The Medium

The Medium on the Intel Core i9-14900K and AMD Radeon RX 9070 presents a clear case of a GPU-bound title where settings choices matter more than resolution scaling. The measured data shows that the RX 9070’s 16 GB of VRAM and high memory bandwidth are sufficient even at 4K, but the game’s rendering load scales steeply with quality presets. The sweet spot for this combination is the Medium preset, which delivers a playable experience at 1440p and a respectable frame rate at 1080p, while High and Ultra presets push the GPU into sub-60 FPS territory at higher resolutions. Low settings unlock high refresh rates but sacrifice the atmospheric detail that defines this horror title.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results indicate that the Medium preset is the optimal balance for this combo. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 87.7 FPS, which is 22.2 FPS higher than High and only 55.6 FPS lower than Low. More importantly, at 2560x1440, Medium holds at 74.1 FPS — comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. This is the only preset that achieves a playable frame rate at 1440p without dropping to Low settings.

High settings are not recommended for this pairing. At 1440p, High yields 51.6 FPS, which dips below the 60 FPS target, and at 4K it falls to 41.2 FPS. The jump from Medium to High costs 22.5 FPS at 1440p and 16.3 FPS at 4K, a steep penalty for marginal visual gains in a game that relies on moody lighting and shadow work.

Ultra is essentially a showcase preset here. It runs at 51.5 FPS at 1080p, which is playable, but drops to 41.6 FPS at 1440p and 33.1 FPS at 4K. The data suggests that Ultra is only viable for players who prioritize image quality over frame rate and are willing to accept sub-45 FPS at higher resolutions. For the majority of players, Medium provides the best experience per the measured rows, offering a 43.8% FPS improvement over High at 1440p while retaining most of the visual fidelity.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination ranks 519th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. That places it in the 69th percentile of all tested systems, which is a solid mid-to-upper tier result. The ranking reflects the fact that the RX 9070, while a capable 1440p card, is not a 4K powerhouse in this title. The i9-14900K is not the bottleneck — its multi-core performance is exceptional, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872 and a PassMark multithread score of 58674 — but The Medium’s engine clearly favors GPU throughput over CPU muscle.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD EPYC 7413 (0.3% lower average score) and the Intel Core i9-14900KF (0.7% higher). This tells us the i9-14900K is performing at the expected level for its class, so the combo’s ranking is almost entirely determined by the GPU’s frame delivery. The GPU itself sits at the 79th percentile among all GPUs, with a PassMark G3D score of 25381. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are the NVIDIA A2 (0.2% lower), the NVIDIA Quadro GV100 (0.3% higher), and the AMD Radeon HD 7970 (0.7% higher) — a strange grouping that suggests the RX 9070’s architecture performs differently in gaming workloads than in raw compute tests.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is the primary performance driver in this pairing. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than enough for The Medium’s asset streaming at 4K. The card’s boost clock of 2520 MHz and game clock of 2070 MHz are the relevant figures for sustained gaming loads. The base clock of 1330 MHz is largely irrelevant under load, as the card will boost well above that in most scenarios.

The GPU’s 3584 shading units and 224 texture mapping units suggest strong raw throughput, but the measured FPS data reveals that The Medium’s Ultra preset is particularly demanding on the rasterization pipeline. The pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s are competitive, yet the game still drops to 33.1 FPS at 4K Ultra. This indicates that the bottleneck is not memory capacity — 16 GB is ample — but rather the shader complexity and fill rate demands of the highest preset.

The RDNA 4.0 architecture with 56 ray tracing cores does not appear to provide a meaningful advantage in this title, as the measured results show a linear scaling from Low to Ultra that is consistent with traditional rasterization loads. The GPU’s DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) ensures full feature compatibility, but the data suggests that The Medium does not heavily leverage these advanced features.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the frame rates are as follows:

• Low: 143.3 FPS
• Medium: 87.7 FPS
• High: 65.5 FPS
• Ultra: 51.5 FPS

The 1080p results show a clear tiering: Low is playable on high refresh rate monitors, Medium is the entry point for smooth 60+ FPS gameplay, and High/Ultra are for players who prefer visual quality over frame rate. The gap between Low and Medium is 55.6 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 22.2 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 14.0 FPS.

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 120.6 FPS
• Medium: 74.1 FPS
• High: 51.6 FPS
• Ultra: 41.6 FPS

The 1440p results show that Low is still a high-refresh option at 120.6 FPS, but Medium is the practical ceiling for 60+ FPS gameplay. High falls below the 60 FPS threshold, and Ultra is firmly in the 40s. The scaling from Medium to High costs 22.5 FPS, which is a 30.4% reduction — a significant penalty for one preset step.

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 93.8 FPS
• Medium: 57.5 FPS
• High: 41.2 FPS
• Ultra: 33.1 FPS

The 4K results reveal the GPU’s limits. Low is still playable at 93.8 FPS, but Medium dips below 60 FPS at 57.5 FPS. High and Ultra are not viable for smooth gameplay, with 41.2 FPS and 33.1 FPS respectively. The data clearly shows that 4K gaming with this combo requires either Low settings or a willingness to accept sub-60 FPS frame rates.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all presets, which confirms that the GPU is the limiting component. From 1080p Low (143.3 FPS) to 4K Low (93.8 FPS), there is a 34.5% reduction. From 1080p Medium (87.7 FPS) to 4K Medium (57.5 FPS), the drop is 34.4%. From 1080p High (65.5 FPS) to 4K High (41.2 FPS), the drop is 37.1%. From 1080p Ultra (51.5 FPS) to 4K Ultra (33.1 FPS), the drop is 35.7%.

These consistent percentage reductions (roughly one-third across all presets) indicate that the game scales resolution in a linear fashion with pixel count. The fact that the percentage drop is nearly identical regardless of preset suggests that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and compute resources are being utilized in a uniform manner. The 2.25x pixel count increase from 1080p to 4K results in an average FPS reduction of about 35%, which implies that the game is not purely pixel-bound — there is some efficiency gain at higher resolutions, likely from reduced CPU overhead per frame.

The limiting component is clearly the GPU. The i9-14900K has a boost clock of 6.00 GHz and 32 threads, and its PassMark single-thread score of 4697 is among the top tier. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7040 further confirms that it is not holding back frame delivery. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller FPS differences between 1080p and 1440p, but the data shows a consistent 15-20% drop at each resolution step.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run The Medium at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Only at Low settings, where it achieves 93.8 FPS. At Medium, the frame rate drops to 57.5 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold. High and Ultra are not playable at 4K, with 41.2 FPS and 33.1 FPS respectively.

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

A: Medium is the optimal choice, delivering 74.1 FPS. High drops to 51.6 FPS, which is below 60 FPS, and Ultra falls to 41.6 FPS. Low is also viable at 120.6 FPS if you prefer higher refresh rates over visual quality.

Q: Is the Intel Core i9-14900K bottlenecking the RX 9070 in this game?

A: No. The CPU’s synthetic scores are excellent — a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872 and a single-core score of 7040 — and the FPS scaling across resolutions is consistent with a GPU-bound workload. The CPU ranks in the 97th percentile among all CPUs.

Q: How much VRAM does this game need, and is 16 GB sufficient?

A: The RX 9070’s 16 GB GDDR6 memory is more than sufficient for The Medium. The card’s 644.6 GB/s bandwidth and 256-bit bus handle the game’s asset streaming without issue, even at 4K. The FPS drops at higher presets are due to compute load, not memory capacity.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: 51.5 FPS. This is playable but below the 60 FPS target. If you want a locked 60 FPS, you need to step down to High at 65.5 FPS or Medium at 87.7 FPS.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: It ranks 519th out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the 69th percentile. This is a solid mid-tier result, though the GPU’s 79th percentile ranking among all GPUs indicates that the card is the performance limiter in this specific game.