The Medium

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 paired with the Intel Arc B390 ranks 3314 out of 3724 tested combos for The Medium. That places this configuration in the bottom 11% of all recorded combinations, a result driven almost entirely by the graphics side. The CPU itself is a strong performer, sitting in the 78th percentile against all processors, but the Intel Arc B390 sits in just the 9th percentile against all GPUs. The database shows a profound imbalance: a top-quartile processor shackled to a GPU that ranks lower than nearly every other graphics card measured.

Benchmark results indicate this combo cannot clear the 60 FPS playable threshold at any resolution, even at Low settings. The best recorded result is 51 FPS average at 1920x1080 Low, still 9 FPS short of the playability line. At higher resolutions the deficit widens dramatically. This is not a configuration that merely struggles at max settings; it fails to reach playable frame rates even at the lowest graphical preset.

The CPU's benchmark scores reinforce the idea that the processor is not the limiting factor. Its average benchmark score of 26324 puts it nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX (26274, 0.2% faster) and slightly ahead of the Intel Core i9-11900KF (26212, 0.4% faster). In multi-threaded work, the Cinebench R23 multicore score of 12735 and Geekbench multicore score of 13413 demonstrate ample headroom for gaming workloads. The Arc B390, by contrast, delivers a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of only 1482, placing it in the company of decade-old integrated and entry-level discrete GPUs. The data clearly shows the GPU is the bottleneck in every scenario.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, no setting reaches 60 FPS. The most demanding preset that comes closest is Low, which averages 34 FPS. Medium averages 21 FPS with a minimum of 18 and maximum of 24. High drops to 15 FPS, and Ultra falls to 12 FPS. None of these are remotely close to the playable threshold.

At 2560x1440, the situation improves slightly but remains far from playable. Low averages 43 FPS, Medium averages 27 FPS with a range of 23 to 31, High averages 19 FPS, and Ultra averages 15 FPS. Again, no preset reaches 60 FPS, and the best option, Low, still leaves a 17 FPS gap.

At 1920x1080, Low produces the highest average of any resolution and preset combination: 51 FPS. Medium averages 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 and maximum of 37, High averages 23 FPS, and Ultra averages 18 FPS. Even the best case falls short of the 60 FPS threshold by 9 FPS. The recorded data shows no playable settings at any resolution for this combination.

CPU and GPU Roles

The division of labor is stark. The Ryzen 5 7600, with 6 cores and 12 threads on Zen 4 architecture, provides more than enough compute for The Medium. Its single-thread performance, measured at 999 in 3DMark single-thread and 1852 in Cinebench R23 single-core, is far above what a horror game of this type requires. The GPU, however, is the clear constraint at every resolution.

The scaling between resolutions confirms this. Moving from 1920x1080 Low (51 FPS) to 2560x1440 Low (43 FPS) is a 16% drop, and further to 3840x2160 Low (34 FPS) is another 21% drop. These reductions are consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where increasing pixel count directly reduces frame rate. The CPU's workload does not change significantly with resolution, yet the frame rate falls proportionally, pointing squarely at the Arc B390's limited pixel throughput of 60.00 GPixel/s and texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s.

Preset scaling tells the same story. At 1920x1080, jumping from Low (51 FPS) to Medium (32 FPS) is a 37% reduction, and from Medium to High (23 FPS) another 28% reduction. The GPU's 1536 shading units and 48 texture mapping units simply cannot sustain higher-quality rendering. The CPU's role becomes nearly irrelevant beyond ensuring the GPU has data to process. In this configuration, the Ryzen 5 7600 is never the cause of a frame rate drop; the Arc B390 hits its ceiling long before the processor breaks a sweat.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at the CPU's nearest rivals, the Ryzen 5 7600 performs almost identically to the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX (0.2% faster), the AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS (0.3% slower), the Intel Core i9-11900KF (0.4% faster), and the AMD Ryzen 5 8540U (0.5% faster). Any of these processors would produce the same frame rates in The Medium when paired with the same GPU, since the graphics card is the limiting factor. The differences are within measurement noise.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals are far less encouraging. The Intel Arc B390 scores 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it just ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463, 1.3% slower), the NVIDIA GeForce 800M (1460, 1.5% slower), the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5% slower), and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 (1443, 2.7% slower). These are all entry-level or legacy parts, and the benchmark results indicate the Arc B390 would perform nearly indistinguishably from them in this game. Someone swapping the Arc B390 for a GT 710 would see essentially the same frame rates, all of them far below the 60 FPS threshold.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the recorded data shows the following averages: Ultra 12 FPS, High 15 FPS, Medium 21 FPS (minimum 18, maximum 24), and Low 34 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 13 FPS, which is the largest single preset jump at this resolution, indicating that Medium settings impose a heavy additional load on the GPU's limited resources.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Ultra 15 FPS, High 19 FPS, Medium 27 FPS (minimum 23, maximum 31), and Low 43 FPS. The jump from Medium to Low is 16 FPS, again the largest step, showing that the Arc B390 benefits disproportionately from reducing texture and shading quality. The minimum and maximum values for Medium, 23 and 31, show narrow variance, which suggests steady GPU saturation rather than erratic spikes.

At 1920x1080, the averages are: Ultra 18 FPS, High 23 FPS, Medium 32 FPS (minimum 27, maximum 37), and Low 51 FPS. This is the only resolution where Low approaches playability, but it still falls short. The Medium range of 27 to 37 FPS is a 10 FPS spread, the widest recorded for any setting, implying that certain scenes in The Medium push the GPU harder than others. Across all resolutions, the pattern is consistent: the Arc B390 delivers roughly half the frame rate of what would be needed for a smooth experience, and only at the lowest settings does it come close to the 60 FPS mark.

The Verdict

Can this PC run The Medium? Based on the recorded measurements, the answer is no, not at a playable level. The verdict by resolution is unambiguous: no settings at 3840x2160, 2560x1440, or 1920x1080 reach the 60 FPS threshold. The best case scenario, 1920x1080 Low, averages 51 FPS, which is 9 FPS short of playable. At every other resolution and preset, the frame rate is lower.

The bottleneck is entirely the Intel Arc B390. Its 9th percentile ranking among all GPUs, combined with a 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1482, puts it in the same performance class as the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 and GT 520MX. The Ryzen 5 7600, on the other hand, is a capable processor that ranks in the 78th percentile and would have no trouble feeding a far stronger graphics card. The data indicates that upgrading the GPU alone would transform this system's performance in The Medium, while swapping the CPU would yield no measurable improvement.

For a game like The Medium, which demands sustained frame rates for its fixed-camera horror sequences, this combination delivers a slideshow rather than a playable experience. Users seeking to play this title would need a substantially more powerful GPU, as the current configuration fails to meet the 60 FPS target at any resolution, even when all graphical settings are reduced to their lowest values. The processor is not the problem, but the pairing as a whole does not meet the playability standard set by the database.