The Medium

# The Medium: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

This combination delivers a thoroughly playable experience across all tested settings in The Medium, with the RTX 4090 providing substantial headroom even at 4K. The data shows a clear hierarchy: Medium settings offer the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate, while Ultra demands significant performance sacrifices that may not justify the visual gains. The combo ranks 41st out of 2,911 tested configurations, placing it in the top 1.4% of all systems evaluated for this title.

Settings Recommendations

Medium settings represent the optimal choice for this hardware pairing. At 4K, Medium delivers 87 FPS average with a minimum of 74 FPS and maximum of 101 FPS — comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay while maintaining respectable visual quality. The 74 FPS minimum ensures that even demanding scenes with multiple light sources and shadow calculations won't drop below playable levels. This is the only settings tier at 4K that provides both a recorded minimum and maximum, indicating consistent frame delivery throughout the benchmark run.

High settings at 4K drop to 63 FPS average, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes. The absence of a recorded minimum suggests the frame pacing may be less consistent than at Medium. Ultra settings at 4K fall to 50 FPS average, which dips below the ideal 60 FPS threshold for action-heavy sequences. Given that The Medium is a horror title where smooth camera movement is essential for atmosphere, the 37 FPS gap between Medium and Ultra at 4K is substantial. Low settings at 4K reach 140 FPS, but the visual degradation — reduced texture detail, simplified shadows, and lower draw distances — undermines the game's cinematic presentation.

At 1440p, Medium settings produce 111 FPS average with a 95 FPS minimum and 128 FPS maximum. This represents the sweet spot for high-refresh-rate displays, offering a 24 FPS advantage over High settings (80 FPS) and a 48 FPS advantage over Ultra (63 FPS). The 95 FPS minimum ensures that even the most particle-heavy sequences remain fluid. For users with 144Hz monitors, Medium at 1440p is the clear recommendation, as it stays within a reasonable range of the display's refresh ceiling.

At 1080p, Medium settings deliver 132 FPS average with a 112 FPS minimum and 152 FPS maximum. This is the only settings tier at 1080p that provides a full range of recorded frames, suggesting stable performance. High settings at 1080p (95 FPS) and Ultra (75 FPS) both remain playable, but Medium's 37 FPS advantage over High and 57 FPS advantage over Ultra make it the superior choice for competitive or high-refresh gameplay. Low settings hit 209 FPS, which exceeds most displays' capabilities and offers no practical benefit over Medium.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves rank 41 out of 2,911 tested combos for The Medium. This places the system in the 98.6th percentile of all configurations evaluated, meaning only 40 combinations performed better in this specific title. The ranking reflects not just raw GPU horsepower but also the CPU's ability to feed frames without bottlenecking — a critical factor in a game that uses fixed camera angles and complex scene transitions.

The CPU's benchmark scores reinforce its capability for gaming workloads. In Cinebench R23, the processor scores 44,253 multi-core and 2,439 single-core. The multi-core result is particularly relevant for The Medium, which uses asynchronous loading and multiple threads for its dual-reality mechanic. The Passmark multithread score of 68,574 and physics score of 4,064 indicate strong thread utilization, which helps maintain consistent frame delivery when the game renders two simultaneous perspectives.

Compared to its nearest CPU rivals, the Ultra 7 270K Plus shows competitive positioning. It matches the Intel Xeon 6520P exactly (0% delta), trails the AMD EPYC 4564P by 1.5%, and sits 1.9% behind the AMD EPYC 9175F and 2.1% behind the AMD EPYC 4565P. These differences are negligible in real-world gaming scenarios, where the RTX 4090's rendering workload dominates. The GPU's performance percentile of 88 versus the CPU's 96 indicates that the processor has more headroom relative to its peers than the graphics card does.

The GPU's benchmark results show strong synthetic performance, with a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9,223 and Passmark G3D score of 38,194. However, the GPU's nearest rivals in the database — the Intel Arc Pro A60 (0% delta), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (0.3% ahead), AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (2.5% behind), and AMD Radeon PRO V710 (2.9% ahead) — are professional workstation cards, not gaming-focused alternatives. This suggests the RTX 4090's gaming performance is substantially better than its raw benchmark average might indicate.

GPU Role

The RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is decisive for The Medium at high resolutions and settings. The game's dual-world rendering technique requires large texture sets to be held in VRAM simultaneously, and the 24 GB capacity ensures no texture streaming or swapping occurs even at 4K Ultra. The 1.01 TB/s bandwidth allows the GPU to feed its 16,384 shading units and 512 texture mapping units without starvation.

Clock speeds of 2,235 MHz base and 2,520 MHz boost are modest for a flagship GPU, but the Ada Lovelace architecture's efficiency compensates. The 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 compute throughput is the raw processing power that drives the game's lighting calculations and post-processing effects. The 128 RT cores handle the game's ray-traced reflections and shadows, though The Medium's implementation is not as demanding as fully ray-traced titles. The 512 tensor cores are available for DLSS, though the measured FPS data does not include DLSS-enabled results.

The GPU's 450W TDP and triple-slot cooler indicate substantial thermal capacity, which allows sustained boost clocks during extended gaming sessions. The 850W suggested PSU provides adequate headroom for transient power spikes. The pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s are the throughput limits that determine fill-rate-bound scenarios, such as the game's heavy use of volumetric fog and particle effects.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the performance envelope spans from 75 FPS at Ultra to 209 FPS at Low. Medium settings produce 132 FPS average (112 min, 152 max), High produces 95 FPS, and Ultra produces 75 FPS. The 57 FPS difference between Ultra and Medium is substantial, but the visual improvement at Ultra in The Medium is subtle due to the game's fixed camera angles and pre-baked lighting in many scenes.

At 1440p, the range compresses slightly: 63 FPS at Ultra, 80 FPS at High, 111 FPS at Medium (95 min, 128 max), and 178 FPS at Low. The Medium settings at 1440p show the best frame consistency, with the 33 FPS spread between minimum and maximum indicating stable performance. High and Ultra at this resolution lack recorded minimums, suggesting more variable frame delivery.

At 4K, the resolution's demands become apparent: 50 FPS at Ultra, 63 FPS at High, 87 FPS at Medium (74 min, 101 max), and 140 FPS at Low. The 4K Medium result is particularly notable — it maintains a 74 FPS minimum, which is 11 FPS higher than the 4K High average. This suggests that Medium settings at 4K are the optimal configuration for this resolution, providing smooth gameplay without the visual compromises of Low.

The scaling from Low to Ultra at each resolution shows the performance cost of each settings tier. At 1080p, Ultra costs 64% of Low's performance (75 vs 209 FPS). At 1440p, Ultra costs 65% (63 vs 178 FPS). At 4K, Ultra costs 64% (50 vs 140 FPS). This consistent ratio indicates that the settings tiers scale uniformly across resolutions, with the GPU remaining the primary bottleneck throughout.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this configuration. At Medium settings, performance falls from 132 FPS at 1080p to 111 FPS at 1440p (a 16% reduction) and then to 87 FPS at 4K (a 34% reduction from 1440p). The total 45 FPS drop from 1080p to 4K represents a 34% performance loss, which is less than the 75% pixel count increase (from 2.07 million to 8.29 million pixels). This sub-linear scaling indicates that the GPU has reserve bandwidth and compute capacity that becomes more utilized at higher resolutions.

At High settings, the scaling is steeper: 95 FPS at 1080p, 80 FPS at 1440p (16% drop), and 63 FPS at 4K (21% drop from 1440p). The 4K result at High (63 FPS) is 26% lower than 1080p High (95 FPS), demonstrating that High settings at 4K push closer to the GPU's limits. Ultra settings show the most severe scaling: 75 FPS at 1080p, 63 FPS at 1440p (16% drop), and 50 FPS at 4K (21% drop from 1440p). The 25 FPS difference between 1080p and 4K Ultra represents a 33% reduction.

Low settings exhibit the least resolution sensitivity: 209 FPS at 1080p, 178 FPS at 1440p (15% drop), and 140 FPS at 4K (21% drop from 1440p). The 4K Low result (140 FPS) is still higher than 1080p Ultra (75 FPS), confirming that settings have a more significant impact than resolution on this hardware. The resolution scaling pattern — roughly 15-16% drops from 1080p to 1440p and 21-34% drops from 1440p to 4K — indicates that the GPU remains the limiting component across all tested configurations.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gameplay on this hardware?

A: Medium settings at 4K produce 87 FPS average with a 74 FPS minimum, making it the only 4K preset that maintains consistent frame rates above 60 FPS. High settings fall to 63 FPS, and Ultra drops to 50 FPS, both of which risk dropping below smooth gameplay thresholds.

Q: How does this combination compare to other tested systems?

A: This combo ranks 41st out of 2,911 tested configurations, placing it in the top 1.4% of all systems. Only 40 other combinations delivered higher frame rates in The Medium, and the CPU matches its nearest rival, the Intel Xeon 6520P, with a 0% delta in average benchmark score.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more responsible for performance in this game?

A: The resolution scaling data indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck. FPS drops consistently as resolution increases, and the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are heavily utilized. The CPU's 96th percentile ranking versus the GPU's 88th percentile suggests the processor has more relative headroom.

Q: Does the RTX 4090's 24 GB of VRAM make a difference in this game?

A: The 24 GB capacity ensures the game's dual-world rendering technique can hold all required textures in memory simultaneously. This prevents texture popping or streaming stutters when the game switches between the two realities, contributing to the consistent frame delivery seen at Medium settings.

Q: What is the performance gap between Medium and Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p, Ultra delivers 75 FPS versus Medium's 132 FPS — a 57 FPS difference. At 1440p, the gap is 48 FPS (63 vs 111 FPS), and at 4K it narrows to 37 FPS (50 vs 87 FPS). The visual improvement from Medium to Ultra is often subtle in this game, making Medium the recommended setting.

Q: Can this hardware maintain 60 FPS at 4K with any settings preset?

A: Yes. Medium settings at 4K produce 87 FPS average with a 74 FPS minimum, and High settings achieve 63 FPS average. However, Ultra settings at 4K fall to 50 FPS average, which fails to maintain 60 FPS. Low settings at 4K reach 140 FPS but with significant visual compromises.