The Medium

# The Medium with Intel Core i7-12700KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

This combination of an Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers a strong experience in The Medium, a horror title that places heavy demands on both processor and graphics hardware. The measured frame rates across resolutions and settings reveal a system that is capable of smooth gameplay at 1080p and 1440p, while 4K performance varies significantly depending on quality presets. The data shows that this pairing ranks 31st out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the top 2% of all configurations tested for this game.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial, but the pattern is not uniform across all settings. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 169.6 at 1920x1080 down to 138.8 at 3840x2160, a relatively modest decline of roughly 18%. This suggests that at lower quality presets, the CPU is the primary limiting factor, as the GPU has enough headroom to maintain high frame rates even at 4K. The RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are more than sufficient for this horror title at low detail.

Moving to Medium settings, the scaling becomes more pronounced: 130.5 FPS at 1080p drops to 110.5 at 1440p and then to 88.4 at 4K. The step from 1440p to 4K represents a 20% reduction, indicating that GPU load is increasing but the card still has plenty of compute resources available. At High settings, the trend continues with 97.5 FPS at 1080p, 77.8 at 1440p, and 62 at 4K. The 4K result here is notably lower, showing that the higher quality presets begin to tax the graphics card more heavily.

Ultra settings present the steepest curve: 78 FPS at 1080p, 63.9 at 1440p, and just 52.3 at 4K. This 33% drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra indicates that at this preset, the RTX 4090 is becoming the limiting component. Interestingly, the gap between 1440p and 4K at Ultra (63.9 to 52.3, an 18% reduction) is smaller than the gap between 1080p and 1440p (78 to 63.9, an 18% reduction as well), suggesting that the scaling is relatively consistent once the GPU starts to hit its performance ceiling.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play The Medium with this combo?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the system achieves 110.5 FPS, which offers a good balance between visual quality and smoothness. For higher fidelity, High settings at 1440p still delivers 77.8 FPS, which is playable for most users.

Q: Can this setup handle 4K gaming in The Medium?

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K Low, it hits 138.8 FPS, and at 4K Medium, it maintains 88.4 FPS. However, at 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 52.3 FPS, which may feel less smooth for action-heavy scenes in this horror title.

Q: How does the RTX 4090 compare to its nearest rivals in this game?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score is 66473, placing it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA Tesla T4, scores 66733, a delta of -0.4%, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 is 0.9% ahead. This indicates the RTX 4090 is essentially on par with these professional-grade cards in synthetic benchmarks.

Q: Is the Core i7-12700KF a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests yes at lower settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 169.6 FPS, but at 1080p Ultra it drops to 78 FPS. The CPU's 12 cores and 20 threads, with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, are strong, but the frame rate ceiling at low settings appears to be around 170 FPS.

Q: What is the difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: The difference is 32.7 FPS: Medium runs at 110.5 FPS while High runs at 77.8 FPS. This is a significant drop, suggesting High settings introduce more complex rendering effects that impact the GPU's workload.

Q: How does this combo rank overall for The Medium?

A: It ranks 31st out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the top 2% of all configurations. This is an excellent result, though not the absolute top performer.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the measured performance. With 16384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs, the card has massive parallel processing power. The 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores are particularly relevant for a horror title like The Medium, which uses advanced lighting and shadow effects to create atmosphere. The GPU's boost clock of 2520 MHz, combined with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth — more than enough for the game's texture streaming demands.

The benchmark results confirm the card's strength: it scores 38194 in Passmark G3D and 9223 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, with a Passmark GPU compute score of 26613. These numbers place it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 66473 is nearly identical to the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (66733, -0.4% delta) and slightly ahead of the Tesla P40 (66127, +0.5% delta). The RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is clearly being leveraged in this game, though the frame rate scaling at higher resolutions suggests that even this powerhouse has limits when pushing 4K Ultra.

The GPU's memory configuration is notable: 24 GB of VRAM is far more than The Medium requires at any setting, so memory capacity is not a limiting factor here. Instead, the bottleneck at 4K Ultra appears to be raw compute throughput, as the card's pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s determine how quickly it can fill the screen with complex effects.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a rank of 31 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This top 2% placement indicates that the pairing is exceptionally well-suited to this game. The CPU's average benchmark score of 35355 places it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU's 66473 average score puts it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs — both components are elite performers individually.

The combo's rank is slightly lower than what each component's individual percentile might suggest, which implies that The Medium may have specific optimization quirks. The CPU's nearest rivals — the Intel Core i5-14400 (35336, +0.1% delta), Intel Core i7-13800H (35416, -0.2% delta), and Intel Core i9-12900HX (35289, +0.2% delta) — are all within a fraction of a percent of the i7-12700KF's score, meaning any of these processors would yield nearly identical results. The GPU's rivals show similar tight clustering, with the Tesla T4 just 0.4% behind and the Quadro P6000 1.3% behind.

The gap between this combo's rank (31st) and the very top performers is likely due to the game's engine characteristics rather than component weakness. The data shows that frame rates at 1080p Low (169.6 FPS) are not dramatically higher than at 4K Low (138.8 FPS), suggesting that the game has a frame rate ceiling imposed by CPU-bound logic or engine limitations that prevent the RTX 4090 from fully stretching its legs at lower resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF brings 12 cores and 20 threads to this pairing, running at a base clock of 3.60 GHz and boosting to 5.00 GHz. This Alder Lake-S architecture chip has a 25 MB shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 cache per core, which helps with the game's streaming and physics calculations. The CPU's benchmark scores are strong: it achieves 28979 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 4091 in single-core, with a Geekbench multicore score of 13596.

The CPU's role in The Medium becomes evident when examining frame rates across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system hits 169.6 FPS, but at 4K Low, it still manages 138.8 FPS — a difference of only 18%. This relatively small gap indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is the limiting factor, since the GPU has enough headroom to render at 4K without significant frame rate loss. The CPU's 3dmark scores support this: it achieves 9282 in 16-thread tests and 9983 at max threads, showing robust multi-threaded performance.

However, at Ultra settings, the CPU's influence diminishes. The 1080p Ultra frame rate of 78 FPS is only 49% higher than the 4K Ultra result of 52.3 FPS, whereas at Low settings the 1080p result is 22% higher than 4K. This shift indicates that as graphical complexity increases, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the CPU's 12 cores are sufficient to keep up with the game's demands without holding back the RTX 4090. The CPU's Passmark multithread score of 34092 and single-thread score of 3984 confirm it has the single-thread performance needed for game logic, while its 20 threads handle background tasks efficiently.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 169.6 FPS average, Medium settings 130.5 FPS, High settings 97.5 FPS, and Ultra settings 78 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium represents a 23% reduction, while Medium to High is a 25% reduction, and High to Ultra is a 20% reduction. These results show that even at 1080p, the RTX 4090 is not fully saturated until reaching Ultra settings, where the GPU's compute resources are finally taxed.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but show more GPU influence. Low settings average 158 FPS, Medium 110.5 FPS, High 77.8 FPS, and Ultra 63.9 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 30%, larger than at 1080p, indicating that the increased pixel count is starting to impact the GPU. The High to Ultra gap is 18%, which is smaller than at 1080p, suggesting that at 1440p the GPU is already working harder and the relative cost of Ultra settings decreases slightly.

At 3840x2160, the data reveals the most significant GPU load. Low settings yield 138.8 FPS, Medium 88.4 FPS, High 62 FPS, and Ultra 52.3 FPS. The Low to Medium drop is 36%, the largest of any resolution, showing that at 4K, even Medium settings substantially increase the GPU's workload. High to Ultra is a 16% reduction, the smallest relative gap, indicating that at 4K, the difference between High and Ultra is less pronounced in terms of frame rate impact. The overall pattern shows that this combo is best suited for 1440p High or 4K Medium gameplay, where the frame rates remain above 77 FPS and visual quality is high.