The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title with demanding volumetric and lighting effects, presents a significant challenge for the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H and AMD Radeon 880M combination. This pairing ranks at position 2843 out of 2911 tested combos in this specific game, placing it in the bottom percentile of systems evaluated. The data indicates that this integrated graphics solution, while modern, is positioned at the lower end of the performance spectrum for this particular workload, with only 68 tested configurations ranking below it.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 2843 out of 2911 places it firmly in the lower echelons of tested hardware pairings for The Medium. This position is largely attributable to the GPU’s overall benchmark standing; the AMD Radeon 880M sits at the 43rd percentile among all GPUs in the database. This means that more than half of all other graphics solutions tested generally outperform it, which is a critical factor in a game as graphically intensive as this one.

The CPU, in contrast, performs relatively better in a vacuum. The Intel Core Ultra 5 125H ranks at the 79th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27507. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800, scores 27535, a negligible 0.1% difference. Similarly, it trails the Intel Core i5-12600K and AMD Ryzen 7 5700X by just 0.3%, but leads the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 5355G by 0.5%. This data suggests the processor is not the primary bottleneck in most scenarios, but the immense performance gap between the CPU and GPU components creates an imbalance that heavily skews the final result toward the graphics card's capabilities.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 880M is an integrated graphics processor built on the RDNA 3.5 architecture, manufactured on a 4 nm process by TSMC. It operates with a base clock of 400 MHz and a boost clock of 2900 MHz. The chip itself is substantial, containing 34,000 million transistors on a 233 mm² die. Its memory configuration is entirely system-dependent, sharing the main system memory for both capacity and bandwidth, which is a common characteristic of integrated graphics and a key performance limiter compared to dedicated VRAM.

In terms of its processing power, the 880M features 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 16 raster operation pipelines. It also includes 12 ray tracing cores, capable of supporting DirectX 12 Ultimate features. The theoretical peak performance is measured at 4.454 TFLOPS for FP32 operations, with a pixel rate of 46.40 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 139.2 GTexel/s. These specifications, while respectable for an iGPU, are far below what dedicated gaming GPUs offer.

The benchmark results for the GPU itself show a mixed profile. Its Passmark G3D score is 7615, which places it in the 43rd percentile, with an average benchmark score of 8436. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX, which scores 8427, a 0.1% difference, and the NVIDIA GeForce MX330 at 8458, which is 0.3% faster. It also outperforms the AMD Radeon HD 8870M by 0.3% and the AMD Radeon R9 M375X by 1.3%. While it does have a strong Geekbench Vulkan score of 40006, its Passmark DirectX 11 score of 73 and DirectX 12 score of 32 indicate that its real-world gaming performance, particularly under modern API loads, is limited.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows how the system’s performance scales as resolution increases, revealing where the bottleneck lies. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 43 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings, the average drops to 36 FPS, a decrease of 7 FPS or roughly 16%. Finally, at 3840x2160, the average falls to 28 FPS, another 8 FPS drop from the 1440p result.

This scaling pattern is telling. The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is not proportional to the increase in pixel count, which would suggest a severe bottleneck. Instead, the relatively modest decline in FPS as resolution increases points towards the CPU and memory subsystem being strained even at lower resolutions. The system is likely unable to feed the GPU fast enough, meaning that the GPU is not the sole limiting factor at 1080p; however, at 4K, the GPU’s raw fill-rate and compute limits become more dominant. The fact that 1080p Low yields only 43 FPS, a figure that is not high for a lower-resolution setting, strongly suggests the CPU and shared memory are already holding the system back before the GPU is fully saturated.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The data provides a clear picture of performance across resolutions and settings. At 3840x2160, the system is largely unplayable. Ultra settings yield an average of 10 FPS, High settings produce 13 FPS, and Medium settings reach 18 FPS, with a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 20. Even dropping to Low settings only raises the average to 28 FPS, which is still below the threshold for smooth gameplay.

At 2560x1440, the situation improves but remains challenging. Ultra settings average 13 FPS, and High settings average 16 FPS. Medium settings achieve an average of 22 FPS, with a minimum of 19 and a maximum of 26 FPS. Low settings provide a more playable 36 FPS average, though this is still short of a locked 60 FPS experience.

The most viable performance is found at 1920x1080. Here, Ultra settings average 15 FPS, and High settings average 19 FPS. Medium settings produce an average of 27 FPS, with a minimum of 23 and a maximum of 31 FPS. Low settings are the only configuration that approaches a comfortable playability threshold, with an average of 43 FPS. The data shows a consistent trend: each step down in settings yields a significant FPS gain, and each step down in resolution also provides a noticeable improvement, but the overall performance ceiling is low.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the only configuration that offers a consistently playable experience is 1920x1080 with Low settings, which averages 43 FPS. This is the only row in the data that approaches the 60 FPS mark, though it still falls short. While this frame rate is not ideal for fast-paced action, it is the most fluid option available for The Medium on this hardware.

For players who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate, the 2560x1440 Low setting, at 36 FPS, is a secondary option. However, this represents a 7 FPS loss compared to the 1080p Low setting, with a negligible visual improvement on most displays. The Medium settings at 1080p, averaging 27 FPS, could be considered for a more cinematic experience, but the drop from 43 to 27 FPS is substantial and may introduce noticeable stutter. The High and Ultra presets are not recommended at any resolution, as they consistently produce frame rates below 20 FPS, which is not conducive to a playable experience in a game that relies on atmospheric tension and timing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 125H is a 14-core, 18-thread processor based on the Meteor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.50 GHz, with a TDP of 28 W. The CPU’s cache hierarchy includes 112 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 cache. Its memory bandwidth is listed as 89.6 GB/s, which is shared with the integrated GPU.

Benchmark results show the CPU is a competent performer in general tasks. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 12804.5, and its single-core score is 1647.5. In Passmark tests, it scores 21100 in multithreaded performance and 3399 in single-threaded performance. Its Passmark data compression score is 236209, and its floating-point math score is 51670. These figures place it in the 79th percentile of all CPUs, indicating a solid mid-to-high-range performer for productivity.

However, in the context of The Medium, the CPU’s role is complex. The game’s fixed-camera angles and detailed scenes can be demanding on the CPU for draw calls. The data suggests that the CPU is not entirely idle. At 1080p Low, the system only achieves 43 FPS, which is not indicative of a GPU that is completely maxed out. This points to the CPU, or more likely the shared memory bandwidth, acting as a co-bottleneck. The 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth is shared between the CPU cores and the GPU, and the 880M’s need for system memory as VRAM likely saturates this bus, starving the CPU of the data it needs to feed the GPU. This creates a feedback loop where neither component can reach its full potential, capping overall performance at a relatively low level.

FAQ

Q: Is this system capable of running The Medium at 4K?

A: Technically, yes, but not at a playable frame rate. The data shows an average of 28 FPS at 3840x2160 on Low settings, and just 10 FPS on Ultra settings. These figures are far below the threshold for a smooth gaming experience.

Q: What is the best settings preset for this hardware?

A: The only preset that yields an average FPS in the 40s is 1920x1080 with Low settings, achieving 43 FPS. All other tested settings and resolution combinations produce average frame rates of 36 FPS or lower.

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

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 125H has an average benchmark score of 27507. It is effectively tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800, which scores 27535, and is 0.3% slower than the Intel Core i5-12600K. It is 0.5% faster than the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 5355G.

Q: What is the GPU's overall standing in the benchmark database?

A: The AMD Radeon 880M holds a 43rd percentile rank among all GPUs. Its average benchmark score is 8436, which is slightly below the NVIDIA GeForce MX330’s score of 8458.

Q: Why is the frame rate so low even at 1080p Low settings?

A: The data indicates a likely bottleneck beyond just the GPU. The integrated GPU shares system memory, and the CPU’s 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth is shared as well. This shared resource is likely saturated, preventing both the CPU and GPU from operating at their full potential.

Q: Does the system have dedicated video memory?

A: No. The AMD Radeon 880M’s memory size, type, and bus width are all listed as "System Shared," meaning it relies entirely on the system's main memory for graphics data, with bandwidth that is "System Dependent."