The Medium

# The Medium: Intel Core Ultra 7 155H + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti

This benchmark analysis examines the performance of the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti in The Medium, a horror title released in 2021. The data comes from measured FPS results across three resolutions and four quality settings, revealing interesting scaling patterns that highlight where this mobile CPU and desktop-class GPU combination excels and where it struggles. The combo ranks 1045 out of 2911 tested combinations, placing it in the upper-middle portion of the database.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a dramatic scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 126 FPS, which drops to 106 FPS at 1440p and further to 83 FPS at 4K. This represents a 34% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings. The Medium preset shows similar scaling: 79 FPS at 1080p, 66 FPS at 1440p, and 52 FPS at 4K — a 34% drop as well. High settings follow the pattern with 56 FPS at 1080p, 47 FPS at 1440p, and 37 FPS at 4K, representing a 34% decrease. Ultra settings show 45 FPS at 1080p, 38 FPS at 1440p, and 30 FPS at 4K, again a 33% reduction.

The consistency of these scaling percentages across all four quality presets is striking. Typically, games that are GPU-bound show more severe FPS drops at higher resolutions, while CPU-bound scenarios flatten the curve. Here, the uniform ~34% decline from 1080p to 4K suggests that both components are being taxed in a balanced manner. The RTX 5070 Ti, with its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory and 896.0 GB/s bandwidth, appears well-equipped to handle the increased pixel throughput at 4K, yet the FPS still falls by roughly one-third. This could indicate that the CPU, with its 16 cores and 22 threads, becomes a limiting factor as resolution climbs, or that the game engine itself has inherent scaling limitations.

At Ultra settings, the 4K result of 30 FPS is barely playable, while 1080p Ultra delivers 45 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at the same resolution is substantial: at 1080p, Low delivers 126 FPS versus 45 FPS at Ultra — a 181% advantage for Low. At 4K, Low achieves 83 FPS versus Ultra's 30 FPS, a 177% difference. This suggests that the Ultra preset imposes heavy rendering demands that cut performance nearly in half compared to High settings across all resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Examining the measured rows, the Medium preset appears to offer the most balanced experience. At 1080p, Medium delivers 79 FPS with a minimum of 67 FPS and maximum of 90 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Moving to 1440p, Medium still holds at 66 FPS with a minimum of 56 and maximum of 76. Even at 4K, Medium manages 52 FPS with a minimum of 44 and maximum of 60, which is borderline but workable for a slower-paced horror title.

The High preset, by comparison, shows a significant step down from Medium. At 1080p, High delivers 56 FPS versus Medium's 79 FPS — a 41% reduction. At 1440p, High drops to 47 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 37 FPS. The jump from Medium to High appears to introduce costly visual effects that severely impact performance without a proportional visual benefit, at least based on the frame rate data alone. The Medium preset's minimum FPS values (67 at 1080p, 56 at 1440p, 44 at 4K) suggest that even during demanding scenes, the combo maintains acceptable frame pacing.

For players targeting 4K, Low settings at 83 FPS provide the smoothest experience, though this sacrifices visual fidelity. The Ultra preset is difficult to recommend at any resolution: it delivers only 45 FPS at 1080p, 38 FPS at 1440p, and a mere 30 FPS at 4K. These numbers fall below what most players would consider acceptable for a game that relies on atmospheric tension and smooth camera movement. The data indicates that Medium at 1080p or 1440p represents the sweet spot, offering frame rates well above playable thresholds while presumably retaining meaningful visual quality. At 4K, players face a choice between Medium's 52 FPS and Low's 83 FPS, with Medium providing the better balance of fidelity and smoothness.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti brings substantial specifications to this pairing. Its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves critical at higher resolutions. The GPU's base clock runs at 2295 MHz with a boost clock of 2452 MHz, and its 8960 shading units process geometry and pixel data across 280 TMUs and 96 ROPs. The 70 RT cores and 280 tensor cores support the game's DirectX 12 Ultimate features, though the measured data does not isolate ray tracing effects.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49957. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 at 50001 (0.1% slower), the Intel Arc A550M at 49737 (0.4% slower), the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT at 50951 (2% faster), and the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT at 48477 (3.1% slower). These comparisons show the RTX 5070 Ti clustering with previous-generation flagship cards, though the game-specific results may differ from synthetic benchmarks.

The VRAM capacity of 16 GB likely prevents any memory-related bottlenecks in The Medium, even at 4K Ultra. The game, released in 2021, would not be expected to exhaust this allocation. The memory bandwidth of 896.0 GB/s provides ample headroom for the texture streaming and scene complexity typical of horror titles. The GPU's pixel rate of 235.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 686.6 GTexel/s indicate strong raw throughput capabilities, which the FPS data reflects at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the primary constraint.

At 1080p, the RTX 5070 Ti appears capable of pushing well beyond 126 FPS at Low settings, suggesting that the CPU or game engine limits performance at this resolution. The 16 GB VRAM and high bandwidth become more relevant at 4K, where the 30 FPS Ultra result and 83 FPS Low result demonstrate the GPU handling massive pixel workloads. The GPU's 43.94 TFLOPS FP32 performance provides the computational foundation for these results.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti achieves a rank of 1045 out of 2911 tested combos in The Medium. This places the pairing in the 64th percentile of all tested configurations, meaning roughly 36% of combos perform better. Given that the CPU is a mobile processor (with a 28 W TDP) paired with a desktop-class GPU (300 W TDP), this ranking reflects a notable imbalance in the pairing. The CPU's mobile nature likely holds back the full potential of the RTX 5070 Ti in this game.

The rank suggests that many combinations with more powerful desktop CPUs achieve higher frame rates, even if their GPUs are theoretically less capable than the RTX 5070 Ti. The data does not provide direct comparisons to other combos' FPS figures, so the exact performance gap cannot be quantified from the fact pack alone. However, the rank position indicates that this is not a top-tier combination for The Medium specifically — the game's performance characteristics may favor different hardware balances.

The GPU's synthetic benchmark percentile of 86 and the CPU's percentile of 83 both suggest capable components individually. Yet their combined rank in this game falls to the 64th percentile, implying that the pairing introduces inefficiencies. This could stem from the CPU's mobile design — its 28 W TDP and BGA 2049 socket indicate it is designed for laptops, and its performance may throttle under sustained gaming loads when paired with a high-end GPU. The rank of 1045 out of 2911 also indicates that a majority of tested combos achieve equal or better performance in The Medium, which is noteworthy given the RTX 5070 Ti's strength in synthetic benchmarks.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H features 16 cores and 22 threads, with base and boost clocks of 3.80 GHz and 4.80 GHz respectively. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache support the workload. The CPU's benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15028 and a single-core score of 1743, placing it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 32697. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-14600T at 32707 (0% difference), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 at 32662 (0.1% faster), the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F at 32750 (0.2% slower), and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H at 32812 (0.4% slower).

In The Medium, the CPU's role becomes evident when examining the FPS scaling across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 126 FPS. If the GPU were the sole bottleneck, we would expect this number to be much higher given the RTX 5070 Ti's capabilities. The fact that FPS drops by roughly 34% at each resolution step suggests the CPU maintains a significant influence on performance even at 4K. The 16-core, 22-thread configuration provides ample parallelism for the game's rendering threads, but the relatively modest boost clock of 4.80 GHz may limit single-threaded performance that some game engines rely upon.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, while lower than the GPU's 896.0 GB/s, still provides sufficient data throughput for game logic and physics. The dual-channel DDR5 support and PCIe Gen 5 interface (8 lanes CPU-only) ensure the CPU can communicate efficiently with the GPU. The CPU's PassMark multithread score of 24873 and single-thread score of 3468 indicate strong general-purpose performance, yet the game's specific demands may not align perfectly with this architecture. The 7 nm process node and Meteor Lake architecture represent Intel's mobile-focused design, which prioritizes power efficiency over raw performance — a tradeoff that becomes apparent when paired with a 300 W desktop GPU.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS this combo achieves in The Medium?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 126, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. At 2560x1440 Low, the average drops to 106 FPS, and at 3840x2160 Low, it reaches 83 FPS.

Q: Is the Medium preset playable at 4K with this hardware?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Medium settings, the combo delivers an average of 52 FPS with a minimum of 44 FPS and maximum of 60 FPS. While not reaching 60 FPS consistently, the minimum of 44 FPS remains above the threshold for playable performance in a horror title.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 Ti compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti has an average benchmark score of 49957. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 at 50001 (0.1% slower), Intel Arc A550M at 49737 (0.4% slower), AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT at 50951 (2% faster), and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT at 48477 (3.1% slower).

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among tested configurations in this game?

A: The combination of Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ranks 1045 out of 2911 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the upper-middle portion of the database.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 79 at 1920x1080 to 66 at 2560x1440 and finally to 52 at 3840x2160. This represents a 34% reduction from 1080p to 4K, consistent with the scaling observed at other quality presets.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more at 1080p Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 126 FPS average. Given the RTX 5070 Ti's synthetic benchmark percentile of 86 and the CPU's percentile of 83, the 126 FPS ceiling likely indicates CPU limitation, as the GPU would be expected to push higher frame rates at such modest settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data for this combo in The Medium spans three resolutions and four quality settings. At 1920x1080, the results show: Low settings deliver an average of 126 FPS, Medium delivers 79 FPS with a minimum of 67 and maximum of 90, High delivers 56 FPS, and Ultra delivers 45 FPS. At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low at 106 FPS, Medium at 66 FPS (minimum 56, maximum 76), High at 47 FPS, and Ultra at 38 FPS. At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low at 83 FPS, Medium at 52 FPS (minimum 44, maximum 60), High at 37 FPS, and Ultra at 30 FPS.

The minimum and maximum FPS values are only provided for the Medium preset at each resolution. At 1080p Medium, the frame rate ranges from 67 to 90 FPS, a spread of 23 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the range narrows to 56 to 76 FPS, a spread of 20 FPS. At 4K Medium, the range tightens further to 44 to 60 FPS, a spread of 16 FPS. This narrowing range at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU becomes more consistently utilized, reducing frame time variance. The absence of min/max data for other presets means conclusions about frame pacing stability can only be drawn for Medium settings.

The scaling between presets at each resolution follows a consistent pattern. At 1080p, moving from Low to Medium reduces FPS by 37%, Medium to High reduces by 29%, and High to Ultra reduces by 20%. At 1440p, the reductions are 38% from Low to Medium, 29% from Medium to High, and 19% from High to Ultra. At 4K, Low to Medium drops 37%, Medium to High drops 29%, and High to Ultra drops 19%. The diminishing percentage reductions at higher quality tiers suggest each successive preset adds less rendering cost than the previous one, which is typical of games where Ultra settings include expensive but marginal visual enhancements. The consistent scaling across resolutions reinforces that the game's performance profile remains stable regardless of pixel count, indicating well-balanced hardware utilization between the mobile CPU and desktop GPU.