The Medium

The Medium places the Intel Core i7-14700F and AMD Radeon RX 570 combination in a precarious position. The benchmark data shows a system that is heavily constrained by its graphics card, with the CPU’s substantial processing power left largely untapped at every resolution and settings level tested. This pairing ranks 1602nd out of 1689 tested combos for this title, placing it in the bottom 5% of all configurations, a result that speaks more to the GPU's age than the CPU's capability. The following analysis breaks down the measured performance to understand where the bottleneck lies and what the data implies for playability.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average frame rate this combo can achieve in The Medium?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 46.9, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the only tested configuration that approaches playable territory, though it still falls short of a smooth 60 FPS target.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in The Medium?

A: The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700F and AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 1602nd out of 1689 tested combos for this specific game. This places it in the bottom percentile of all systems tested, indicating very poor overall performance for this title.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data strongly indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck. For example, at 1080p, dropping settings from Ultra to Low improves the average FPS from 14.1 to 46.9, a massive 32.8 FPS swing. This sensitivity to graphical settings is a hallmark of a GPU-limited scenario, as the CPU's workload doesn't change nearly as much.

Q: What is the performance difference between the CPU and its nearest rival?

A: The Intel Core i7-14700F's average benchmark score is 54,097, which is 0.6% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X's score of 54,450. It also trails the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D by 1.1% but leads the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 by 1.2% and the AMD EPYC 7313P by 1.7%.

Q: Does the GPU's average benchmark score align with its in-game performance ranking?

A: No, there is a significant discrepancy. The AMD Radeon RX 570 has a percentile rank of 74 among all GPUs, indicating it is better than most. However, in The Medium, the combo's rank of 1602 out of 1689 shows it is among the worst performers, suggesting that this specific game is exceptionally demanding on the GPU.

Q: What is the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 21.4 at 1920x1080 to 13.8 at 3840x2160. This represents a 35.5% decrease in performance, illustrating the immense pressure that 4K resolution puts on the RX 570's 4 GB memory buffer and processing capabilities.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the clear anchor on performance in The Medium. Its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus is a fundamental limitation for a game of this visual fidelity. The data shows that even at 1920x1080 with Low settings, the card can only muster an average of 46.9 FPS. The GPU’s base clock is 1168 MHz with a boost of 1244 MHz, and while these clocks are modest, the real issue is the sheer amount of data the card must process. The 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 159.2 GTexel/s texture rate are simply insufficient for the game's demands.

The bottleneck is most apparent when observing how the frame rate collapses as settings are raised. At 1080p, moving from Low to Medium drops the average FPS from 46.9 to 27.6, a 41% reduction. Pushing to High further reduces it to 21.4 FPS, and Ultra brings it down to a slideshow-like 14.1 FPS. This pattern is consistent across all resolutions, showing a direct and severe correlation between graphical load and performance. The 224.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth is also likely saturated, especially at higher resolutions and texture qualities, causing the frame time to spike. The GPU is not just underpowered for this game; it is fundamentally outclassed.

Resolution Scaling

The impact of resolution scaling on this combo is significant and diagnostic. The data reveals a clear trend: as resolution increases, the frame rate plummets, confirming that the GPU is the limiting component. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 46.9 at 1920x1080, down to 36.5 at 2560x1440, and finally to 31.5 at 3840x2160. This is a 32.8% drop from 1080p to 4K. While this is a steep decline, it is less severe than the drop seen at higher settings.

For instance, at High settings, the drop from 1080p to 4K is from 21.4 FPS to 13.8 FPS, a 35.5% decrease. This indicates that the 4K resolution is not just increasing pixel count but also placing a much larger strain on the memory subsystem. The 4 GB VRAM is likely being exceeded, causing the card to rely on slower system memory, which further cripples performance. The scaling behavior suggests that even reducing the internal resolution would not save this combo; the GPU's raw compute power is insufficient for the game's rendering requirements at any resolution above a very low bar.

How This Combo Ranks

The performance ranking for this specific combination in The Medium is stark. With a rank of 1602 out of 1689 tested combos, this system is positioned in the bottom 5.1% of all configurations tested. This is a very poor result and places it far behind the majority of systems. This ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU's inability to handle the game's workload.

This low rank is particularly interesting when considering the CPU's own standing. The Intel Core i7-14700F has a percentile rank of 94 among all CPUs, meaning it is faster than 94% of all processors. Yet, when paired with the RX 570, the system as a whole performs terribly in this game. This contrast highlights a massive imbalance. The CPU is not the issue; the GPU is. The data suggests that this combo is severely unbalanced for The Medium, and its overall rank is dragged down entirely by the graphics card. It is a clear example of a CPU being held back by a GPU that is too weak for the task.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a powerhouse that is almost entirely idle in this scenario. With 20 cores and 28 threads, its multi-threaded capabilities are immense, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35,443. Its single-core performance is also strong, with a Geekbench single-core score of 2,711 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5,003. This processing power is more than enough to feed the RX 570, and the benchmark results show that the CPU is not a bottleneck.

The evidence for this is in the game's performance scaling. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see similar frame rates across different resolutions, as the CPU's workload is resolution-independent. Instead, we see a massive change in FPS between 1080p and 4K, which points directly to the GPU. The CPU's high boost clock of 5.40 GHz and 33 MB of L3 cache ensure that it can handle the game's logic and physics without breaking a sweat. The data implies that this processor would perform much better in The Medium with a significantly more powerful graphics card, as its 94th percentile ranking suggests it has the headroom to support far higher frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following data represents the average FPS measured for this configuration in The Medium.

3840x2160 (4K)

• Ultra: 11.7 FPS
• High: 13.8 FPS
• Medium: 20.7 FPS
• Low: 31.5 FPS

2560x1440 (1440p)

• Ultra: 12.3 FPS
• High: 14.8 FPS
• Medium: 24.3 FPS
• Low: 36.5 FPS

1920x1080 (1080p)

• Ultra: 14.1 FPS
• High: 21.4 FPS
• Medium: 27.6 FPS
• Low: 46.9 FPS

These numbers paint a consistent picture. At 4K, the game is unplayable at all settings, with the best case being 31.5 FPS on Low. At 1440p, the situation is marginally better, but still far from smooth, with Low settings hitting 36.5 FPS. Only at 1080p does the combination approach a playable state, and only with the Low preset, which achieves an average of 46.9 FPS. Every other configuration fails to reach 30 FPS, and the Ultra preset at all resolutions is a cinematic slideshow.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured data, the only viable way to play The Medium with this hardware is to use the Low preset at 1920x1080 resolution. This is the sole configuration that delivers an average FPS above 45, which, while not ideal, is the only option that approaches a playable experience. Even then, players should expect noticeable stuttering and frame drops in more demanding scenes.

The data suggests that using any setting above Low is not recommended. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p results in a 19.3 FPS drop, which is a 41% performance penalty for a visual upgrade that is unlikely to be worth it at these frame rates. At 1440p, the Low preset's 36.5 FPS is still below the threshold for smooth gameplay, and at 4K, even Low is a sub-30 FPS experience. Therefore, for users who must play this title with this GPU, the optimal configuration is to accept the lowest graphical fidelity to achieve the highest possible frame rate. The data shows no other path to a reasonably fluid experience.