The Medium

The Medium is a demanding horror title, and the combination of an Intel Core i9-14900K with an AMD Radeon RX 570 produces a severely bottlenecked experience, particularly at higher resolutions. The data shows this pairing ranks 1589 out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 6% of all configurations. This is a case where a top-tier processor is completely held back by an entry-level graphics card from a previous generation, resulting in frame rates that are often below playable thresholds.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a 24-core, 32-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture. It operates with a base clock of 3.20 GHz and can boost up to 6.00 GHz, which makes it one of the fastest consumer CPUs available. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 49872 points in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 7040 points in single-core, placing it in the 97th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, such as the AMD EPYC 7413 and Intel Core i9-14900KF, are within a 0.9% performance delta, confirming that the i9-14900K is at the absolute top of the processor hierarchy.

However, in The Medium, the CPU’s immense processing power is largely irrelevant. The game’s frame rates are dictated by the GPU, and the i9-14900K sits idle waiting for the Radeon RX 570 to deliver frames. The CPU’s 36 MB of shared L3 cache and support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory are features that would benefit a balanced system, but they cannot compensate for a graphics card that struggles with the game’s rendering demands. The data indicates that even at 1080p Low settings, where the CPU would typically have more influence, the average frame rate is only 42.4 FPS — a figure that is more indicative of GPU limitations than CPU headroom. The i9-14900K’s role here is purely to ensure that no CPU-side stutter or bottleneck occurs; it is doing its job flawlessly, but the GPU is failing to keep up.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is a 2017-era graphics card built on the Polaris 20 chip with GCN 4.0 architecture. It features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz, with 2048 shading units and 32 ROPs. Its compute capability is rated at 5.095 TFLOPS for FP32 operations. In the broader GPU landscape, it sits in the 74th percentile, with its average benchmark score of 30158 putting it within 0.8% of rivals like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT — a statistical grouping that seems flattering but is misleading for gaming performance.

In The Medium, the RX 570’s 4 GB VRAM is a critical weakness. At 4K Ultra settings, the card delivers a paltry 12.2 FPS average, and even at 1080p Ultra, it only manages 17.5 FPS. The frame rates suggest that the card is not only compute-bound but also memory-constrained. The 224.0 GB/s bandwidth and 4 GB capacity are insufficient for the game’s high-resolution textures, causing the GPU to thrash and drop to single-digit frame times. At 1080p Low settings, the card manages 42.4 FPS, which is playable but far from smooth. The RX 570’s DirectX 12 support (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3 API compatibility are technically adequate, but the hardware itself is simply too old to handle a 2021 horror title with any degree of visual fidelity. The GPU is the definitive bottleneck in this configuration.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling. Moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings shows dramatic frame rate collapses. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 20.3 at 1080p to 15.9 at 4K, a reduction of roughly 22%. At Low settings, the drop is more severe: 42.4 FPS at 1080p falls to 29.7 FPS at 4K, a 30% decrease. The Medium settings show a similar trend, with 30.9 FPS at 1080p falling to 16.6 FPS at 4K — a 46% reduction. Ultra settings are the most punishing, going from 17.5 FPS at 1080p to 12.2 FPS at 4K, a 30% loss.

These percentages are telling. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect the frame rates to remain relatively flat across resolutions, since the CPU’s work does not scale with pixel count. Instead, the substantial drops at every settings level confirm that the GPU is the sole constraint. The widest gap is between 1440p and 4K at Medium settings, where the frame rate halves from 22.5 to 16.6 FPS. This indicates that the RX 570’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are being overwhelmed as resolution increases. The i9-14900K could easily push hundreds of frames per second in lighter titles, but here it is throttled by a GPU that cannot even maintain 30 FPS at 1080p Low in this game.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core i9-14900K a good match for the AMD Radeon RX 570 in The Medium?

A: No. The data shows this combination ranks 1589 out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 6% of all configurations. The CPU is in the 97th percentile of all processors, while the GPU is in the 74th percentile, but the GPU’s performance is so low that it entirely negates the CPU’s advantage.

Q: What is the best settings preset for this combo at 1080p?

A: The only settings that yield a playable frame rate are Low, which produces an average of 42.4 FPS. Medium settings drop to 30.9 FPS, and High falls to 20.3 FPS. Ultra is not viable at 17.5 FPS.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in The Medium?

A: No. At 4K, the best result is 29.7 FPS on Low settings, but Medium drops to 16.6 FPS, High to 15.9 FPS, and Ultra to 12.2 FPS. These are all well below the 30 FPS threshold for playability.

Q: How does the RX 570 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 570’s average benchmark score is 30158, which is within 0.8% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, NVIDIA Tesla M60, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile. However, these synthetic scores do not reflect real-world gaming performance in this title.

Q: Is the i9-14900K’s performance affected by the GPU bottleneck?

A: The CPU’s synthetic scores are unaffected, but in-game, its potential is wasted. The i9-14900K scores 49872 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, but the GPU cannot feed it enough frames to matter. The bottleneck is 100% on the GPU side.

Q: What does the 74th percentile GPU ranking mean for this game?

A: It means the RX 570 is an average card by synthetic standards, but The Medium is particularly demanding on GPU memory and compute. The 4 GB VRAM and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient, leading to frame rates that are 50-70% lower than what the GPU’s percentile ranking might suggest.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the Intel Core i9-14900K and AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 1589 out of 1689 tested combinations in The Medium. This places it in the 6th percentile of all combos, meaning 94% of tested systems perform better. This is a catastrophic ranking for a CPU that is in the 97th percentile of all processors. The pairing is fundamentally unbalanced: the i9-14900K is a flagship part designed for high-refresh-rate gaming and productivity, while the RX 570 is an entry-level card from 2017 that is now end-of-life. The data indicates that even a mid-range modern GPU would dramatically improve this ranking, as the CPU has headroom to spare. For context, the RX 570’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks (RTX 5060, RX 7700 XT) are all modern cards that would likely rank in the top 10% of combos in this game. The i9-14900K is not the problem; the GPU is dragging the entire system down to the bottom of the rankings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following are the exact measured average FPS values for this combination in The Medium:

3840x2160 (4K)

• Ultra: 12.2 FPS
• High: 15.9 FPS
• Medium: 16.6 FPS
• Low: 29.7 FPS

2560x1440 (1440p)

• Ultra: 12.0 FPS
• High: 19.2 FPS
• Medium: 22.5 FPS
• Low: 38.9 FPS

1920x1080 (1080p)

• Ultra: 17.5 FPS
• High: 20.3 FPS
• Medium: 30.9 FPS
• Low: 42.4 FPS

These numbers show a clear trend: the RX 570 can only achieve playable frame rates (above 30 FPS) at 1080p Low settings. At 1440p, Low settings dip to 38.9 FPS, which is borderline, but every other configuration falls below 30 FPS. The difference between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings is a 3.5 FPS drop, while the jump from 1440p Low to 4K Low costs 9.2 FPS. This non-linear scaling is typical of a GPU that is running out of memory bandwidth. The data is measured, not estimated, and it paints a clear picture: this combo is only suitable for low-fidelity 1080p gaming in The Medium, and even then, it barely meets minimum playability standards.