The Medium

The Medium is a horror game that relies on a fixed-camera perspective and heavy atmosphere, which means consistent frame pacing matters more than raw competitive frame rates. The data for the Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT shows a combo that lands in the 1265th position out of 1689 tested combinations. That places it in the lower-middle tier of the database, suggesting that while the CPU is a powerhouse, the GPU is the limiting factor for this specific title.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo rank for this CPU and GPU pairing in The Medium?

A: The combination ranks 1265th out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the 74th percentile of all systems tested for this game.

Q: How does the Intel Core i7-14700F compare to its nearest rival in CPU benchmarks?

A: The i7-14700F scores an average of 54097, which is 0.6% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and 1.1% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D, but it is 1.2% ahead of the Intel Xeon Phi 7290.

Q: What is the GPU's average benchmark score and percentile ranking?

A: The RX 5700 XT has an average benchmark score of 24731, placing it in the 68th percentile of all GPUs. It is nearly tied with the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile, which is just 0.1% faster.

Q: What is the best playable setting at 1920x1080 based on the measured data?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the system achieves an average of 56.8 FPS, which is the highest frame rate above the 60 FPS threshold among the tested presets at that resolution.

Q: Can this system handle 4K resolution in The Medium?

A: At 3840x2160, only the Low preset delivers a playable average of 58.3 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 36.4 FPS, High falls to 29.1 FPS, and Ultra is unplayable at 20.4 FPS.

Q: How much VRAM does the GPU have, and what is its memory bandwidth?

A: The RX 5700 XT features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1265 out of 1689 systems places this pairing in the bottom quarter of the database for The Medium. This is not a reflection of the CPU, which is a top-tier part, but rather the GPU's age and architecture limitations. The data indicates that the i7-14700F performs at the 94th percentile against all CPUs, while the RX 5700 XT sits at the 68th percentile against all GPUs. The delta between these two components is stark, and the game's performance ceiling is clearly dictated by the graphics card.

When looking at the GPU's nearest rivals, the RX 5700 XT is statistically tied with the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile (0.1% slower), Intel Arc A350M (0.3% faster), and NVIDIA RTX 5060 Mobile (0.6% faster). This suggests the GPU is not a complete outlier, but rather a mid-range part from its era. The CPU, however, is in a different league, with its nearest rival being the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, which is only 0.6% faster. This means the processor is not holding the system back in any meaningful way.

The practical takeaway from the rank is that this system is suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming at lower presets in The Medium. The data shows a steep drop-off in performance when moving from Low to Medium settings, and the Ultra preset is consistently below 31 FPS at all resolutions. The system's overall position in the database reflects a pairing that is heavily bottlenecked by the GPU, and any upgrade path would focus on the graphics card first.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is built on the RDNA 1.0 architecture with the Navi 10 chip, manufactured on a 7 nm process by TSMC. It operates with a base clock of 1605 MHz, a game clock of 1755 MHz, and a boost clock of 1905 MHz. The memory runs at an effective speed of 14 Gbps across a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. The card has 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, which is sufficient for this game's fixed-camera scenes, but the architecture lacks dedicated ray tracing cores, which is not a major factor in The Medium's benchmark results.

The GPU's compute capabilities are modest by modern standards, with an FP32 throughput of 9.754 TFLOPS and a pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s. The data shows that the card's PassMark G3D score is 16277, which is its strongest synthetic result, but its DirectX 12 score is just 64, indicating poor performance in modern API workloads. This is reflected in the measured FPS, where the card struggles to maintain high frame rates even at 1080p. The GPU's 68th percentile ranking suggests it is outclassed by most contemporary cards, and its end-of-life production status confirms its age.

The VRAM capacity is not the primary constraint in The Medium; instead, the raw shader throughput and memory bandwidth limit the card. The benchmark results show that the card scales poorly with resolution, dropping from an average of 93 FPS at 1080p Low to 58.3 FPS at 4K Low. This indicates that the GPU is bandwidth-limited, as the 448.0 GB/s is insufficient for high-resolution textures and effects. The card's TDP of 225 W and dual-slot cooler are reasonable for its performance class, but the data clearly shows that it is the bottleneck in this pairing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how this system performs across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 93 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this system. Moving to Medium drops the average to 56.8 FPS, a reduction of roughly 39%. High settings yield 41.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 31 FPS. This pattern shows that the GPU's performance degrades sharply as graphical fidelity increases, with the jump from Low to Medium being particularly punishing.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves 78.1 FPS, which remains playable, but Medium drops to 45.3 FPS, and High falls to 35 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p yields just 24.5 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The trend continues at 3840x2160, where Low produces 58.3 FPS, Medium drops to 36.4 FPS, High is 29.1 FPS, and Ultra is 20.4 FPS. The data shows that the system can handle 4K only at the lowest settings, and even then, it is barely above the 60 FPS target.

The frame rate scaling is consistent across resolutions, with the Ultra preset always being roughly one-third of the Low preset's performance. For example, at 1080p, Ultra is 31 FPS versus 93 FPS at Low, a ratio of 0.33. At 1440p, the ratio is 24.5 to 78.1, also around 0.31, and at 4K, it is 20.4 to 58.3, a ratio of 0.35. This suggests that the GPU is equally bottlenecked at all resolutions, likely due to a combination of shader and memory limitations.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal settings for this system depend on the target resolution. For 1920x1080, the Low preset is the only option that consistently exceeds 60 FPS, with an average of 93 FPS. However, the Medium preset at 56.8 FPS is close enough that most players would find it acceptable, especially since The Medium is a slower-paced horror game. The High preset at 41.2 FPS is playable but not ideal, and Ultra at 31 FPS should be avoided.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset is the only viable option for smooth gameplay, delivering 78.1 FPS. The Medium preset at 45.3 FPS is borderline, and the frame rate dips below 30 FPS on Ultra. For 3840x2160, the Low preset at 58.3 FPS is the only playable setting, and even that is marginal for a 60 Hz display. The data suggests that this system is best used at 1080p with Medium settings, balancing visual quality with a playable frame rate.

The measured rows indicate that there is no setting that provides a "best of both worlds" experience. The jump from Low to Medium incurs a significant performance penalty, but the visual improvement is likely minimal given the game's dark, atmospheric environments. For a smoother experience, the Low preset at 1080p is the safest choice, but for players who prioritize visual fidelity, Medium at 1080p is the highest setting that remains within a reasonable frame rate range.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. It features 33 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory. The CPU's benchmark scores are exceptional, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35443 and a single-core score of 5003. This places the processor in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54097.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, as the game is not particularly thread-hungry. However, the i7-14700F's high single-core performance ensures that the game's logic and AI routines are never a bottleneck. The data shows that the CPU's nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, is only 0.6% faster on average, confirming that the processor is not limiting the system's performance. The CPU's 65 W TDP is modest for its core count, and it supports PCIe Gen 5, which is more than enough bandwidth for the GPU.

The benchmark results indicate that the i7-14700F is overkill for this GPU pairing. The CPU's PassMark multi-thread score of 41765 and single-thread score of 4261 are both strong, but the RX 5700 XT cannot fully utilize this processing power in The Medium. The measured FPS is entirely GPU-bound, as evidenced by the significant frame rate drops when increasing graphical settings. For this game, the CPU's 20 cores provide no tangible benefit over a more modest processor, but it does ensure headroom for other tasks or future GPU upgrades.