p and 1440p is relatively small across all settings, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario, but the 4K results show a much steeper cliff, particularly at Ultra where the frame rate nearly halves compared to 1080p. This suggests that for a smooth 4K experience, users will need to compromise heavily on graphical fidelity, as the GPU simply cannot sustain high frame rates at that resolution with this title’s demanding rendering techniques.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 9282 in 3DMark’s 16-thread test and 9983 in the max-thread test, indicating strong multi-threaded capabilities. Its single-thread performance is also solid, with a 3DMark single-thread score of 1043 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4091. For The Medium, which is not typically a CPU-heavy title, this processor provides ample headroom. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 165.8 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most monitors, indicating that the CPU is not a limiting factor at lower resolutions. Even when comparing to its nearest rivals, the i7-12700KF holds its own; it is within 0.3% of the Intel Core i5-13600T and slightly ahead of the Intel Core i9-12900HX by 0.2%. This processor’s 25 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR4/DDR5 memory further ensure that it won’t starve the GPU of data. The 125W TDP is a consideration for system builders, but the architecture’s efficiency is evident. In practice, the CPU’s role here is to provide consistent frame pacing, and the measured results confirm that it does so without introducing stutter, even when the GPU is fully saturated at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is the star of this show, and its specifications paint a picture of a high-end graphics card designed for 1440p gaming. It features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. With a boost clock of 2610 MHz and 7680 shading units, the card is capable of substantial raw compute, as evidenced by its 40.09 TFLOPS FP32 throughput. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 31624 in Passmark’s G3D test and 205028 in Geekbench OpenCL, placing it in the 85th percentile of all GPUs. The VRAM capacity is sufficient for The Medium’s high-resolution textures, but the 192-bit memory bus may be a limiting factor at 4K. The measured FPS data confirms this; at 4K Ultra, the average frame rate drops to 39.3 FPS, which is barely playable. The card’s nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, scores only 0.6% higher on average, which highlights how close this desktop card is to a top-tier mobile solution in raw benchmarks. The RTX 4070 Ti’s 60 RT cores and 240 Tensor cores are present but not heavily utilized in this title, as The Medium relies more on traditional rasterization and fixed-camera angles. The 285W TDP is a substantial power draw, but it is the price for the performance on offer. For this game, the GPU is unequivocally the bottleneck at 4K, while at 1440p and below, it delivers the headroom needed for a smooth experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS across resolutions and settings provides a detailed look at this combo’s capabilities. Starting at 1920x1080, the system achieves 165.8 FPS on Low, 108.1 FPS on Medium, 81 FPS on High, and 60.3 FPS on Ultra. These numbers indicate that even at the highest settings, the game is playable on a 60Hz display, and at lower settings, it can drive a high-refresh monitor. Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops but remains respectable: 149.5 FPS on Low, 95.1 FPS on Medium, 65.3 FPS on High, and 54.1 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p Ultra result is just below the 60 FPS threshold, suggesting that a small reduction in settings is needed for a locked 60 FPS experience. At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more challenging. The system manages 118.9 FPS on Low, which is surprisingly high for 4K, but this is likely due to the game’s rendering style being less demanding on geometry. Medium settings yield 73.7 FPS, which is playable, but High drops to 54.7 FPS, and Ultra falls to 39.3 FPS. This breakdown shows a clear pattern: the RTX 4070 Ti is capable of 4K gaming, but only at lower preset levels. The jump from Medium to High at 4K is a 25% performance penalty, and from High to Ultra, another 28% penalty, making Ultra settings impractical for anything but slower-paced exploration segments.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested configurations, this pairing of the Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti ranks 162nd out of 1689 combos for The Medium. This places it in the top 10% of all systems tested, a strong showing that reflects the balance between a capable mid-high-range CPU and a high-end GPU. The CPU’s percentile of 89 vs all CPUs and the GPU’s percentile of 85 vs all GPUs are closely matched, indicating that neither component is drastically over- or under-powered relative to the other. This balance is crucial; the data does not show a scenario where the CPU is holding back the GPU, nor is the GPU underutilized. The combo’s rank is higher than the individual component percentiles might suggest, which implies that the synergy between the two is particularly effective for this game’s workload. When compared to its nearest rivals, the i7-12700KF is virtually tied with the i5-14400 (0.1% difference), but the RTX 4070 Ti’s lead over other GPUs in its class gives this combo a competitive edge. For users looking at this rank, it signals that this system will handle The Medium without compromise at 1440p and with some adjustments at 4K, placing it ahead of the vast majority of gaming PCs.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and refresh rate. For 1920x1080, the Ultra preset at 60.3 FPS is perfectly playable on a standard 60Hz monitor, but for those with 144Hz displays, the High preset at 81 FPS or Medium at 108.1 FPS offers a smoother experience without sacrificing too much visual fidelity. At 2560x1440, the High preset at 65.3 FPS is the sweet spot for a 60Hz display, providing a good balance of image quality and performance. For users with 144Hz 1440p monitors, the Medium preset at 95.1 FPS is recommended, as it stays well above the 60 FPS threshold and retains most of the visual atmosphere. The Ultra preset at 1440p, which runs at 54.1 FPS, is only advisable for slower-paced sections where frame rate dips are less noticeable. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset at 73.7 FPS offers the best experience, as it maintains a frame rate above 70 FPS while still looking significantly better than Low. The High preset at 54.7 FPS is borderline, and while playable, it may suffer from occasional drops in demanding scenes. The Low preset at 4K, at 118.9 FPS, is surprisingly smooth but will noticeably degrade the game’s atmospheric lighting and texture detail. In summary, the data strongly supports using Medium or High settings at 1440p as the optimal configuration for this combo, with 4K reserved for Medium settings to ensure a stable and enjoyable experience in this horror title.