The Medium

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the Intel Arc B570 delivers a playable but heavily compromised experience in The Medium, with performance that scales dramatically based on resolution and quality presets. The data shows a system that is fundamentally GPU-bound at higher settings, while the powerful 20-core processor ensures that even the lowest framerates remain stable without CPU-induced bottlenecks.

Resolution Scaling

The framerate drop from 1080p to 4K is severe and reveals the Arc B570 as the primary limiting component. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 110 FPS, but this falls to 74 FPS at 1440p and further to 42 FPS at 4K — a 62% reduction from the lowest to highest resolution at the same preset. This steep decline indicates that the GPU's 160-bit memory bus and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth are quickly saturated as pixel count rises, with the 10 GB GDDR6 frame buffer becoming a constraint at 4K.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings. At Medium quality, the average framerate drops from 98 FPS at 1080p to 66 FPS at 1440p (a 33% loss) and then to 38 FPS at 4K (another 42% loss). Ultra settings show the most dramatic collapse: 45 FPS at 1080p, 31 FPS at 1440p, and a nearly unplayable 17 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is particularly telling — it represents a 62% drop from the 1080p Ultra figure, suggesting that the combination of high-resolution textures and demanding effects overwhelms the GPU's 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 compute.

The delta between Low and Ultra at each resolution widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the gap is 65 FPS (110 vs 45). At 1440p, it narrows to 43 FPS (74 vs 31). At 4K, the gap shrinks to 25 FPS (42 vs 17). This compression of the settings range at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU is hitting its absolute ceiling regardless of quality preset, with pixel throughput becoming the dominant factor rather than shader complexity.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570, built on the Xe2-HPG architecture with 2,304 shading units and 80 ROPs, shows clear signs of being the performance bottleneck in this pairing. Its base and boost clocks are both locked at 2500 MHz, and the memory runs at 2375 MHz with 19 Gbps effective speed, delivering 380.0 GB/s across a 160-bit bus. These specifications produce a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s, which are respectable for a mid-range card but insufficient for The Medium's fixed-camera horror environments at high resolutions.

The GPU's 65th percentile ranking among all tested GPUs places it in the middle of the pack, but its performance in this specific title is weaker than its average benchmark score suggests. The 4K Medium result of 38 FPS with a minimum of 32 FPS shows that even moderate settings push the card to its limits, while the 4K Ultra result of 17 FPS indicates that the 18 RT cores and 144 TMUs are not enough to handle the game's most demanding mode. The 10 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K the memory bandwidth becomes a limiting factor — the 380.0 GB/s figure is modest, and the game's texture streaming at Ultra settings likely exceeds what the bus can feed.

The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 14,195 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2,649 align with its observed gaming performance. The card's FP32 throughput of 11.52 TFLOPS is the theoretical peak, but real-world results show that the memory subsystem and ROP count constrain the actual output. The Arc B570's performance in The Medium at 4K Ultra is 62% below its 1080p Low result, a drop that cannot be attributed to the CPU since the i7-14700K's 28 threads provide ample headroom.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Core i7-14700K and Arc B570 ranks 2,040 out of 3,724 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 45th percentile of all configurations. This mid-pack ranking reflects the mismatch between a top-tier CPU and a mid-range GPU — the processor is capable of far higher framerates, but the graphics card holds the system back.

The CPU itself ranks in the 94th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 69,355 that places it nearly identical to the AMD EPYC 9115 (69,288, a 0.1% delta) and just 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515). This indicates that the i7-14700K is not the limiting factor in this combo's 2,040th place finish. The GPU, by contrast, ranks in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 20,556 that puts it 0.1% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20,534) and 0.1% ahead of the Intel Arc A750 (20,582).

The combo ranking of 2,040 suggests that many systems with weaker CPUs but stronger GPUs outperform this configuration in The Medium. The game's fixed-camera design and horror atmosphere are more demanding on the GPU than the CPU, so the i7-14700K's computational advantage is largely wasted. The data indicates that a balanced system with a mid-range CPU and a higher-tier GPU would achieve a better rank, as the game does not scale with the 20 cores and 28 threads that this processor offers.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the system delivers strong performance across most settings. Low settings produce 110 FPS average, Medium yields 98 FPS with a minimum of 83 and maximum of 112, and High achieves 66 FPS. Ultra drops to 45 FPS, which is still playable but shows a significant step down from High. The 1080p results indicate that the GPU is the bottleneck even at this resolution, as the CPU could easily handle higher framerates.

At 1440p, performance becomes more constrained. Low settings average 74 FPS, Medium averages 66 FPS (minimum 56, maximum 76), and High drops to 45 FPS. Ultra falls to 31 FPS, which is borderline unplayable for a horror title requiring precise timing. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings is 33%, and the same resolution change at Ultra produces a 31% reduction.

At 4K, the results are mostly disappointing. Low settings manage 42 FPS, Medium averages 38 FPS (minimum 32, maximum 43), and High falls to 26 FPS. Ultra produces just 17 FPS, which is effectively unplayable. The 4K results show that this combo is only viable at Low or Medium settings, and even then, the framerate hovers near the 30-40 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for acceptable performance.

The minimum framerate data available for Medium settings shows consistent frame delivery: 83 FPS at 1080p, 56 FPS at 1440p, and 32 FPS at 4K. These minimums are only 15-16% below the averages, indicating that the game does not suffer from severe frame-time spikes, but rather a steady, GPU-limited performance level. The maximum framerates at Medium settings (112 at 1080p, 76 at 1440p, 43 at 4K) confirm that the GPU is the sole constraint — the CPU is never causing a bottleneck.

FAQ

*Q: Is this combo capable of 60 FPS in The Medium?*

A: Only at 1080p with Low or Medium settings. The system achieves 110 FPS at 1080p Low and 98 FPS at 1080p Medium, but drops to 66 FPS at 1080p High. At 1440p, no preset reaches 60 FPS — the best result is 74 FPS at Low, but Medium averages 66 FPS. At 4K, all presets fall below 45 FPS.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gaming?

A: Low settings produce the highest average framerate at 4K with 42 FPS. Medium settings average 38 FPS (minimum 32, maximum 43), while High drops to 26 FPS and Ultra falls to 17 FPS. For a playable experience at 4K, Low is the only viable option, though Medium is marginally acceptable with its 32 FPS minimum.

Q: How does the GPU's performance compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Intel Arc B570 has an average benchmark score of 20,556, which is 0.1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20,534) and 0.1% lower than the Intel Arc A750 (20,582). It also sits 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20,480) and 0.5% behind the AMD Radeon R9 M390X (20,662). In The Medium, this translates to mid-range performance that struggles at 4K.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: No. The Core i7-14700K ranks in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with an average score of 69,355 that is only 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515). The 20 cores and 28 threads provide far more computational power than The Medium requires, and the framerate scaling across resolutions confirms that the GPU is the sole limiting factor.

Q: What framerate can I expect at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: The system averages 66 FPS at 1440p Medium, with a minimum of 56 FPS and a maximum of 76 FPS. This is the best balance of quality and performance at this resolution, as High drops to 45 FPS and Ultra falls to 31 FPS. Low settings produce 74 FPS but with reduced visual quality.

Q: How does the combo's overall ranking reflect its performance?

A: The combo ranks 2,040 out of 3,724 tested configurations, placing it in the 45th percentile. This ranking is lower than the CPU's 94th percentile and the GPU's 65th percentile, indicating that the pairing is suboptimal for this game. The powerful CPU is underutilized, and the GPU's mid-range performance drags the overall ranking down.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its 33 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample data storage for game workloads, and its 125W TDP indicates a high-power design that prioritizes performance over efficiency. The CPU's benchmark scores are exceptional: it achieves 33,440.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, 2,160 in single-core, and 52,392 in PassMark multithread tests.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is minimal because the game's fixed-camera perspective and horror pacing do not require high thread counts. The data shows that framerates scale almost entirely with GPU workload — at 1080p Low, the system produces 110 FPS, but this is limited by the GPU's pixel throughput rather than the CPU's instruction processing. The CPU's 94th percentile ranking and average benchmark score of 69,355 place it in the top tier of processors, but this capability is largely wasted in this title.

The CPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the AMD EPYC 9115 (69,288, a 0.1% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515, a -0.2% delta), showing that the i7-14700K is competitive with the best desktop processors available. However, the game's performance ceiling is set by the Arc B570's 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 380.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, not the CPU's 5.60 GHz boost clock or 28 threads. The 4K Ultra result of 17 FPS is a direct consequence of the GPU's limitations, and no amount of CPU headroom can overcome that constraint.

The CPU's integrated UHD Graphics 770 is not used in this configuration, as the discrete Arc B570 handles all rendering. The processor's dual-channel memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 allows flexible system configuration, but the game's performance is not memory-bandwidth sensitive. The 10 nm process node and 257 mm² die size contribute to the CPU's thermal characteristics, but these are irrelevant to the framerate results observed. The data clearly shows that the i7-14700K is a high-end processor that is held back by its mid-range GPU partner in this specific title)Skip to content