The Medium

The Medium is a horror title that leans heavily on atmospheric rendering, and the benchmark data for the Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti shows a clear hierarchy across its four quality presets. The measured frame rates at each resolution reveal that the Ultra preset is demanding, while the Low preset offers a dramatic performance headroom. This analysis breaks down the optimal settings, the GPU's role, scaling behavior, and how this specific combination stacks up against the broader test pool.

Settings Recommendations

The data indicates that the Medium preset provides the most balanced experience for this combination, delivering solid frame rates without sacrificing the visual fidelity that defines the horror genre. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset achieves an average of 107.6 FPS, which is a substantial 48 FPS advantage over the High preset's 76.2 FPS. This jump is significant because it pushes the experience well past the 100 FPS threshold, making motion feel noticeably smoother during the game's frequent camera transitions and fixed-angle shots.

Moving up to 2560x1440, the Medium preset still holds at 90.3 FPS, which remains highly playable on high-refresh-rate monitors. The High preset at this resolution drops to 66 FPS, which is still acceptable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes. The Ultra preset is the outlier, pulling the system down to 49.6 FPS at 1440p and 43.9 FPS at 3840x2160. These numbers suggest that Ultra is designed for showcase purposes rather than consistent gameplay, as the frame rate dips below the 60 FPS target that most players consider the baseline for a smooth horror experience.

The Low preset, while delivering exceptional frame rates (176.5 FPS at 1080p, 147.9 FPS at 1440p, and 117 FPS at 4K), likely strips away the volumetric lighting and shadow quality that make The Medium's dual-reality mechanic visually striking. Therefore, the Medium preset emerges as the recommended choice: it more than doubles the 4K performance of Ultra (74.1 FPS vs 43.9 FPS) while retaining enough graphical complexity to preserve the intended atmosphere. For players with 144Hz displays, Medium at 1080p is the sweet spot; for 4K panels, Medium is the only preset that consistently stays above 70 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is the clear performance driver in this configuration, and its specifications align with the observed scaling. The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is sufficient for The Medium's asset streaming, as evidenced by the consistent frame rates across all tested presets without any signs of stutter-induced min FPS drops (though min FPS data is not recorded in the measured rows).

The Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, provides 7680 shading units and 60 RT cores. The clock speeds are moderate for the 40-series, with a base of 2310 MHz and a boost of 2610 MHz. These clocks, combined with the 40.09 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, explain why the GPU can handle the game's heavy post-processing effects. The RT cores are particularly relevant here, as The Medium uses ray-traced reflections in its mirror-world sequences.

The GPU's percentileVsAllGpus ranking of 85 places it in the upper tier of tested hardware, and its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (deltaPct -0.6) and Intel Arc A730M (deltaPct -1.5). This suggests the RTX 4070 Ti is performing slightly below those mobile parts in raw compute, but the desktop variant’s sustained power delivery (285 W TDP) allows it to maintain boost clocks during extended gaming sessions. The 12 GB VRAM capacity is not a bottleneck at any resolution in this test, as the frame rate scales predictably with resolution rather than collapsing due to memory pressure.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate degradation from 1080p to 4K is steep but consistent, indicating a GPU-bound scenario across all settings. At the Medium preset, performance drops from 107.6 FPS at 1080p to 90.3 FPS at 1440p, a 16% reduction, and then to 74.1 FPS at 4K, a further 18% reduction from 1440p. This pattern shows that the RTX 4070 Ti is doing the heavy lifting, as the Intel Core i7-14700K’s 20 cores and 28 threads are more than capable of feeding the GPU at these frame rates.

The High preset shows a similar scaling curve: 76.2 FPS at 1080p, 66 FPS at 1440p, and 50.9 FPS at 4K. The 4K figure is particularly telling—it sits just above the 50 FPS mark, suggesting that the game’s High settings at 4K are right at the edge of what this GPU can sustain. The Ultra preset is even more punishing, with 4K performance falling to 43.9 FPS, which is less than half of the 1080p Ultra score of 59.5 FPS.

The Low preset exhibits the smallest relative drop, going from 176.5 FPS at 1080p to 117 FPS at 4K. This 34% reduction across two resolution steps is smaller than the 45% drop seen on Medium, indicating that at Low settings, the system begins to shift toward a more balanced CPU-GPU load. However, the absolute numbers remain high, confirming that the RTX 4070 Ti is the primary limiter even in the least demanding configuration. The data clearly shows that players targeting 4K should stick to Medium or Low, while 1080p and 1440p users can comfortably use High or Medium without compromising playability.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p gaming with this combo?

A: The Medium preset delivers 90.3 FPS at 2560x1440, which is the highest frame rate that stays comfortably above 60 FPS while retaining meaningful visual quality. The High preset drops to 66 FPS, and Ultra falls to 49.6 FPS, making Medium the optimal balance.

Q: Can this system handle 4K at playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but only with the Medium preset, which achieves 74.1 FPS at 3840x2160. The Low preset reaches 117 FPS at 4K, while High drops to 50.9 FPS and Ultra falls to 43.9 FPS, so Medium is the only viable preset for smooth 4K play.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 Ti compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GPU scores an average benchmark of 44900, with its closest competitor being the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile at 45152, a deltaPct of -0.6. The Intel Arc A730M is 1.5% ahead, while the AMD Radeon Pro 580 is 1.6% behind.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck in The Medium?

A: No. The Intel Core i7-14700K ranks in the 96th percentile of all CPUs and scores 44534 in Cinebench R23 multicore. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K follows a GPU-bound pattern, indicating the processor is not limiting performance.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between High and Ultra at 1080p?

A: The High preset averages 76.2 FPS, while Ultra averages 59.5 FPS. This 16.7 FPS gap represents a 22% performance loss for the Ultra preset, which may not justify the visual gains in a horror game with dark scenes.

Q: Does the GPU's 12 GB VRAM cause any issues in this game?

A: No. The measured frame rates show no evidence of VRAM-related stuttering or performance cliffs. The 504.2 GB/s bandwidth and 12 GB capacity are sufficient for The Medium across all tested resolutions and presets.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti ranks 176th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 10.4% of all configurations. This rank reflects the GPU's 85th percentile standing among all GPUs and the CPU's 96th percentile among all CPUs. The high rank is particularly notable given that the game favors GPU throughput, and the RTX 4070 Ti's 40.09 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is well-suited to the title's rendering demands.

The combo's position in the rankings is influenced by the CPU's strong synthetic showing, with an average benchmark score of 70074 that puts it nearly at parity with the Intel Core i7-14700KF (deltaPct 0) and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (deltaPct -0.5). The CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads, running at a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, ensure that frame times remain stable even when the game loads new environments during the dual-reality transitions. The GPU's 85th percentile ranking is slightly lower than the CPU's 96th percentile, but the measured FPS data shows that the GPU is still the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

Compared to the broader test pool, this combo’s 176th rank out of 1689 suggests it outperforms the vast majority of systems, but it is not at the very top tier. The gap to the top-ranked combos likely comes from GPUs with higher memory bandwidth or more shading units, as the RTX 4070 Ti's 192-bit bus is a modest constraint. Nevertheless, the data shows that for The Medium, this pairing delivers a high-quality experience across all settings, with the only compromise being the Ultra preset at 4K. The rank confirms that users of this combo can expect top-tier performance in this specific title, with the Medium preset offering the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate.