The Medium

The Intel Core i7-14700KF and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT combination in The Medium presents a clear picture of a system where the GPU is the primary bottleneck, but CPU overhead is not entirely absent. The measured data across three resolutions and four settings presets reveals how the workload scales and where the limits of this hardware pairing lie.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 dramatically reshapes performance, confirming that the Radeon RX 6800 XT becomes the limiting component as pixel count rises. At the High preset, the average frame rate drops from 63.0 FPS at 1080p to 54.1 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 8.9 FPS, and then plunges to 39.9 FPS at 4K. This scaling pattern—a 14% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 26% drop from 1440p to 4K—indicates that the GPU is progressively saturated, with the CPU having ample headroom at lower resolutions.

The Low preset shows a steeper relative decline, moving from 140.3 FPS at 1080p to 116.4 FPS at 1440p and finally to 92.7 FPS at 4K. The absolute deltas are larger here, with a 23.9 FPS loss between 1080p and 1440p, suggesting that even at Low settings, the rendering load scales heavily with resolution. The fact that 4K Low still achieves 92.7 FPS, however, implies the CPU is not the limiting factor; a weaker processor would likely struggle to maintain such high frame rates even at lower resolutions.

The Medium preset follows a similar trajectory: 87.6 FPS at 1080p, 74.4 FPS at 1440p, and 57.8 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 15% and 22% respectively, which is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario. The Ultra preset, by contrast, is the most punishing, falling from 49.8 FPS at 1080p to 40.8 FPS at 1440p and then to 34.1 FPS at 4K. The 20% reduction between 1440p and 4K is the smallest relative change among all presets, indicating that at Ultra, the GPU is already heavily loaded even at 1080p, leaving less room for resolution to exert its full influence.

What this data suggests is that for users targeting 4K, the RX 6800 XT is the definitive ceiling. Even at Low settings, the 92.7 FPS result at 4K is substantially lower than the 140.3 FPS at 1080p, a 34% reduction. The CPU’s role is most visible at 1080p Low, where 140.3 FPS demonstrates that the i7-14700KF can feed the GPU efficiently, but the GPU’s raw throughput caps the experience at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a 7 nm process, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 512.0 GB/s. Its boost clock is rated at 2250 MHz, with a game clock of 2015 MHz and a base clock of 1825 MHz. With 4608 shading units, 288 TMUs, and 128 ROPs, the card delivers a pixel rate of 288.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 648.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 20.74 TFLOPS, which is substantial for a card from the Radeon RX 6000 series.

In The Medium, the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM is unlikely to be a limiting factor, as the game’s textures at 4K Ultra would need to exceed that capacity to cause issues, and the measured average of 34.1 FPS at that setting suggests the core compute is the constraint. The memory clock of 2000 MHz, effective 16 Gbps, provides enough bandwidth for the game’s data streaming, and the 512.0 GB/s bandwidth appears sufficient given the scaling patterns.

The GPU’s percentile ranking against all GPUs is 87, and its average benchmark score is 49982. Its nearest rival is the Intel Arc A550M, which scores 49737, a delta of 0.5% higher than the RX 6800 XT. The NVIDIA RTX A1000 is 1.7% ahead with a score of 50826, while the NVIDIA CMP 50HX is 1.9% behind at 49071. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER trails by 2.6% with a score of 48704. These comparisons are based on synthetic benchmarks, but they provide context: the RX 6800 XT sits in a competitive tier, yet its performance in The Medium at 4K Ultra (34.1 FPS) suggests the game is particularly demanding on rasterization throughput.

The boost clock of 2250 MHz is what the card sustains under load, and the data implies that at 4K Ultra, the GPU is running near its thermal and power limits, as the TDP is 300 W. The card’s dual-slot design and 2x 8-pin power connectors support this, but the measured FPS shows that even with this hardware, The Medium at maximum settings requires compromises.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Medium settings?

A: The measured average is 87.6 FPS at 1920x1080 with the Medium preset.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra performance compare to 1080p Ultra?

A: At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average is 34.1 FPS, while at 1920x1080 Ultra, it is 49.8 FPS, a reduction of 15.7 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1440p High?

A: The average of 54.1 FPS at 2560x1440 High, combined with the scaling from 63.0 FPS at 1080p, indicates the GPU is the primary constraint, as the CPU’s 20 cores and 28 threads are not being fully utilized at this load.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The highest measured average is 140.3 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

Q: How close is the RX 6800 XT to the Intel Arc A550M in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 6800 XT has an average benchmark score of 49982, while the Intel Arc A550M scores 49737, placing the RX 6800 XT 0.5% ahead.

Q: Does the 16 GB VRAM cause any performance issues at 4K?

A: The data shows a steady decline from 92.7 FPS at 4K Low to 34.1 FPS at 4K Ultra, but no sudden drops that would indicate VRAM capacity being exceeded, so the 16 GB is sufficient for this game’s settings.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700KF with the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT ranks 544 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. That places it in the 67.8th percentile of all combinations, meaning roughly two-thirds of tested systems perform worse. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU’s strong synthetic scores and the GPU’s mid-to-high tier performance.

The CPU alone holds a percentile rank of 96 against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 70104. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-14700K at 70074 (a 0% delta), the AMD EPYC 9115 at 69887 (0.3% higher), the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X at 70420 (0.4% lower), and the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 at 71056 (1.3% lower). These tight deltas show the i7-14700KF is at the top of its class, but the GPU holds the combo back from a higher rank.

The GPU’s percentile rank is 87, and its nearest rivals are all within a 2.6% delta, indicating that the RX 6800 XT is not an outlier in its tier. The combo rank of 544 suggests that many systems with slightly faster GPUs, even with slower CPUs, achieve higher frame rates in this game. For instance, a system with a marginally slower CPU but a GPU that is 2.6% faster, like the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, would likely rank higher due to the game’s GPU-bound nature at higher resolutions.

The data underscores that the CPU is not the bottleneck. The i7-14700KF’s multi-core score of 44557 in Cinebench R23 and single-core score of 6290 are excellent, but The Medium relies more on GPU rasterization. Therefore, the combo’s rank is primarily a function of the GPU’s performance tier relative to other tested cards.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal experience depends on the target resolution. For 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 63.0 FPS, which is smooth for a horror game, but the Medium preset at 87.6 FPS offers a better balance of visual fidelity and headroom. The Ultra preset at 49.8 FPS is playable but not ideal for fast-paced sequences. The Low preset at 140.3 FPS is excessive unless the user prioritizes maximum frame rate over visuals.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset at 74.4 FPS is the sweet spot, providing a significant improvement over High’s 54.1 FPS without the visual sacrifice of Low at 116.4 FPS. The High preset is borderline, and Ultra at 40.8 FPS is below the threshold for comfortable play. For 3840x2160, the Low preset at 92.7 FPS is surprisingly playable, but Medium at 57.8 FPS is the highest quality that maintains a reasonable frame rate. High at 39.9 FPS and Ultra at 34.1 FPS are not recommended for consistent gameplay.

The data shows that the Medium preset is the most efficient across all resolutions, offering a 47% improvement over High at 1080p (87.6 vs 63.0) and a 37% improvement at 1440p (74.4 vs 54.1). At 4K, Medium is 45% faster than High (57.8 vs 39.9). Therefore, for a balanced experience, Medium is the recommended preset, with Low reserved for 4K users who prioritize frame rate.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average FPS by preset is as follows: Low achieves 140.3, Medium achieves 87.6, High achieves 63.0, and Ultra achieves 49.8. The spread from Low to Ultra is 90.5 FPS, indicating a massive performance range based on settings.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 116.4 for Low, 74.4 for Medium, 54.1 for High, and 40.8 for Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across presets, with Low losing 23.9 FPS, Medium losing 13.2 FPS, High losing 8.9 FPS, and Ultra losing 9.0 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 92.7 for Low, 57.8 for Medium, 39.9 for High, and 34.1 for Ultra. The transition from 1440p to 4K results in losses of 23.7 FPS for Low, 16.6 FPS for Medium, 14.2 FPS for High, and 6.7 FPS for Ultra. The Ultra preset’s smaller absolute loss suggests it is already near the GPU’s limit at 1440p, leaving little headroom for resolution scaling.

Across all resolutions, the Low preset consistently delivers the highest frame rates, with 4K Low (92.7) outperforming 1080p High (63.0) by 47%. This highlights the GPU’s capability to handle lower settings at high resolutions, while the CPU’s strength is evident in the 1080p Low result of 140.3 FPS, which is the only measurement exceeding 120 FPS in the dataset. The data collectively shows a system that excels at lower settings and resolutions but requires careful preset selection to maintain playable frame rates at 4K.