The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title from 2021, presents a unique stress profile that heavily favors GPU throughput. When paired with the Intel Core i7-14700F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, the benchmark data reveals a system that scales predictably with resolution, but with significant shifts in performance headroom depending on the graphics preset. The combination of a 20-core, 28-thread Raptor Lake CPU and a 20 GB RDNA 3.0 GPU produces a curve that is entirely playable at lower settings, yet quickly becomes demanding at the highest visual fidelity.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern across the three tested resolutions. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves an average of 161.1 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops this to 138.7 FPS, a reduction of 22.4 frames, while 3840x2160 yields 108.2 FPS, a further 30.5-frame decline. This progression indicates that even at the lowest preset, the Radeon RX 7900 XT remains the limiting component, as the frame rate falls steadily with each increase in pixel count.

However, the scaling behavior changes dramatically when the preset is raised to Ultra. At 1920x1080, the average FPS is 56.3. At 2560x1440, it falls to 49.4, and at 3840x2160, it drops to 39.0. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is roughly 31%, whereas at Low settings, the same resolution jump results in a 33% reduction. The similarity in these relative drops suggests that the game’s rendering load scales almost linearly with resolution, regardless of the preset’s complexity.

The data indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck at any resolution tested. The Intel Core i7-14700F, with its 5.40 GHz boost clock and 33 MB of shared L3 cache, provides sufficient headroom to feed the GPU even at 1080p Low, where the frame rate exceeds 160 FPS. The limiting component is clearly the GPU’s pixel throughput, as evidenced by the smooth, predictable decline in FPS as resolution increases. At 4K Ultra, the 39.0 FPS average suggests the Radeon RX 7900 XT is operating near its maximum capacity for this title, with the CPU comfortably waiting on the graphics pipeline.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this combination?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system reaches an average of 161.1 FPS, which is the peak performance recorded across all tested configurations.

Q: How does the GPU’s 20 GB of VRAM affect performance at 4K?

A: The 20 GB GDDR6 memory with an 800.0 GB/s bandwidth ensures that capacity is not a limiting factor. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 108.2 at Low to 39.0 at Ultra, indicating that memory bandwidth is sufficient to support the GPU’s compute load without stuttering or texture thrashing.

Q: Is the Intel Core i7-14700F a bottleneck in this game?

A: Benchmark results indicate no. The CPU’s multi-threaded Passmark score of 41765 places it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, and its single-thread score of 4261 supports high frame rates. The measured FPS decline is strictly proportional to resolution increases, a hallmark of GPU-bound performance.

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

A: At 2560x1440, High settings produce an average of 60.8 FPS, while Ultra drops to 49.4 FPS. This 11.4 FPS gap shows that the Ultra preset imposes a significant additional shading load on the Radeon RX 7900 XT.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: The combination ranks 297th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 17.6% of all configurations benchmarked for this game.

Q: Does the card’s boost clock of 2394 MHz hold up under sustained load?

A: The data does not track clock throttling over time, but the consistent FPS averages across multiple resolutions suggest that the GPU maintains its performance envelope. The 300 W TDP and dual-slot cooling design are adequate for the 51.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute the card is rated for.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this configuration for The Medium. Its RDNA 3.0 architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, delivers 51.48 TFLOPS of FP32 performance through 5376 shading units. The card’s 84 RT cores are present, though the game’s fixed-camera angles often reduce the complexity of ray-traced effects compared to first-person titles. The 192 ROPs handle pixel output at a theoretical 459.6 GPixel/s, which aligns with the observed frame rates at 4K.

Memory configuration plays a critical role in this title’s performance. The 20 GB frame buffer is paired with a 320-bit bus, yielding 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the game’s high-resolution textures and volumetric effects place substantial demands on memory throughput. The average FPS of 39.0 suggests that the GPU is approaching the limits of its memory subsystem, though no min FPS data is provided to confirm any hitches. The 2500 MHz memory clock, effective at 20 Gbps, is sufficient to keep the shading units fed at lower preset levels, as evidenced by the 108.2 FPS at 4K Low.

The GPU’s percentile ranking of 82 against all GPUs indicates it sits above the median but is not a top-tier performer in synthetic benchmarks. Its Passmark G3D score of 29009 and DirectX 12 score of 110 reflect strong compute capabilities. For The Medium specifically, the card’s performance is consistent with its spec sheet: the 2025 MHz game clock provides a stable baseline, while the 2394 MHz boost clock offers headroom for momentary spikes in load. The card’s 276 mm length and 2x 8-pin power connectors are standard for this performance class, and the 700 W suggested PSU leaves ample margin for the CPU’s 65 W TDP.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers a wide spread of results. Low settings produce an average of 161.1 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. Medium settings reduce this to 100.6 FPS, still above the 60 FPS threshold. High settings yield 73.2 FPS, while Ultra drops to 56.3 FPS. The transition from Medium to High costs 27.4 FPS, suggesting that High enables more demanding shadow and texture filtering effects. From High to Ultra, the loss is 16.9 FPS, indicating that Ultra adds expensive post-processing or draw distance enhancements.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages scale down proportionally. Low settings maintain 138.7 FPS, which is smooth for most displays. Medium produces 82.9 FPS, High offers 60.8 FPS, and Ultra drops to 49.4 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra at this resolution is 11.4 FPS, narrower than at 1080p but still significant. The 1440p results show that High settings are the practical ceiling for 60 FPS gaming, as Ultra falls below that target.

At 3840x2160, the GPU’s limits become apparent. Low settings still manage 108.2 FPS, which is respectable for 4K. Medium drops to 65.5 FPS, just above the 60 FPS threshold. High settings produce 48.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 39.0 FPS. The 4K data reveals that the Radeon RX 7900 XT can handle 4K gaming comfortably at Medium settings, but High and Ultra presets require a tolerance for sub-60 FPS frame rates. The step from Medium to High at 4K costs 17.3 FPS, the largest single-preset drop in the entire dataset, indicating that High enables a heavy compute feature that scales poorly with pixel count.

How This Combo Ranks

The pair of Intel Core i7-14700F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT achieves a rank of 297 out of 1689 tested combinations in The Medium. This places the system in the 82.4th percentile of all combos, meaning it outperforms roughly 4 out of 5 other configurations in this specific game. The ranking is driven primarily by the GPU’s strong 4K performance at lower presets and the CPU’s ability to sustain high frame rates at 1080p.

Relative to the CPU’s nearest rivals, the i7-14700F posts an average benchmark score of 54097, which is 0.6% below the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and 1.1% below the Ryzen 9 9900X3D. It edges out the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 by 1.2% and the AMD EPYC 7313P by 1.7%. These deltas are minimal, suggesting that CPU choice has little impact on this game’s frame rates, as the GPU bears the primary workload. The GPU’s nearest rivals show even tighter clustering: the Radeon RX 7900 XT’s average score of 38358 is virtually identical to the RTX 5080 Mobile (0% delta) and the NVIDIA CMP 70HX (0.3% delta), while the MX570 trails by 0.4% and the RTX 4080 Mobile by 0.6%.

The combo’s rank of 297 is notably higher than the individual component percentiles might suggest. The CPU’s 94th percentile and GPU’s 82nd percentile combine to produce a system that is well-balanced for this title, where the GPU’s memory bandwidth and compute units are fully utilized. The data shows that this configuration is best suited for players who prioritize high refresh rates at 1080p or are willing to accept Medium settings at 4K to maintain smooth gameplay. The 20 GB VRAM provides future-proofing for higher-resolution textures, but the current measured results indicate that the GPU’s raw compute, not memory capacity, is the limiting factor at Ultra settings.