The Medium

FAQ

Q: What is the combined ranking of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Intel Arc B580 in The Medium?

A: This combo ranks 2,191 out of 2,911 tested combinations, placing it in the lower-mid tier of systems for this specific title.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus scores nearly identically to the Intel Xeon 6520P (0% delta), while trailing the AMD EPYC 4564P by 1.5%, the AMD EPYC 9175F by 1.9%, and the AMD EPYC 4565P by 2.1% in average benchmark score.

Q: What is the GPU's performance percentile relative to all GPUs?

A: The Intel Arc B580 sits in the 68th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23,021. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP, scores 23,061 (0.2% higher), while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 scores 22,895 (0.6% lower).

Q: What are the CPU's core and thread counts, and clock speeds?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has 24 cores and 24 threads, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. It is built on a 3 nm process with 17,800 million transistors.

Q: What memory specifications does the GPU use?

A: The Intel Arc B580 features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 456.0 GB/s bandwidth. Its memory clock runs at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective).

Q: What is the best measured FPS at 1080p for this combo?

A: The highest average FPS recorded at 1920x1080 is 88 FPS on Low settings. Medium settings yield 55 FPS, High yields 40 FPS, and Ultra drops to 31 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The data places this pairing at rank 2,191 out of 2,911 tested combinations in The Medium. That is a percentile position of roughly 25% from the bottom — meaning about three-quarters of tested systems deliver higher frame rates in this game. The ranking is a direct reflection of the measured FPS across all resolution and settings combos, and it points to a fundamental bottleneck that becomes clearer as resolution rises.

The CPU alone is not the culprit. With a 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs and an average benchmark score of 93,785, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is an exceptionally strong processor. Its nearest rival, the Intel Xeon 6520P, scores 93,786 — essentially a tie. The AMD EPYC 4564P is just 1.5% ahead, and the other EPYC parts are within 2.1%. This is a top-tier CPU by any synthetic measure.

The GPU, however, is a different story. The Arc B580 sits in the 68th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 23,021. Its nearest rivals in the database are older or lower-tier cards: the RX 580 2048SP (23,061), RTX 2080 (22,895), RTX 3080 (23,172), and P106-100 (23,249). The deltas are tiny — within ±1% — which means the B580 is statistically indistinguishable from these cards in aggregate benchmarks. For a 2024 GPU, that places it in a crowded mid-range band, and The Medium's demands push it toward its limits.

The combination of a 96th-percentile CPU and a 68th-percentile GPU produces a system that is heavily GPU-limited in this title. The rank of 2,191 out of 2,911 does not reflect CPU capability; it reflects the reality that The Medium is a graphically intensive horror game that stresses the renderer more than the processor. This is the first clue that the Arc B580 is the defining component in this pairing.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the combo averages 88 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 74 FPS (a 16% reduction), and at 4K Low it falls to 58 FPS (a 34% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern is typical of a GPU-bound scenario: the CPU is not the limiting factor at lower resolutions, so the frame rate is dictated almost entirely by the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth.

The Medium settings show a more dramatic collapse. At 1080p Medium, the average is 55 FPS. At 1440p Medium, it drops to 47 FPS (a 14.5% reduction), and at 4K Medium, it plunges to 37 FPS (a 32.7% reduction from 1080p). The High preset is even harsher: 40 FPS at 1080p, 33 FPS at 1440p (a 17.5% drop), and 26 FPS at 4K (a 35% drop from 1080p). Ultra is the least playable, with 31 FPS at 1080p, 26 FPS at 1440p (a 16.1% drop), and 21 FPS at 4K (a 32.3% drop from 1080p).

The consistent pattern across all presets is that the jump from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 14–18% performance, while the jump from 1080p to 4K costs 32–35%. This is a classic GPU-limited scaling curve. A CPU-limited system would show much smaller FPS deltas between resolutions because the processor's workload does not change with pixel count. Here, the frame rate tracks pixel count almost linearly, confirming that the Arc B580's rendering throughput is the constraint.

The 4K Medium result is particularly telling: 37 FPS average with a minimum of 31 and a maximum of 42. That frame time variance suggests the GPU is working at its edge, and the game's fixed camera angles and pre-rendered elements do not help. The data implies that 4K gaming is only viable on the Low preset (58 FPS), and even then, it is borderline for a smooth experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a wide spread of results. Low settings produce an average of 88 FPS — the only preset that clears the 60 FPS threshold comfortably. Medium yields 55 FPS on average, with a minimum of 47 and a maximum of 64. High drops to 40 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 31 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 33 FPS, which is a massive jump for a single preset tier. This suggests that Medium enables effects that heavily tax the GPU, such as volumetric lighting or reflections.

At 2560x1440, the numbers shift down but the pattern holds. Low averages 74 FPS, still above 60. Medium averages 47 FPS (min 40, max 54), High averages 33 FPS, and Ultra averages 26 FPS. The delta between Low and Medium is 27 FPS. Notably, the 1440p Medium result (47 FPS) is only 8 FPS lower than the 1080p Medium result (55 FPS), indicating that the GPU is still managing the resolution increase at this preset.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly overwhelmed. Low averages 58 FPS, which is just under the 60 FPS target. Medium averages 37 FPS (min 31, max 42), High averages 26 FPS, and Ultra falls to 21 FPS. The 4K Low result is the only one that approaches playability, and even it is below the ideal threshold. The 4K Ultra result of 21 FPS is barely interactive, reinforcing that this combo is not designed for max-settings 4K gaming.

The minimum FPS data is only available for Medium settings at each resolution: 47 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 31 FPS at 4K. These minimums are within 5–6 FPS of the averages, indicating relatively stable frame pacing on Medium. The lack of min/max data for other presets suggests they were either too variable or too consistently poor to record.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture (Battlemage) with a 5 nm process from TSMC. It packs 19,600 million transistors on a 272 mm² die, with 2,560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. The GPU has 20 ray tracing cores, though The Medium's use of ray tracing is limited, so the RT hardware is not the primary factor in these results.

The GPU's clocks are unusual: both base and boost are 2670 MHz, which means the card runs at a fixed frequency under load. The memory clock is 2375 MHz, and with a 192-bit bus, the effective bandwidth is 456.0 GB/s. That bandwidth is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the fill rate and pixel throughput (213.6 GPixel/s) become the limiting factors. The FP32 performance is 13.67 TFLOPS, which is modest for a 2024 GPU and explains why the card sits in the 68th percentile.

In The Medium, the GPU's 12 GB VRAM is not the constraint — the game's requirements are well within that capacity. Instead, the rendering load is what drags performance down. The 4K Ultra result of 21 FPS indicates that the shader complexity and texture filtering at Ultra settings overwhelm the 2,560 shading units. The 1080p Low result of 88 FPS shows the card can perform well when the workload is light, but it has no headroom for higher presets.

The B580's nearest rival in the database, the RTX 2080, scores 0.6% lower in aggregate benchmarks. Yet in The Medium, the B580's 4K Ultra result (21 FPS) is far below what a 2080 would typically deliver in a 2021 title. This suggests that Intel's driver optimization for this specific game is suboptimal, or that the Xe2 architecture's fixed-function hardware does not map well to The Medium's rendering paths. The data does not show a fundamental hardware flaw — it shows a game-specific performance gap.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured FPS, the optimal experience depends on the target resolution. At 1080p, Low settings (88 FPS) are the only preset that delivers a high-refresh experience. Medium (55 FPS) is playable but not smooth, and High (40 FPS) and Ultra (31 FPS) are sub-60. For a horror game where atmosphere matters, Medium at 1080p strikes the best balance: 55 FPS average with a minimum of 47, which keeps frame pacing consistent enough for immersion.

At 1440p, Low (74 FPS) is the only preset that clears 60 FPS. Medium (47 FPS) is borderline, and High (33 FPS) and Ultra (26 FPS) are not recommended for a playable experience. The 1440p Medium result has a minimum of 40 FPS, which may cause noticeable stutter in fast camera transitions. For 1440p users, Low is the pragmatic choice.

At 4K, the situation is dire. Low (58 FPS) is the only preset that approaches playability, and it still falls short of 60. Medium (37 FPS), High (26 FPS), and Ultra (21 FPS) are all below acceptable thresholds. The data suggests that 4K gaming with this combo is only viable on the lowest settings, and even then, the experience is compromised.

The overall recommendation is to prioritize resolution over quality. The GPU's strengths are best utilized at 1080p, where Medium offers a playable frame rate with better visual fidelity than Low. At higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and dropping to Low is necessary to maintain any semblance of smoothness. The Medium preset at 1080p is the sweet spot for this combo, offering 55 FPS with a stable frame time range (47–64 FPS).

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, fabricated on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with 36 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU's memory support is DDR5 dual-channel, delivering 115.2 GB/s bandwidth. Its synthetic benchmark scores are exceptional: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44,253 and a single-core score of 2,439.

In The Medium, however, the CPU's role is secondary. The game is not CPU-intensive by modern standards, and the measured FPS scaling with resolution is a clear indicator of GPU limitation. The 1080p Low result of 88 FPS is the highest across all settings, and it is still well below what this CPU could theoretically deliver if the GPU were faster. The CPU's 96th percentile ranking among all processors means it is not the bottleneck in any of the measured scenarios.

The CPU's 24 threads are far more than The Medium can utilize. The game's fixed camera angles and scripted sequences do not scale well with thread count, so the CPU sits mostly idle while the GPU struggles. The PassMark multi-thread score of 68,574 and the data compression score of 804,322 indicate a processor that excels in content creation and productivity, not necessarily in gaming. For this title, the CPU's high single-core performance (5068 in PassMark single-thread) ensures that it can feed the GPU without stalling, but that is the extent of its contribution.

The launch MSRP of $299 for the CPU reflects its positioning as a high-end desktop part, but in The Medium, the user is paying for compute capability that goes unused. The data shows that swapping this CPU for a cheaper, lower-core-count part would likely produce identical frame rates in this game, as long as the GPU remains the same. The CPU's role is to avoid being a bottleneck, which it does admirably — but that is the minimum requirement, not a performance contributor.