The Medium

The Medium is a demanding horror title built around dual-reality rendering, and the pairing of AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X with Intel's Arc B580 produces results that sit well below the comfortable-play threshold at most settings. The measured data covers three resolutions and four presets, and the headline is stark: only the Low preset clears 60 FPS at 1080p and 1440p, while 4K has no playable configuration at all. Below is the full breakdown of what this combination delivers.

Measured FPS Breakdown

All figures are measured average frame rates; minimum and maximum values were not captured in this dataset.

At 1920x1080, the pairing moves from 90.1 FPS on Low down to 52.4 FPS on Medium, 42.2 FPS on High, and 32.3 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Ultra is severe — nearly a threefold reduction in average frame rate — and the Medium result is the telling one: even at 1080p, stepping one tier above the lowest preset pushes the average below the 60 FPS playable threshold.

At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats at lower absolute levels: 75.2 FPS on Low, 46.7 FPS on Medium, 30.3 FPS on High, and 26.4 FPS on Ultra. The Medium figure sits roughly 22 percent under the threshold, meaning the shortfall at 1440p is not marginal. Low remains the only viable option, though its 75.2 FPS average does provide some headroom above 60.

At 3840x2160, the results fall off a cliff. Low manages 58.8 FPS — just under the threshold — while Medium delivers 36.7 FPS, High 25.9 FPS, and Ultra 20.2 FPS. That 4K Low result is the closest miss in the entire dataset, falling short of the playable bar by a little over one frame per second on average. It suggests the configuration is at the edge of viability at native 4K but does not clear it on any preset.

Best Settings per Resolution

Using the 60 FPS threshold, the best playable preset at each resolution is:

• 1920x1080 — Low, 90.1 FPS average. The only 1080p preset at or above 60 FPS. Medium (52.4 FPS) falls short.
• 2560x1440 — Low, 75.2 FPS average. Again the sole qualifying preset; Medium drops to 46.7 FPS.
• 3840x2160 — no playable settings. The best result, Low at 58.8 FPS, sits below 60 FPS, so no preset qualifies.

The takeaway is unambiguous: Low is the only preset this pairing sustains, and it does so at two of the three tested resolutions.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling data points clearly to a GPU-bound configuration. Moving from 1080p to 1440p on Low reduces the average from 90.1 to 75.2 FPS; moving from 1440p to 4K cuts it further to 58.8 FPS. If the CPU were the limiting factor, frame rates would plateau as resolution rose. They do not — every resolution increase costs significant performance, which is the signature of a graphics bottleneck.

The preset scaling reinforces this. At a fixed 1080p resolution, going from Low to Ultra costs 57.7 FPS — from 90.1 down to 32.3. That is a far larger proportional hit than anything the resolution axis produces at fixed settings, indicating render quality, not draw-call or simulation load, is the dominant cost.

The CPU side of the equation is emphatically not the problem. The Ryzen 9 5950X posts a 3DMark max-threads score of 11597, a single-thread score of 944, a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 26017, and a Geekbench multi-core score of 15233. It sits in the 91st percentile of all tested CPUs — high-end territory by any measure. The Arc B580, by contrast, sits in the 68th percentile of all GPUs with a PassMark G3D score of 15748. The data shows the pairing is unbalanced for this title: abundant CPU headroom paired with a GPU that cannot keep pace at higher settings.

The Verdict

Can this PC run The Medium? Yes — but only with significant settings compromises.

At 1920x1080, the verdict is playable on Low, with a 90.1 FPS average and comfortable headroom over the 60 FPS threshold. At 2560x1440, it remains playable on Low at 75.2 FPS. At 3840x2160, the verdict is not playable: no preset reaches 60 FPS, and the closest attempt (Low, 58.8 FPS) falls just short.

For practical purposes, 1080p Low is the recommended target. Players who insist on Medium or higher at any resolution will be disappointed — even 1080p Medium averages 52.4 FPS, below the threshold.

FAQ

Q: Can the Ryzen 9 5950X + Arc B580 run The Medium at 4K?

A: No. The best 4K result is 58.8 FPS on Low, which is below the 60 FPS playable threshold. Medium, High, and Ultra at 4K average 36.7, 25.9, and 20.2 FPS respectively.

Q: What is the best settings combination for this hardware?

A: 1920x1080 on Low, which averages 90.1 FPS — the highest measured result in the dataset and the most headroom above 60 FPS.

Q: Does the game run at 60 FPS at 1440p?

A: Only on Low, at 75.2 FPS. Medium at 1440p averages 46.7 FPS, well under the threshold.

Q: Is the CPU holding this pairing back?

A: No. The 5950X ranks in the 91st percentile of tested CPUs with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 26017. The scaling data — falling frame rates at every resolution increase — indicates the Arc B580 is the limiting component.

Q: How big is the performance drop from Low to Ultra?

A: At 1080p, average frame rate falls from 90.1 FPS to 32.3 FPS — a reduction of 57.7 FPS, nearly two-thirds of the Low-preset result.

Q: Is this measured data or estimated?

A: Measured. All frame rate figures in this analysis come from measured runs, though minimum and maximum frame rates were not recorded.

How This Combo Ranks

Against the other hardware combinations tested in The Medium in this database, the 5950X + B580 pairing ranks 2814 out of 3724 combos. That places it in the bottom quarter of tested configurations for this specific game — a notably poor showing given the strength of the CPU involved. The rank underscores the analysis above: the game's rendering demands at anything above Low settings overwhelm the B580, dragging the overall combination down regardless of the processor paired with it.

Similar Performance Alternatives

For the CPU, the nearest rivals by aggregate benchmark score are the Intel Core Ultra 5 235HX (within 0.2 percent), the AMD EPYC 8124P (within 0.3 percent), the Intel Core i9-13900F (within 0.4 percent), and the Intel Core i7-14700 (within 0.7 percent). Any of these processors would deliver essentially equivalent CPU-side performance, and none would change The Medium results — the bottleneck is elsewhere.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP (within 0.2 percent), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (within 0.6 percent), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (within 0.7 percent), and the NVIDIA P106-100 (within 1 percent). Based on aggregate scores, these cards would be expected to behave similarly to the Arc B580 in this title, producing comparable frame rates within a few percent. Players targeting Medium or High settings at 1080p or above will need to look further up the GPU performance chart than any of these alternatives.