The Medium

# The Medium with Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER in The Medium delivers playable but heavily resolution-dependent performance, with the GPU acting as the clear bottleneck at higher settings. The data shows a system that handles 1080p Low comfortably at 101 FPS average, yet drops to just 24 FPS at 4K Ultra — a span of 77 FPS across the tested spectrum. This pairing ranks 1648th out of 2911 tested combos in this game, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database. The RTX 2070 SUPER, an end-of-life Turing part with 8 GB GDDR6, is the limiting factor for this horror title, while the 24-core Arrow Lake Refresh CPU has ample headroom at every resolution tested.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS degradation from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, revealing a GPU-bound workload. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 101 FPS at 1920x1080 to 85 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 67 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 33.7% drop from 1080p to 4K. At Medium settings, the progression is 63 FPS at 1080p, 53 FPS at 1440p, and 42 FPS at 4K — a 33.3% reduction. High settings show 45 FPS at 1080p, 38 FPS at 1440p, and 30 FPS at 4K, a 33.3% decline. Ultra settings are the most demanding: 36 FPS at 1080p, 30 FPS at 1440p, and 24 FPS at 4K, again a 33.3% drop.

The uniformity of these percentage drops — roughly one-third across all settings — is a strong indicator that the rendering load scales predictably with pixel count, and that the GPU is saturated at every quality level. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are the physical constraints here. The CPU, with its 5.80 GHz boost clock and 24 threads, is not the limiting component; if it were, the 1080p-to-4K scaling would show a much flatter curve at lower resolutions, where CPU overhead typically dominates in less demanding scenes.

The most striking observation is that even at 1080p Low, the system only reaches 101 FPS average. This is not a high-refresh-rate setup. The Medium's fixed-camera horror presentation may mask some of this, but the numbers indicate that the RTX 2070 SUPER is working near its ceiling even at the least demanding settings. Between Low and Ultra at the same resolution, the FPS delta is substantial: 65 FPS at 1080p (101 to 36), 55 FPS at 1440p (85 to 30), and 43 FPS at 4K (67 to 24). The GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 256-bit memory bus are likely contributors to this compression of performance at higher quality presets.

The 4K Ultra result of 24 FPS average is below the threshold for smooth play, and even 4K Medium at 42 FPS is marginal. The data suggests that 1440p Medium (53 FPS) or 1080p High (45 FPS) are the practical ceilings for consistent frame delivery. The min FPS readings at Medium settings — 54 at 1080p, 45 at 1440p, and 35 at 4K — show that frame pacing remains stable even when the average dips, but the absolute values at 4K are too low for comfortable play.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on Arrow Lake Refresh, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz with a boost of 5.80 GHz, and it carries 36 MB of shared L3 cache along with 3 MB of L2 per core. This is a desktop-class part with a 125 W TDP, designed for heavy multithreaded workloads. In The Medium, however, the CPU's role is minimal because the game's rendering demands outstrip what the RTX 2070 SUPER can deliver.

Benchmark data for the CPU shows exceptional synthetic performance: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and single-core score of 7303. The PassMark multithread score is 60860, with a single-thread score of 4823. These figures place the CPU in the 96th percentile of all tested processors, with an average benchmark score of 84003. Its nearest rival is the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at 83807 (only 0.2% lower), and it leads the AMD EPYC 9135 by 1.2%. This is a top-tier processor by any synthetic measure.

Yet in The Medium, this CPU headroom goes largely unused. The game's measured FPS at 1080p Low is 101 FPS average, which is not CPU-limited for a processor capable of 7303 in Cinebench R23 single-core. Even at 4K Ultra, where the GPU is clearly saturated at 24 FPS, the CPU is not the constraint. The data pattern — where FPS drops by the same percentage from 1080p to 4K regardless of settings — confirms that the workload is pixel-bound, not thread-bound.

The 24-core configuration with 24 threads (no hyperthreading) is more than sufficient for a game like The Medium, which likely uses only a handful of threads for gameplay logic and rendering commands. The CPU's 5.80 GHz boost clock ensures that even single-threaded bottlenecks would be minimized. The PassMark physics score of 3315 and data compression score of 698346 further indicate a processor that excels at varied workloads, but none of this translates to higher FPS in this title because the GPU is the wall.

The socket is Intel Socket 1851, and the CPU supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel configuration and 115.2 GB/s bandwidth. This memory bandwidth is adequate for feeding the GPU, but again, the RTX 2070 SUPER's own 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is the more relevant figure for game performance. The CPU's integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU is present but irrelevant when a discrete GPU is installed.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks 1648th out of 2911 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the 43rd percentile of all configurations — slightly below the median. The rank is surprising given the CPU's strength, but it underscores how heavily the GPU drags this pairing down in this specific game.

To contextualize: the CPU alone sits in the 96th percentile of all processors, while the GPU sits in the 65th percentile of all graphics cards. The combo rank of 1648/2911 reflects the GPU's weaker standing. A 24-core CPU with 51731 in Cinebench R23 multi-core is paired with a GPU that scores 18169 in PassMark G3D and 1651 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. The GPU's percentile of 65 means it outperforms roughly two-thirds of all GPUs, but that leaves a third faster, and in a GPU-bound game like The Medium, that matters more than CPU rank.

The nearest GPU rivals illustrate the competition: the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M scores 20480 (1% higher), the RTX 3070 Mobile scores 20534 (1.2% higher), and the Intel Arc B570 scores 20556 (1.3% higher). These are all within a few percentage points, meaning the RTX 2070 SUPER is clustered with mid-range parts from multiple generations and vendors. None of these rivals would dramatically change the game's performance profile.

The rank of 1648 suggests that many combos with slower CPUs but faster GPUs would outperform this pairing in The Medium. For a CPU that costs more than many complete systems (though we cannot discuss pricing), this is a lopsided match. The data shows that the RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB VRAM and 9.062 TFLOPS are the ceiling, and no amount of CPU horsepower can push past that. The combo percentile is a verdict: this is a mid-pack configuration for The Medium, not a high-end one.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers four resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), with average FPS for all and min/max only for Medium settings. The Medium settings include min and max FPS, providing insight into frame pacing.

At 1920x1080: Low averages 101 FPS. Medium averages 63 FPS, with a min of 54 and max of 72. High averages 45 FPS. Ultra averages 36 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 65 FPS, a 64.4% reduction. Medium's min-to-max range of 54-72 shows a 33% variance, indicating some scene-dependent swings but no severe stuttering.

At 2560x1440: Low averages 85 FPS. Medium averages 53 FPS, with a min of 45 and max of 61. High averages 38 FPS. Ultra averages 30 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra gap is 55 FPS, a 64.7% reduction. The Medium min of 45 FPS is above playable thresholds but close to the edge for smooth action. The 16 FPS spread between min and max at Medium settings is narrower than at 1080p, suggesting more consistent frame delivery at higher resolution.

At 3840x2160: Low averages 67 FPS. Medium averages 42 FPS, with a min of 35 and max of 48. High averages 30 FPS. Ultra averages 24 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra gap is 43 FPS, a 64.2% reduction. The Medium min of 35 FPS is below 60 FPS and is a clear indicator that 4K is not viable for this GPU in this game. The max of 48 FPS at Medium is still below the 60 FPS target.

Comparing across resolutions at the same setting: Low at 1080p is 101 FPS, at 1440p is 85, and at 4K is 67. Medium goes 63, 53, 42. High goes 45, 38, 30. Ultra goes 36, 30, 24. The consistency of the percentage drop (roughly 15-16% from 1080p to 1440p, then another 20-21% from 1440p to 4K) confirms a predictable scaling pattern. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB VRAM is likely a factor at 4K, where texture and buffer requirements exceed what the card can efficiently handle, though the data does not directly measure VRAM usage.

The highest measured average is 101 FPS at 1080p Low, which is the only result above 100 FPS. The lowest is 24 FPS at 4K Ultra. The spread between these extremes is 77 FPS. For a horror game like The Medium, which relies on atmosphere and fixed camera angles, 45 FPS at 1080p High may be acceptable to some, but the data does not make value judgments — it reports numbers.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is a Turing-architecture GPU built on a 12 nm process by TSMC, with 13,600 million transistors on a 545 mm² die. It has 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, 64 ROPs, 40 RT cores, and 320 tensor cores. Its base clock is 1605 MHz with a boost of 1770 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) across an 8 GB GDDR6 bus of 256 bits, yielding 448.0 GB/s bandwidth. The card's FP32 throughput is 9.062 TFLOPS, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

In The Medium, the GPU's role is dominant. The 4K Ultra result of 24 FPS average is a clear sign that the card is overwhelmed at maximum settings. Even at 1080p Ultra, the 36 FPS average is below the 60 FPS target. The GPU's 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20282, places it in the mid-range of the current landscape. Its nearest rivals — the Quadro M4000M at 20480, RTX 3070 Mobile at 20534, and Arc B570 at 20556 — are all within 1.5% of its score, indicating that the RTX 2070 SUPER is not competitive with modern mid-range GPUs.

The 8 GB VRAM is a likely constraint at 4K, where The Medium's high-resolution textures can exceed that capacity, but the data does not directly measure VRAM usage. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is moderate by modern standards, and the 256-bit bus limits memory throughput. The card's 215 W TDP and dual-slot design with 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin power connectors indicate a power-hungry part, but power consumption is not a performance metric.

The GPU's PassMark scores show a G3D score of 18169 and a compute score of 7557. DirectX 11 score is 151, DirectX 12 score is 67, DirectX 10 is 132, and DirectX 9 is 223. These legacy scores are not directly comparable to game FPS, but they reinforce that the card is a mid-tier performer. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1651 is a more modern benchmark and places the card in the lower range of contemporary GPUs.

The GPU's performance in The Medium is consistent with its synthetic scores: it can handle 1080p Low at 101 FPS, but it cannot sustain high frame rates at higher settings. The 30 FPS result at 4K High and 24 FPS at 4K Ultra are below playable thresholds for most users. The RTX 2070 SUPER is the bottleneck in this pairing, and the data makes this unambiguous.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and setting combo for this system in The Medium?

A: Based on the measured FPS, 1920x1080 Low at 101 FPS average is the smoothest option. For higher visual quality, 2560x1440 Medium at 53 FPS average (min 45, max 61) offers a balance between fidelity and playability. 3840x2160 Medium at 42 FPS is the highest 4K result that stays above 30 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is the clear bottleneck. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and sits in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, while the RTX 2070 SUPER scores 18169 in PassMark G3D and sits in the 65th percentile. The consistent FPS drops across resolutions confirm GPU-bound performance.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested configurations?

A: It ranks 1648th out of 2911 combos in The Medium, placing it in the lower-middle tier. The CPU's high percentile (96th) is offset by the GPU's mid-range standing (65th percentile), resulting in a below-median combo rank.

Q: What are the minimum FPS values at Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the min FPS is 54. At 1440p Medium, it is 45. At 4K Medium, it is 35. These minimums show that frame pacing is stable but that 4K Medium can dip below 40 FPS.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in The Medium?

A: Only at Low settings, where it averages 67 FPS. At Medium, it drops to 42 FPS, at High to 30 FPS, and at Ultra to 24 FPS. The 8 GB VRAM and 9.062 TFLOPS of the RTX 2070 SUPER are insufficient for smooth 4K at higher quality presets.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: Its average benchmark score is 20282, with the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M at 20480 (1% higher), RTX 3070 Mobile at 20534 (1.2% higher), and Intel Arc B570 at 20556 (1.3% higher). All are within 1.5% of each other, indicating a tightly clustered mid-range performance tier.