The Medium

# The Medium — Intel Core i7-14700KF + AMD Radeon RX 580

The Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 produces a strikingly lopsided result in The Medium, one that reveals a profound GPU bottleneck at nearly every resolution and settings level. The measured data shows this combo ranks 1583rd out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 6% of all systems tested in this game. This is a configuration where a powerful 20-core processor is consistently held back by a graphics card whose average benchmark score sits at 13559, placing it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs. The i7-14700KF, by contrast, commands a 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 70104. The disparity between these two components defines the entire performance profile of this system in The Medium.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lives. At Low settings, the system delivers 48.6 FPS at 1920x1080, but falls to 38.4 FPS at 2560x1440 and then plummets to 29.8 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 38.7% performance loss from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, a heavy penalty that points directly at the RX 580 as the limiting factor. The scaling pattern is even more telling at Medium settings: 32.1 FPS at 1080p drops to 27.2 FPS at 1440p and then to 17.4 FPS at 4K — a 45.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K.

The High preset shows a similar but slightly less severe scaling curve, moving from 20.4 FPS at 1080p to 16.3 FPS at 1440p and finally 14.9 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset, meanwhile, is essentially unplayable across the board, starting at 14.7 FPS at 1080p and degrading to 13.1 FPS at 1440p and 13.8 FPS at 4K. The fact that Ultra performance barely changes between 1080p and 4K — a difference of only 0.9 FPS — suggests that at this extreme settings level, the system is so heavily GPU-bound that even resolution changes have minimal impact on the already-crippled frame rate.

What the data implies is that the RX 580, with its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth, simply cannot feed the demands of The Medium at higher resolutions. The GPU's 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power is insufficient for this title's rendering load, and the scaling behavior confirms that the CPU is never the constraint — even at 1080p Low, where the i7-14700KF's 20 cores and 28 threads are barely taxed.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a Raptor Lake Refresh part with 20 cores, 28 threads, a base clock of 3.40 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its benchmark results are formidable: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44557 and a single-core score of 6290, alongside a Geekbench multi-core score of 19287 and single-core score of 2972. In PassMark testing, it achieves 52425 in multithread and 4480 in single-thread. These numbers place it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core i7-14700K (avgScore 70074, deltaPct 0), AMD EPYC 9115 (avgScore 69887, deltaPct 0.3), AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (avgScore 70420, deltaPct -0.4), and Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 (avgScore 71056, deltaPct -1.3).

Yet in The Medium, none of this processing muscle translates into playable frame rates. Even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would theoretically have the least work to do, the system only manages 48.6 FPS. The data strongly suggests that the i7-14700KF is never the limiting factor in this configuration. The game's demands on the CPU are evidently modest enough that this 20-core processor has ample headroom, while the GPU struggles to keep up. The processor's 33 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support are more than adequate for this horror title, but they cannot compensate for the graphics card's limitations.

The contrast between the CPU's 96th percentile ranking and the combo's 1583rd position out of 1689 tested combinations is stark. This gap underscores that The Medium is not a CPU-bound title for this pairing — the processor's capabilities are almost entirely wasted in this configuration.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the clear bottleneck here. This Polaris 20 chip, built on GlobalFoundries' 14 nm process, features 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. Its base clock of 1257 MHz boosts to 1340 MHz, with memory running at 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus, yielding 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 8 GB GDDR5 frame buffer is paired with a pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s.

The GPU's benchmark results are modest: a PassMark G3D score of 8813, a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1005, and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 37453. Its avgBenchmarkScore of 13559 places it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (avgScore 13564, deltaPct 0), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 (avgScore 13549, deltaPct 0.1), AMD Radeon Pro 455 (avgScore 13416, deltaPct 1.1), and NVIDIA P106-090 (avgScore 13716, deltaPct -1.1). This is a graphics card that was already aging when The Medium released in 2021, and the data reflects that.

At 4K, the RX 580's limitations become severe. The best 4K result is 29.8 FPS at Low settings, which drops to 17.4 FPS at Medium, 14.9 FPS at High, and 13.8 FPS at Ultra. None of these are playable for a game that benefits from consistent frame pacing. The GPU's 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is simply not enough to render this horror title at high resolutions with any reasonable settings, and even at 1080p, only the Low preset approaches acceptable smoothness.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for this configuration. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 48.6 FPS, which is the only playable result across all tested settings and resolutions. The Medium preset at 1080p drops to 32.1 FPS, which may be tolerable for a slower-paced horror game, but it is noticeably less smooth. The High preset at 1080p falls to 20.4 FPS, and Ultra is at 14.7 FPS — both are effectively unplayable.

At 2560x1440, only the Low preset (38.4 FPS) approaches playability, with Medium at 27.2 FPS, High at 16.3 FPS, and Ultra at 13.1 FPS. At 3840x2160, even Low (29.8 FPS) is marginal, and every other preset is below 18 FPS. The data suggests that for this combo, 1080p Low is the only viable configuration for a reasonably smooth experience, with 1080p Medium as a possible compromise for users who prioritize visual quality over frame rate in this atmospheric horror title. The 4K resolution is essentially unusable regardless of settings, with the best result being 29.8 FPS at Low — a figure that would likely feel stuttery in practice.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination ranks 1583rd out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the bottom 6% of all systems. The ranking is a direct consequence of the RX 580's inability to keep pace with the game's demands, particularly at higher resolutions. The i7-14700KF's 96th percentile CPU ranking does nothing to rescue the overall combo ranking, as the graphics card's 53rd percentile standing drags the entire system down.

The data implies that this pairing is fundamentally mismatched for The Medium. The CPU is overqualified while the GPU is underpowered, resulting in a system that cannot leverage its processor's strengths. For comparison, the GPU's nearest rivals — the GTX 570, GTX 950, Radeon Pro 455, and P106-090 — all have similar average benchmark scores, and would likely produce comparable results in this game. The 1689 total combos tested suggests a wide field, and this system's placement near the bottom indicates that the RX 580 is one of the weakest GPUs capable of running The Medium at all.

FAQ

Q: What is the best frame rate this combo can achieve in The Medium?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 48.6 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next best is 38.4 FPS at 2560x1440 Low, followed by 32.1 FPS at 1080p Medium.

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

A: At 3840x2160, the best result is 29.8 FPS on Low settings. Medium yields 17.4 FPS, High yields 14.9 FPS, and Ultra yields 13.8 FPS. No 4K preset achieves a consistently smooth frame rate.

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

A: The i7-14700KF has an average benchmark score of 70104, which is 0.3% higher than the AMD EPYC 9115 (69887), 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (70420), and 1.3% lower than the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 (71056).

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking?

A: The RX 580 is in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 13559. Its closest rival, the GTX 570, scores 13564, a delta of 0%.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this configuration?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the bottleneck. The CPU scores in the 96th percentile while the GPU is in the 53rd, and frame rates drop dramatically with resolution increases, which is characteristic of GPU limitation.

Q: What is the combo's overall ranking in this game?

A: This pairing ranks 1583rd out of 1689 tested combinations in The Medium, placing it in the bottom 6% of all systems tested.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers 48.6 FPS on Low, 32.1 FPS on Medium, 20.4 FPS on High, and 14.7 FPS on Ultra. Moving to 2560x1440, performance drops to 38.4 FPS on Low, 27.2 FPS on Medium, 16.3 FPS on High, and 13.1 FPS on Ultra. At 3840x2160, the results are 29.8 FPS on Low, 17.4 FPS on Medium, 14.9 FPS on High, and 13.8 FPS on Ultra.

The pattern across all resolutions is consistent: Low settings are the only preset that approaches playability, and even then, only at 1080p does the frame rate exceed 40 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium settings is substantial — a 16.5 FPS difference at 1080p, 11.2 FPS at 1440p, and 12.4 FPS at 4K — suggesting that the Medium preset introduces rendering demands that the RX 580 cannot meet. The High and Ultra presets are clustered together at the bottom of the range, with differences of only a few FPS across all resolutions, indicating that these settings push the GPU to its absolute limits regardless of resolution.