The Medium

The pairing of an AMD Ryzen 9 9900X with Intel's Arc B370 is a study in imbalance for The Medium, a 2021 horror title. The recorded data shows a CPU sitting in the 92nd percentile of all processors in the database paired with an integrated GPU in the 5th percentile, and the results follow that split faithfully. This analysis walks through the measured frame rates at every resolution and preset, identifies where the combo lands in the rankings, and answers the practical question: can this hardware run the game at a playable level, defined here as an average of 60 FPS or higher?

Measured FPS Breakdown

The database contains average, minimum, and maximum frame rate measurements for The Medium across three resolutions and four presets, all recorded rather than estimated.

At 1920x1080, the most forgiving configuration in the data, results climb as follows. The Low preset averages 46 FPS, the highest single figure recorded for this pairing in this game. Medium raises the visual load and drops the average to 29 FPS, with frame times spanning from a minimum of 24 to a maximum of 33. The High preset averages 21 FPS, and Ultra falls to 16 FPS. Even at the lowest resolution and lowest preset, the combo never reaches the 60 FPS threshold, peaking at 46.

Moving to 2560x1440 shifts the entire curve downward. Low averages 39 FPS, Medium averages 24 FPS with a minimum of 21 and a maximum of 28, High averages 17 FPS, and Ultra averages 14 FPS. The gap between 1080p Low and 1440p Low is seven frames, and the same step from 1440p to 4K Low costs another nine, ending at 30 FPS.

At 3840x2160 the results decline further. Low averages 30 FPS, Medium averages 19 FPS with a floor of 16 and a ceiling of 22, High averages 14 FPS, and Ultra averages 11 FPS, the lowest figure in the entire dataset. Note the symmetry: 4K Ultra at 11 FPS sits just below 4K High at 14, mirroring the relationship between those presets at the other resolutions.

A pattern worth highlighting is the consistency of the preset ladder. Across all three resolutions, Low to Medium costs roughly a third of the frame rate, and Medium to Ultra roughly halves it again. The 24-to-33 FPS min/max spread at 1080p Medium, and the similar spreads at 1440p and 4K Medium, indicate frame delivery is steady within a preset, just uniformly slow. There is no preset at any resolution where the minimum frame rate approaches playable territory.

Best Settings per Resolution

The playable threshold used by the database is 60 FPS average. Under that criterion, the answer for every resolution is the same: no preset qualifies.

At 1920x1080, the closest approach is the Low preset at 46 FPS, which falls fourteen frames short of the threshold. Medium at 29 FPS, High at 21 FPS, and Ultra at 16 FPS trail further behind. At 2560x1440, the best result is Low at 39 FPS. At 3840x2160, Low reaches 30 FPS, precisely half the target.

The verdict fields in the recorded data confirm this: every resolution lists an empty set of playable settings, with no best-settings entry at any pixel count. The Medium is simply beyond this graphics configuration at native resolutions, regardless of how far the settings are reduced. The most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS does not exist in this dataset, and the correct recommendation is that settings reduction alone cannot close the gap.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling data points clearly at the GPU as the limiting factor. Consider the resolution scaling at the Low preset: 46 FPS at 1080p, 39 at 1440p, and 30 at 4K. A CPU-bound configuration would show roughly flat frame rates as resolution rises, since the processor's workload barely changes with pixel count. Here, every resolution step produces a meaningful drop, which is the signature of graphics-bound behavior.

The preset scaling reinforces this. At 1080p, dropping from Ultra to Low nearly triples the frame rate, from 16 to 46. That degree of sensitivity to visual settings indicates the renderer, not the simulation loop, is the constraint. The Medium's horror gameplay is not demanding of the processor in these measurements.

This is consistent with the component profiles. The Ryzen 9 9900X posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32172, a single-core score of 2253, and a 3DMark max-threads score of 13929, placing it in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs in the database. The Arc B370, by contrast, records a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184 and sits in the 5th percentile of all GPUs. It is an integrated graphics solution with 1280 shading units, 20 render output units, 6.144 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, and system-shared memory, running on the Xe3-LPG architecture at a 25 W thermal design point. The data shows a processor with substantial headroom attached to a graphics solution that cannot exploit it. In this game, the GPU matters at every resolution, and the CPU is essentially a spectator.

FAQ

Q: Can the Ryzen 9 9900X and Arc B370 run The Medium at 60 FPS?

A: No. The highest recorded average is 46 FPS at 1920x1080 on the Low preset, short of the 60 FPS threshold at every resolution and every preset in the data.

Q: What is the best frame rate this combo achieves in The Medium?

A: 46 FPS average, at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next best is 39 FPS at 2560x1440 Low.

Q: How does the game perform at 4K?

A: Poorly. Averages range from 30 FPS on Low down to 11 FPS on Ultra, with Medium recording a minimum of 16 and a maximum of 22 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU holding this configuration back?

A: The data indicates no. Frame rates drop consistently as resolution and preset demands rise, which points to graphics-bound behavior. The Ryzen 9 9900X sits in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs in the database.

Q: Does lowering settings make the game playable?

A: It helps but does not suffice. At 1080p, going from Ultra to Low lifts the average from 16 to 46 FPS, a substantial gain that still stops short of 60.

Q: How consistent are frame rates within a preset?

A: The recorded Medium-preset spreads are fairly tight: 24 to 33 FPS at 1080p, 21 to 28 at 1440p, and 16 to 22 at 4K. Delivery is steady, just uniformly below target.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database's tested combinations for The Medium, this pairing ranks 3439 out of 3724. That places it in the bottom tranche, and the gap to the top is enormous: more than 3400 configurations deliver a better experience in this specific title. Given a total field of 3724, this combo performs better than only a small fraction of tested systems.

The rank is best understood through the component split. A 92nd-percentile CPU would, with an adequate discrete graphics card, place this same processor far up the table. The ranking instead reflects the Arc B370's 5th-percentile standing among GPUs. In a game where the measurements show graphics-bound scaling at every resolution, the ranking follows the weaker component almost entirely.

The Verdict

No, this PC cannot run The Medium at a playable level by the database's 60 FPS standard. The verdict data lists zero playable settings at 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160 alike.

The specifics: at 1080p, the ceiling is 46 FPS on Low. At 1440p, 39 FPS on Low. At 4K, 30 FPS on Low. The Medium's horror pacing and atmospheric rendering make low frame rates particularly noticeable, and an 11 FPS average at 4K Ultra is closer to a slideshow than interactive play. A player determined to use this hardware could tolerate 1080p Low at 46 FPS with reduced expectations, but the recorded data supports no configuration that clears the playable bar. The bottleneck is unambiguous: the integrated graphics solution, with its 1184 Steel Nomad score and system-shared memory, cannot render this 2021 title at target frame rates even at reduced settings, while the Ryzen 9 9900X operates well within its capabilities throughout.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The nearest-rivals data clarifies what would behave similarly, and what the realistic upgrade paths look like.

On the graphics side, the Arc B370's closest peers are, notably, much older hardware: the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (average score 1186, within 0.2 percent), the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, within 0.5 percent), the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192, within 0.7 percent), and the AMD FirePro M2000 (1168, about 1.4 percent behind). These are all clustered within roughly one and a half percent of the B370's aggregate score. The practical takeaway is that swapping to any of these parts would change The Medium's results negligibly, and none would move the game toward 60 FPS. Anyone seeking playable frame rates needs a GPU from a materially higher tier, not a lateral move.

On the processor side, the Ryzen 9 9900X's nearest rivals are the AMD EPYC 9015 (average score 57555, essentially identical at a 0.1 percent difference), the AMD EPYC 7313 (57399, 0.2 percent behind), the Intel Core i9-14900 (58115, about 1.1 percent ahead), and the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (58323, about 1.4 percent ahead). Since the CPU is not the limiting component in The Medium, any of these processors paired with the same integrated graphics would produce effectively identical frame rates, and any of them paired with a stronger GPU would serve the game comfortably.

The combined picture: this configuration's performance in The Medium is set almost entirely by its graphics solution, and the data shows that solution sitting among legacy parts from over a decade ago. The Ryzen 9 9900X, with its Zen 5 architecture, twelve cores, and twenty-four threads on the AM5 platform, is wasted on this workload. A dedicated graphics card is the single change that would alter these results, and until then, the honest answer for The Medium at 1080p, 1440p, or 4K is that the frame rates do not reach playable territory on any preset.