The Medium

The Intel Core i7-14700KF and Intel Arc B370 combination delivers playable frame rates in The Medium only at the Low preset, with higher settings pushing the GPU past its limits. The data shows a clear ceiling: at 1080p, the Low preset achieves 46 FPS, while Medium drops to 29 FPS, High to 21 FPS, and Ultra to 16 FPS. This combo ranks 2681st out of 2911 tested configurations, placing it in the bottom 8% of systems, a position driven almost entirely by the Arc B370's integrated-class performance rather than the capable 20-core CPU.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Medium?*

A: The measured data shows 1920x1080 as the only viable resolution for acceptable performance. At 1080p Low, the system averages 46 FPS, while 1440p Low drops to 39 FPS and 2160p Low falls to 30 FPS. Higher settings at any resolution produce averages below 30 FPS.

Q: How does the Arc B370 compare to its nearest rivals in raw GPU benchmarks?

A: The Arc B370 scores 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs. Its closest competitors are the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, 0.2% faster), ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, 0.5% faster), and AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192, 0.7% faster). The AMD FirePro M2000 trails slightly at 1168 (1.4% slower).

Q: Does the Intel Core i7-14700KF bottleneck the Arc B370 in this game?

A: No. The CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44167 places it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, and it outperforms the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X by 0.9% in average benchmark score. The frame rate caps in The Medium are clearly GPU-limited, as evidenced by the steep drop from Low to Medium settings at every resolution.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: The gap is substantial. Low averages 46 FPS, while Ultra averages only 16 FPS, a 65.2% reduction in frame rate. Medium (29 FPS) and High (21 FPS) fall between these extremes, showing that each step up in quality costs roughly 7-8 FPS at this resolution.

Q: Is the 20-core CPU justified for this game given the GPU's limitations?

A: The i7-14700KF's performance is far beyond what The Medium requires. Its 28 threads and 5.60 GHz boost clock deliver a Passmark multi-thread score of 52425, yet the game's frame rates are dictated by the GPU's 6.144 TFLOPS FP32 throughput. The CPU contributes negligible overhead in this pairing.

Q: What does the combo's rank of 2681 out of 2911 indicate?

A: This rank places the system in the bottom 8% of all tested combos for The Medium. The Arc B370's 5th percentile GPU standing is the dominant factor, as the CPU ranks in the top 6% of all processors. The combination highlights a severe performance imbalance where the GPU cannot utilize the CPU's potential.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is the decisive component in this system's The Medium performance, and the data shows it is fundamentally underpowered for this title. The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184 places it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals being legacy parts like the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, 0.5% faster). Its 1280 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 20 ROPs operate at a base clock of 300 MHz and boost up to 2400 MHz, yielding a pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s. The memory configuration is "System Shared," meaning bandwidth is "System Dependent," which compounds the performance deficit in a game like The Medium that relies heavily on consistent memory throughput.

The GPU's FP32 throughput of 6.144 TFLOPS is the theoretical ceiling for compute work, but the measured frame rates suggest real-world efficiency is far lower. At 2160p Ultra, the combo averages just 11 FPS, and at 1080p Ultra it reaches only 16 FPS. The step from Low to Medium at 1080p drops performance from 46 FPS to 29 FPS, a 37% loss, indicating that the GPU saturates quickly when texture quality and shading complexity increase. The High preset at 1080p yields 21 FPS, and Ultra drops to 16 FPS, showing diminishing returns as settings scale. The 25 W TDP and IGP slot width classify this as an integrated-class part, which explains why it ranks alongside 2010-era discrete GPUs in the nearestRivals list.

For The Medium, the Arc B370's VRAM situation is particularly problematic. With "System Shared" memory, the GPU pulls from system RAM, and the absence of dedicated VRAM bandwidth creates a bottleneck that the CPU cannot mitigate. The measured frame times at Medium settings show min FPS values of 24 at 1080p, 21 at 1440p, and 16 at 2160p, compared to average FPS of 29, 24, and 19 respectively. These narrow gaps between average and minimum frame rates suggest the GPU is consistently near its limit rather than experiencing intermittent spikes. The 5th percentile GPU ranking is not a statistical outlier; it aligns with the frame rate data showing sub-30 FPS at all settings above Low.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear verdict: the Low preset is the only setting that delivers a consistently playable experience across common resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system averages 46 FPS, which is the only configuration above 30 FPS in the entire dataset. At 1440p Low, the average drops to 39 FPS, still playable but approaching the threshold where horror game pacing suffers. At 2160p Low, the average falls to 30 FPS, which is borderline and not recommended for sustained play.

The Medium preset offers a quality improvement but at a significant cost. At 1080p, Medium averages 29 FPS with a minimum of 24 FPS, which means the game will dip below 30 FPS regularly. At 1440p Medium, the average is 24 FPS with a minimum of 21 FPS, and at 2160p Medium, the average is 19 FPS with a minimum of 16 FPS. The High preset is worse: 21 FPS at 1080p, 17 FPS at 1440p, and 14 FPS at 2160p. Ultra is the least viable option, with 16 FPS at 1080p, 14 FPS at 1440p, and 11 FPS at 2160p.

For users prioritizing frame rate stability, the Low preset at 1080p is the only defensible choice. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 17 FPS (from 46 to 29), which is a 37% performance loss for a quality increase that the GPU cannot afford. At 1440p, the Low preset's 39 FPS is playable, but the margin for error is thin, and any scene with heavy particle effects or dynamic lighting will push it lower. At 2160p, even Low at 30 FPS is risky, as the game's horror pacing requires responsive input, and 30 FPS averages often translate to sub-25 FPS in demanding moments. The data does not support any settings above Low for this combo if the goal is a consistent, responsive experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rate data spans three resolutions and four settings presets, providing a complete picture of this combo's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 46 FPS, the highest score in the entire dataset. Medium drops to 29 FPS with a minimum of 24 and maximum of 33, High falls to 21 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 16 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a steady decline: 46, 29, 21, 16, with the largest single-step loss occurring between Low and Medium (17 FPS).

At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats but with lower absolute values. Low averages 39 FPS, Medium averages 24 FPS with a minimum of 21 and maximum of 28, High averages 17 FPS, and Ultra averages 14 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium here is 15 FPS, slightly smaller than at 1080p, but the relative loss is similar. The minimum FPS at Medium (21) is only 3 FPS below the average, indicating consistent frame delivery rather than spikes. High and Ultra at 1440p are both below 20 FPS, making them effectively unplayable for a game that relies on atmospheric tension.

At 3840x2160, the performance collapses further. Low averages 30 FPS, which is the only 2160p setting above 20 FPS. Medium averages 19 FPS with a minimum of 16 and maximum of 22, High averages 14 FPS, and Ultra averages 11 FPS. The 2160p Medium minimum of 16 FPS is the lowest recorded minimum across all settings, showing that the GPU struggles to maintain even its average performance at this resolution. The data reveals a consistent pattern: each resolution doubling (1080p to 1440p to 2160p) costs roughly 7-8 FPS at the Low preset, and the cost is proportionally larger at higher settings. The 1080p Low to 1440p Low drop is 7 FPS, and the 1440p Low to 2160p Low drop is 9 FPS, showing that the system scales poorly with resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700KF and Intel Arc B370 ranks 2681st out of 2911 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the bottom 8% of all configurations. This rank is a direct consequence of the GPU's performance class, as the CPU alone ranks in the 94th percentile of all processors. The disparity between the two components is stark: the CPU's average benchmark score of 70163 places it among the top tier of desktop processors, while the GPU's average score of 1184 places it in the 5th percentile.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69996, 0.2% slower), AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875, 0.4% slower), and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515, 0.9% slower), with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (70879, 1.0% faster) slightly ahead. These sub-1% differences indicate that the i7-14700KF is competitively positioned in the CPU market. However, the GPU's nearest rivals are the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, 0.2% faster), ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, 0.5% faster), and AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192, 0.7% faster), all of which are over a decade old. This comparison underscores the GPU's fundamental inadequacy for a 2021 horror title.

The combo rank of 2681 out of 2911 means that only 230 tested configurations perform worse in The Medium. Given that the dataset includes a wide range of hardware, this bottom-8% placement suggests the Arc B370 is one of the weakest GPUs tested for this game. The measured FPS data confirms this: no setting above Low at any resolution achieves an average above 30 FPS, and the highest average across all 12 data points is 46 FPS at 1080p Low. The rank is not an artifact of the CPU holding the GPU back; rather, the GPU's 6.144 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is insufficient for the game's rendering demands.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It features a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3 cache. This configuration delivers strong synthetic benchmark scores: Cinebench R23 multi-core reaches 44167 and single-core reaches 6235, Geekbench multi-core hits 21462 and single-core hits 2578, and Passmark multi-thread scores 52425.

In the context of The Medium, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls, physics calculations, and game logic, but the measured data shows that the CPU is never the limiting factor. The game's frame rates are consistently low across all settings, with the GPU saturating well before the CPU's capabilities are taxed. The CPU's 94th percentile ranking and its competitive position against the Ryzen 9 7950X (0.9% faster in average benchmark score) indicate that it is more than adequate for this title. The bottleneck is entirely on the GPU side, as evidenced by the fact that lowering resolution from 1080p to 1440p to 2160p produces predictable frame rate drops that track with GPU workload.

The 28 threads and 5.60 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom for the game's CPU requirements, which are modest for a 2021 release. The CPU's Passmark data compression score of 694963 and integer math score of 183056 suggest it can handle complex game logic without breaking a sweat. However, the Arc B370's system-shared memory architecture means the CPU must also manage memory allocation for the GPU, and the "System Dependent" bandwidth creates a shared-resource bottleneck that the CPU's dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 support cannot overcome. The CPU's L3 cache of 33 MB helps mitigate some memory latency, but the GPU's lack of dedicated VRAM remains the dominant constraint. In summary, the i7-14700KF is a top-tier processor whose potential is completely untapped in this pairing, and any frame rate improvements in The Medium would require a more capable GPU rather than a faster CPU.