The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title built on Unreal Engine 4, presents a unique stress profile that shifts dramatically between resolutions. The benchmark data for the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti reveals a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher settings, but whose frame rate ceiling is still constrained by the CPU at lower presets. The measured results show a clear hierarchy: the RTX 5070 Ti’s raw throughput dominates at 4K, while the Ultra 5 225’s single-thread performance becomes the limiting factor only when graphical load is minimized.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and nonlinear, indicating a transition from a balanced load to a purely GPU-limited scenario. At Medium settings, the average frame rate falls from 113 FPS at 1920x1080 to 74 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of 34.5%. The gap widens further at Ultra settings, where the 1080p average of 64 FPS collapses to 42 FPS at 4K, a 34.4% decline. This consistent ~34% penalty across both presets suggests that the RTX 5070 Ti’s memory bandwidth and compute resources are the primary constraint, as the pixel count quadruples while the frame rate does not scale linearly.

More telling is the behavior at Low settings. At 1920x1080, the system achieves 180 FPS, but this drops to 152 FPS at 2560x1440 and then plummets to 119 FPS at 3840x2160. The relative drop from 1080p to 1440p is only 15.6%, which is smaller than the 21.7% drop seen from 1440p to 4K. This pattern indicates that at Low settings and 1080p, the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU has headroom to render frames faster than the Ultra 5 225 can feed it. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the frame rate falls more steeply.

The data shows that the RTX 5070 Ti is not fully utilized until the resolution reaches 4K. At 1440p High, the system produces 68 FPS, which is only 84% of the 81 FPS seen at 1080p High. This sub-linear scaling suggests that at 1080p High, the GPU is already near its limit, and the extra pixels at 1440p do not proportionally increase the workload due to the game’s fixed-camera rendering techniques. The 4K Ultra result of 42 FPS is the clearest indicator of the GPU’s absolute ceiling in this title, as the combination of high resolution and maximum settings leaves no room for CPU involvement.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is the dominant component in this configuration for The Medium. Its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for the game’s high-resolution textures and dual-world rendering mechanic. The benchmark results show that at 4K Medium, the system maintains 74 FPS with a minimum of 63 FPS and a maximum of 86 FPS, indicating that the memory subsystem is sufficient to avoid stutter even when the game is loading two scenes simultaneously.

The GPU’s clock behavior is also reflected in the scaling. With a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2452 MHz, the RTX 5070 Ti operates within a narrow frequency range, suggesting that thermal and power limits are not being exceeded. The 300 W TDP and the 700 W suggested PSU provide ample headroom for sustained boosts, but the benchmark results show that the card’s performance is more tied to its 8960 shading units and 70 RT cores than to clock frequency alone. The FP32 throughput of 43.94 TFLOPS is the key metric for rasterized scenes, and the data shows that this scales predictably with resolution.

The Low settings row at 4K (119 FPS) versus the High settings row at 4K (53 FPS) demonstrates the GPU’s sensitivity to shader complexity. The difference is 66 FPS, a 124% improvement from High to Low, which is far larger than the 27% improvement seen from Ultra to High at the same resolution. This indicates that the game’s Low preset disables or significantly reduces expensive post-processing effects and volumetric lighting, which are the primary consumers of GPU compute. The RTX 5070 Ti’s 280 TMUs and 96 ROPs are sufficient to handle the base geometry, but the pixel shading load at High and Ultra is what drives the frame rate down.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this combo at 1080p?

A: The highest recorded average is 180 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At Medium settings, the average drops to 113 FPS, while High yields 81 FPS and Ultra yields 64 FPS.

Q: Is the system CPU-bound or GPU-bound at 1440p Medium?

A: The 1440p Medium result of 95 FPS, with a minimum of 81 FPS and a maximum of 109 FPS, suggests a balanced load. The CPU is not the primary bottleneck, as the frame rate scales down from the 1080p Medium result of 113 FPS by 15.9%, which is close to the expected GPU workload increase.

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

A: The 4K Ultra average is 42 FPS, which is 32 FPS lower than the 4K Medium average of 74 FPS. This represents a 43.2% reduction in frame rate, indicating that the Ultra preset nearly doubles the GPU workload compared to Medium.

Q: Does the 16 GB VRAM ever become a limiting factor?

A: The benchmark data does not show any signs of VRAM exhaustion, as the minimum frame rates at 4K Medium (63 FPS) and 1440p Medium (81 FPS) do not exhibit the sudden drops typically associated with memory overflow. The 896.0 GB/s bandwidth appears sufficient for all tested settings.

Q: What is the frame time consistency at 1080p Medium?

A: The 1080p Medium result shows an average of 113 FPS with a minimum of 96 FPS and a maximum of 130 FPS. The 17 FPS spread between minimum and average indicates some variance, but the minimum is still 85% of the average, suggesting acceptable consistency.

Q: Is there a significant performance jump from High to Ultra?

A: No. The data shows a modest step from High to Ultra across all resolutions. At 1080p, High produces 81 FPS and Ultra produces 64 FPS, a 21% drop. At 1440p, the drop is from 68 FPS to 54 FPS, a 20.6% decline. At 4K, High produces 53 FPS and Ultra produces 42 FPS, a 20.8% decline.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti combination ranks 209th out of 2911 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the top 7.2% of all configurations, which is a strong result given the game’s demanding rendering pipeline. The rank is likely driven by the GPU’s high percentile standing (86th percentile vs all GPUs) rather than the CPU, which sits at the 85th percentile. The offset between these percentiles suggests that the GPU is the primary contributor to this ranking.

The CPU’s nearest rivals, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F and AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D, have average benchmark scores within 0.2% of the Ultra 5 225. This indicates that the CPU is not a differentiator in this game, as its compute capabilities are sufficient to feed the RTX 5070 Ti at all but the lowest settings. The GPU’s nearest rivals, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 and Intel Arc A550M, have average scores within 0.4% of the RTX 5070 Ti, but these are older or lower-tier parts that would likely produce significantly lower frame rates in The Medium due to architectural differences.

The fact that the combo ranks 209th out of 2911 combos means that there are 208 configurations that produce better results in this specific game. Given the RTX 5070 Ti’s 86th percentile ranking, these superior combos almost certainly feature higher-end CPUs that can push frame rates higher at 1080p Low, where the Ultra 5 225 is the bottleneck. At 4K and higher settings, the GPU is the limiting factor, so the ranking is more about the GPU’s absolute performance than the CPU’s contribution.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the Medium preset at 1440p offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. The 95 FPS average with an 81 FPS minimum is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and the 109 FPS maximum indicates that the system has headroom for occasional heavy scenes. At 1080p, the Medium preset is also excellent, producing 113 FPS with a 96 FPS minimum, but the visual fidelity at 1440p is noticeably higher without sacrificing playability.

For users prioritizing frame rate over visuals, the Low preset at 1080p is the only option that fully utilizes the CPU, achieving 180 FPS. However, this leaves the RTX 5070 Ti significantly underutilized, as the GPU could likely render more complex scenes at the same frame rate. The High preset at 1080p (81 FPS) is a middle ground, but it does not offer a substantial visual improvement over Medium to justify the 32 FPS drop.

At 4K, the Medium preset is the only viable option for consistent play, with 74 FPS. The High preset at 4K drops to 53 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target, and Ultra at 42 FPS is only suitable for cinematic viewing rather than interactive play. The data suggests that the Medium preset at 1440p is the sweet spot, as it provides a 60% higher frame rate than 4K Medium while still delivering a high-resolution image.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces the following average frame rates: Low settings achieve 180 FPS, Medium settings achieve 113 FPS with a minimum of 96 FPS and a maximum of 130 FPS, High settings achieve 81 FPS, and Ultra settings achieve 64 FPS. The 1080p results show a clear progression where each preset step reduces performance by approximately 30%, with the exception of the Low-to-Medium step, which reduces FPS by 37%.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low at 152 FPS, Medium at 95 FPS (minimum 81 FPS, maximum 109 FPS), High at 68 FPS, and Ultra at 54 FPS. The 1440p results show a steeper drop from Low to Medium (37.5% reduction) than from Medium to High (28.4% reduction), indicating that the Medium preset introduces a significant shader load. The High-to-Ultra step at 1440p is only 20.6%, which is consistent with the 1080p trend.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low at 119 FPS, Medium at 74 FPS (minimum 63 FPS, maximum 86 FPS), High at 53 FPS, and Ultra at 42 FPS. The 4K results show the largest absolute differences between presets, with a 45 FPS gap between Low and Medium. The Medium preset’s minimum of 63 FPS is the key metric, as it indicates that the system does not drop below playable thresholds even during heavy scenes.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 has 10 cores and 10 threads, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. In The Medium, the CPU’s role is primarily to manage the game’s fixed-camera logic and AI routines, which are single-threaded in nature. The benchmark data shows that the CPU is the bottleneck only at 1080p Low, where the GPU can produce 180 FPS, but the CPU cannot sustain higher frame rates due to its single-core performance ceiling.

The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3655 and multi-core score of 25891 provide context for this behavior. The single-core score is high enough to drive the 180 FPS result at 1080p Low, but the frame rate does not increase beyond this point, suggesting that the game’s draw call submission is limited by the CPU’s single-thread throughput. At higher settings, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the CPU’s 10 cores are sufficient to maintain frame times without stutter.

The CPU’s 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache are adequate for this game’s working set, as the minimum frame rates do not show signs of cache thrashing. The 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth from dual-channel DDR5 is also sufficient, as the game does not appear to be memory-bandwidth limited at any tested resolution. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and 3 nm process node contribute to efficient operation, but the benchmark results indicate that the Ultra 5 225 is not the primary driver of performance in this configuration; it simply provides a stable foundation for the RTX 5070 Ti to operate at its full potential.