The Medium

# The Medium: Intel Core i7-14700F + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

The Medium is a fixed-camera horror title with demanding visual effects, and this pairing of Intel's Core i7-14700F with AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XTX lands in the 182nd spot out of 1,689 tested combos, placing it comfortably in the top 11% of all configurations. The data shows a system that can handle high refresh rates at 1440p but requires careful settings management at 4K, with the 24 GB VRAM buffer proving largely irrelevant at these measured resolutions but the raw compute power driving consistent frame delivery.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset to use at 1920x1080?

A: Low settings produce the highest measured average at 174.4 FPS, but Medium still delivers 106.3 FPS and High drops to 80.3 FPS. For a 60 Hz display, Ultra at 60.9 FPS is viable, though Medium offers nearly double the headroom.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming?

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 3840x2160, Low settings hit 112.1 FPS, Medium drops to 75.1 FPS, High falls to 49.3 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 42 FPS. The GPU has the memory capacity, but the rendering load at 4K Ultra exceeds comfortable playable levels.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Core i7-14700F scores 54,097 on the average benchmark, sitting 0.6% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and 1.1% behind the Ryzen 9 9900X3D. It edges out the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 by 1.2% and the AMD EPYC 7313P by 1.7%.

Q: Is the GPU's 24 GB memory useful for this game?

A: The RX 7900 XTX has 24 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus with 960.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Medium's measured results show no VRAM bottleneck even at 4K Ultra, so the capacity is future-proofing rather than a current necessity.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 2560x1440 with High settings?

A: The measured average is 66.6 FPS. This is above the 60 FPS threshold but not by a wide margin, so players targeting 144 Hz will need to step down to Medium (93.6 FPS) or Low (143.6 FPS).

Q: How does the GPU rank against other cards?

A: The RX 7900 XTX holds the 85th percentile among all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 44,019 places it 0.4% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 580 and 2% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, while running 0.8% ahead of the RTX 4090 Mobile and 1.6% ahead of the Quadro M6000.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the measured FPS scaling across resolutions. The GPU operates at a 1929 MHz base clock, boosts to 2498 MHz, and holds a 2365 MHz game clock. More critically for a horror title with heavy post-processing, the card delivers 61.39 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 959.2 GTexel/s of texture fill rate from its 384 TMUs. The 192 ROPs push 479.6 GPixel/s, which directly impacts how quickly the game can resolve its fixed-camera scenes.

The memory subsystem is equally robust: 24 GB of GDDR6 across a 384-bit bus yields 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. At 4K Ultra, the game only averages 42 FPS, which suggests the bottleneck is raw shader throughput rather than memory capacity. The GPU's 5 nm process from TSMC packs 57,700 million transistors into a 529 mm² die, and the 355 W TDP is fed through dual 8-pin connectors with a 750 W suggested PSU.

Comparing to its benchmark rivals, the RX 7900 XTX posts a PassMark G3D score of 31,238 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 192,597. Its average benchmark score of 44,019 is within 2% of the RTX 4070 Ti and within 1.6% of the Quadro M6000. The 85th percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms this is an upper-tier part, but the measured FPS in The Medium shows that even this hardware struggles with the game's Ultra preset at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F provides the processing backbone with 20 cores and 28 threads, running at a 2.10 GHz base clock and boosting to 5.40 GHz. This Raptor Lake-R architecture on Intel's 10 nm process includes a 33 MB shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support. The CPU's 65 W TDP is modest for the core count, and its locked multiplier means no overclocking headroom, but the boost clock of 5.40 GHz delivers strong single-thread performance.

Benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35,443 and a single-core score of 5,003. Geekbench reports 16,571 multi-core and 2,711 single-core. The PassMark multithread score of 41,765 and single-thread score of 4,261 place the CPU in the 94th percentile among all processors. Its average benchmark score of 54,097 trails the Ryzen 9 9900X by only 0.6% and the Ryzen 9 9900X3D by 1.1%, while leading the Xeon Phi 7290 by 1.2% and EPYC 7313P by 1.7%.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, but the 20-core configuration ensures no frame pacing issues from CPU stalls. The game's fixed-camera angles reduce draw-call pressure compared to open-world titles, yet the high boost clock keeps minimum frame times consistent. The data indicates the CPU is not a limiting factor at any tested resolution, as FPS scales predictably with GPU workload rather than showing CPU-bound plateaus.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination ranks 182nd out of 1,689 tested combos, placing it in the 89th percentile of all systems tested. That ranking reflects the GPU's strong absolute performance (85th percentile) combined with the CPU's slightly higher relative standing (94th percentile). The delta between the two components' percentiles suggests the CPU has more headroom than the GPU, meaning future GPU upgrades would be viable without immediately bottlenecking the processor.

The combo's position is noteworthy because the RX 7900 XTX is marked as end-of-life production, while the i7-14700F remains active. This pairing represents a high-water mark for current AMD flagship GPUs with Intel's upper-midrange 14th Gen processor. The 1,689-combo field includes many weaker pairings, and the 182nd rank indicates that roughly 1,500 tested configurations deliver lower average performance. However, the measured FPS data shows this rank does not guarantee smooth 4K Ultra playability in The Medium specifically.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for optimal settings at each resolution. At 1920x1080, Medium settings deliver 106.3 FPS, which is the best balance of visual quality and frame rate for 100 Hz+ displays. High settings at 80.3 FPS are still smooth for 75 Hz monitors, while Ultra at 60.9 FPS suits 60 Hz panels but leaves little margin for drops.

At 2560x1440, Medium settings hit 93.6 FPS, making this the recommended preset for high refresh rate gaming. High at 66.6 FPS is acceptable for 60 Hz but not ideal for 144 Hz displays. Low at 143.6 FPS is the only preset that fully utilizes a 144 Hz monitor, suggesting players with such displays should either sacrifice visuals or accept the Medium preset's 93.6 FPS.

For 3840x2160, the situation changes dramatically. Low settings at 112.1 FPS are the only way to exceed 100 FPS, while Medium at 75.1 FPS is the highest preset that stays above 60 FPS. High at 49.3 FPS and Ultra at 42 FPS are both below the 60 FPS threshold and are only suitable for 30-48 Hz displays or players prioritizing visuals over smoothness. The data strongly recommends Medium at 4K as the practical ceiling for this combo.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the frame rates scale from 174.4 FPS on Low to 60.9 FPS on Ultra. Medium produces 106.3 FPS, and High yields 80.3 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 68.1 FPS, while the drop from High to Ultra is 19.4 FPS, showing diminishing returns at the top end.

At 2560x1440, Low settings achieve 143.6 FPS, which drops to 93.6 FPS on Medium, 66.6 FPS on High, and 53.3 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p Medium result is 12.7 FPS lower than the 1080p Medium result, demonstrating a modest resolution penalty. The Ultra preset falls below 60 FPS, making it the first resolution where this occurs.

At 3840x2160, Low settings produce 112.1 FPS, Medium drops to 75.1 FPS, High falls to 49.3 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 42 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K shows a 22% reduction on Low (143.6 to 112.1 FPS), a 20% reduction on Medium (93.6 to 75.1 FPS), a 26% reduction on High (66.6 to 49.3 FPS), and a 21% reduction on Ultra (53.3 to 42 FPS). These consistent reductions indicate the GPU is the primary bottleneck across all settings, with no anomalous CPU limitations appearing at any resolution.