The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X paired with the Intel Arc B570 presents a challenging profile for running The Medium, a horror title that demands significant graphical resources. Measured data indicates that this combination struggles to maintain playable frame rates at higher presets, with only the Low preset achieving the 60 FPS threshold across 1080p and 1440p resolutions. The benchmark results show a clear performance ceiling that limits the experience to lower graphical fidelity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a steep drop-off as settings increase. The Low preset delivers an average of 78 FPS, which is the only configuration at this resolution that clears the 60 FPS playable threshold. Moving to Medium, the average falls to 49 FPS, with a minimum of 41 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS, indicating noticeable frame pacing issues during demanding scenes. High settings reduce the average further to 35 FPS, while Ultra bottoms out at 28 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is substantial—a 50 FPS difference—highlighting how sensitive this game is to graphical preset changes on this hardware.

At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats with lower absolute numbers. Low settings produce an average of 66 FPS, just above the playable mark. Medium drops to 41 FPS (min 35, max 47), High falls to 29 FPS, and Ultra averages only 23 FPS. The 1440p results show a 12 FPS reduction from 1080p at the Low preset, which suggests that resolution scaling has a moderate impact on performance, but the preset choice remains the dominant factor.

At 3840x2160 (4K), none of the presets reach a playable level. Low settings average 52 FPS, which is close but still 8 FPS short of the threshold. Medium averages 32 FPS (min 27, max 37), High averages 23 FPS, and Ultra averages 18 FPS. The 4K results demonstrate a severe performance collapse, with even the lowest settings failing to provide a smooth experience. The frame time consistency at 4K Medium, with a minimum of 27 FPS, suggests that stuttering would be frequent in gameplay.

Across all resolutions, the min-to-max FPS spread at Medium settings (e.g., 41-56 at 1080p, 35-47 at 1440p, 27-37 at 4K) indicates that The Medium has variable frame times, which can make the experience feel less stable than the average suggests. The Ultra preset is essentially unplayable at every resolution, with averages ranging from 18 to 28 FPS.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Based on the CPU's nearest rivals, the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X performs nearly identically to the Intel Core i5-12600K, with an average benchmark score of 27578 for both, showing a 0% delta. The AMD Ryzen 7 5800 is 0.2% slower, and the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is 0.2% faster. The Intel Core Ultra 5 125H is 0.3% faster. These negligible differences mean that swapping the 5700X for any of these processors would produce virtually the same frame rates in The Medium, assuming the GPU remains the bottleneck.

For the GPU, the Intel Arc B570's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, which scores 20534 versus 20556, a 0.1% difference. The Intel Arc A750 is 0.1% slower, the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M is 0.4% slower, and the AMD Radeon R9 M390X is 0.5% faster. Given that the Arc B570 sits near the RTX 3070 Mobile in raw compute performance, users can expect similar behavior from that mobile GPU in this game. The Arc A750, being nearly identical in score, would likely yield the same playable presets (Low only at 1080p and 1440p) with a possible 1-2 FPS variance. The M390X, despite being an older architecture, posts a slightly higher average score, which might translate to a marginal FPS improvement, but the overall conclusion would remain unchanged: this class of GPU cannot handle Medium or higher presets at playable rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5700X and Arc B570 ranks 2999th out of 3724 tested combos for The Medium, placing it in the bottom 20% of all system configurations. This low rank is driven primarily by the GPU's limited performance at higher settings, as the CPU's 79th percentile ranking among all processors (with an average benchmark score of 27578) is considerably stronger than the GPU's 65th percentile ranking (average score 20556). The data indicates that this combo is near the lower boundary of what can run the game at all, with only the Low preset being viable. For context, a combo ranked in the top 500 would likely achieve playable frame rates at High or Ultra settings, but this system falls far short of that mark.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run The Medium at 1080p with High settings?

A: No. Benchmark results show an average of 35 FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings, which is well below the 60 FPS playable threshold. The Low preset is required for a playable experience, averaging 78 FPS.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1440p?

A: The only playable option at 2560x1440 is the Low preset, which delivers an average of 66 FPS. All other presets—Medium (41 FPS), High (29 FPS), and Ultra (23 FPS)—fall short of the 60 FPS requirement.

Q: Is 4K gaming possible with this hardware?

A: No. At 3840x2160, even the Low preset averages only 52 FPS, and Medium drops to 32 FPS. No preset achieves 60 FPS at this resolution, making 4K unplayable.

Q: How does the Arc B570 compare to the Arc A750 in this game?

A: The Arc B570 has an average benchmark score of 20556, while the Arc A750 scores 20582, a 0.1% difference. In practice, this means the A750 would perform nearly identically, likely producing the same playable presets (Low only at 1080p and 1440p) with negligible FPS differences.

Q: Does the Ryzen 7 5700X bottleneck the Arc B570?

A: The data suggests no. The CPU's average benchmark score of 27578 places it in the 79th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU's 20556 score is in the 65th percentile. The GPU is the limiting factor, as evidenced by the large FPS drops when increasing settings at the same resolution.

Q: What frame rates can be expected at 1080p Medium?

A: The measured average is 49 FPS, with a minimum of 41 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS. This is not considered playable per the 60 FPS threshold, and the 15 FPS variance between min and max indicates inconsistent frame pacing.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data reveals that the GPU is the primary constraint in The Medium. At 1920x1080, increasing from Low to Medium reduces the average FPS from 78 to 49, a 37% drop, while High and Ultra further reduce it to 35 and 28 FPS respectively. This steep scaling with settings—rather than with resolution—demonstrates that the Arc B570's shading units (2304) and texture units (144) are saturated by the game's effects, regardless of the CPU's capabilities.

The CPU's role becomes more apparent when comparing resolutions at the same preset. At Low settings, going from 1080p (78 FPS) to 1440p (66 FPS) results in a 15% decrease, and to 4K (52 FPS) a 33% decrease. This scaling is consistent with the GPU's memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s and 10 GB VRAM being taxed by higher pixel counts. However, the Ryzen 7 5700X's 8 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, are sufficient to feed the GPU, as evidenced by the fact that the FPS drops are proportionally larger between presets (e.g., 78 to 49 at 1080p) than between resolutions (78 to 66 from 1080p to 1440p).

The game appears to be heavily graphics-bound, since the CPU's 3DMark multi-thread score of 6858 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 13184 are well above what is needed for this title. If the CPU were the bottleneck, increasing resolution would produce negligible FPS changes, but the data shows consistent decreases. Therefore, users should focus on GPU settings first, as lowering preset has a much larger impact (up to 50 FPS at 1080p) than lowering resolution (up to 26 FPS from 1080p to 4K at Low).

Best Settings per Resolution

At 1920x1080, the most demanding preset that maintains an average of at least 60 FPS is Low, which delivers 78 FPS. Moving to Medium drops the average to 49 FPS, which is below the threshold. Therefore, Low is the recommended setting for a smooth experience at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the same logic applies: Low is the only preset that clears 60 FPS, with an average of 66 FPS. Medium falls to 41 FPS, making it unsuitable for playable frame rates.

At 3840x2160, no preset achieves 60 FPS. The closest is Low at 52 FPS, but it still falls short. As a result, there is no "best" setting for 4K that meets the playable threshold; users would have to accept sub-60 FPS performance or reduce the resolution.

The verdict data confirms this, listing "playableSettings" as only Low for both 1440p and 1080p, with no playable settings at 4K.

The Verdict

This PC can run The Medium, but only under specific conditions. At 1920x1080, the system is playable with the Low preset, averaging 78 FPS, which provides a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. At 2560x1440, Low settings yield 66 FPS, which is playable but with less headroom. At 3840x2160, the system fails to reach 60 FPS on any preset, with the best result being 52 FPS at Low, making 4K unplayable.

The overall verdict is that this combination is suitable for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but strictly at the lowest graphical settings. Users seeking Medium or High quality will need more powerful hardware, as the Arc B570's performance class (65th percentile, with a 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 2649) is insufficient for The Medium's demanding rendering. The combo's rank of 2999 out of 3724 underscores that many other systems will deliver better experiences, but for those willing to accept Low settings, the Ryzen 7 5700X and Arc B570 meet the minimum requirement for playable frame rates at mainstream resolutions.