The Medium

The Medium is a horror title built around dual-reality rendering, and the recorded data shows this pairing struggles badly with it. The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D is a 12-core, 24-thread Zen 5 processor sitting in the 91st percentile of all CPUs in the database, but the Intel Arc B370 is an integrated GPU in the 5th percentile of all GPUs. The result is a severe imbalance: a processor with plenty of headroom paired with graphics hardware that cannot keep up at any resolution tested. Every preset at every resolution falls short of the 60 FPS playable threshold, and the highest frame rate recorded anywhere in the data is 46 FPS at 1080p Low.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measurements cover three resolutions and four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), with avg/min/max figures captured at Medium and average-only figures elsewhere.

1920x1080:

• Low: 46 FPS average
• Medium: 29 FPS average, with a 24 FPS minimum and a 33 FPS maximum
• High: 21 FPS average
• Ultra: 16 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 39 FPS average
• Medium: 24 FPS average, ranging from 21 FPS minimum to 28 FPS maximum
• High: 17 FPS average
• Ultra: 14 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 30 FPS average
• Medium: 19 FPS average, ranging from 16 FPS minimum to 22 FPS maximum
• High: 14 FPS average
• Ultra: 11 FPS average

The pattern is consistent and diagnostic. Even dropping from 4K Low to 1080p Low only moves the average from 30 to 46 FPS, a modest gain for a 4x reduction in pixel count. That flat scaling curve points to the GPU as the hard limit: the Arc B370 has 1280 shading units, 40 TMUs, 20 ROPs, 10 RT cores, and 6.144 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput, with system-shared memory whose bandwidth depends entirely on the host platform. The Medium preset frame ranges are tight (24 to 33 at 1080p, 16 to 22 at 4K), which indicates stable, consistent delivery rather than stutter, just at unplayably low levels. Frame pacing is not the problem here. Raw throughput is.

The CPU side of the equation is essentially irrelevant to these numbers. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 47737, a single-core score of 6739, a Geekbench multi-core score of 22884, and a PassMark multithread score of 56154. Its 3DMark max-threads score of 13795 dwarfs its 2-thread score of 2512, showing excellent scaling across its 24 threads. None of that capacity is being used. The Medium is the bottleneck-free side of this build; the integrated GPU is the choke point at every setting tested.

Best Settings per Resolution

There are none. The 60 FPS playable threshold is not met at any resolution, at any preset, in the recorded data. The closest approach is 1920x1080 Low at 46 FPS average, still roughly a quarter short of the target. At 2560x1440, the best result is 39 FPS on Low. At 3840x2160, Low manages 30 FPS, which coincidentally matches the game's horror-cinematic cadence but is nowhere near a fluid interactive frame rate for modern play. Since no preset clears the bar at any resolution, no best-settings recommendation can be made from this data.

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run The Medium at 60 FPS?

A: No. The highest average frame rate in the entire dataset is 46 FPS at 1920x1080 on Low. Every preset at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K falls below the 60 FPS playable threshold.

Q: Is the CPU limiting performance in this game?

A: Almost certainly not. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D ranks in the 91st percentile of all CPUs in the database with an average benchmark score of 54762. The Arc B370 sits in the 5th percentile of all GPUs with an average score of 1184. The GPU is overwhelmingly the limiting component.

Q: What is the frame rate stability like at 1080p Medium?

A: Stable but slow. The recorded range at 1920x1080 Medium is a 24 FPS minimum to a 33 FPS maximum around a 29 FPS average, a narrow band that suggests consistent frame pacing rather than erratic spikes.

Q: Does lowering the resolution help significantly?

A: Only modestly. Going from 3840x2160 to 1920x1080 on the Low preset raises the average from 30 to 46 FPS. That shallow scaling response confirms the GPU is saturated regardless of pixel count.

Q: What API and feature support does the GPU offer for this game?

A: The Arc B370 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is not an issue. It also carries 10 RT cores, though the measured data shows ray-traced or heavy presets like Ultra land at just 16 FPS at 1080p and 11 FPS at 4K.

Q: Is the CPU itself a capable gaming part in general?

A: Yes. The 9900X3D posts a 3DMark single-thread score of 1269 and an 8-thread score of 9002, with a max-threads score of 13795, plus strong cinebench and PassMark results across the board. It is the integrated graphics, not the processor, that holds this configuration back.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at the GPU's nearest rivals in the database gives a clear picture of the performance class. The Arc B370's average score of 1184 is essentially identical to the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, a 0.2% gap), the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, 0.5% behind), the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192, 0.7% behind), and the AMD FirePro M2000 (1168, with the B370 1.4% ahead). Anyone expecting this integrated graphics solution to behave like a dedicated modern card will be disappointed; the data places it alongside older and mobile-class hardware. A system built around any of those rival GPUs would deliver a nearly identical The Medium experience.

On the CPU side, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D sits in a tightly packed cluster. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF scores within 0.6% of it (55093 vs 54762), the Core Ultra 5 245K trails by 1.3%, the Xeon 6505P by 2%, and the Core i7-14700F by 2.1%. Any of these processors would produce effectively the same result in this game, because the GPU ceiling clamps the outcome long before CPU differences of this size matter. Swapping the 9900X3D for a rival in this cluster changes nothing about the frame rates recorded here.

The Verdict

No, this configuration cannot run The Medium at a playable level. The verdict data is unambiguous: at 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160, the list of playable settings is empty at every resolution. Not even the lowest preset reaches the 60 FPS threshold, topping out at 46 FPS at 1080p. The Ultra preset bottoms out at 11 FPS at 4K.

The blame lands entirely on the graphics side. The Arc B370 is a 25 W integrated solution running on a 3 nm Panther Lake design with a 2400 MHz boost clock and system-shared memory. It is simply outmatched by a 2021 horror game that renders two worlds simultaneously. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D, with its 128 MB of L3 cache, DDR5 support on Socket AM5, and 91st-percentile standing, is wasted here. The practical takeaway for a builder: keep the excellent processor, add a dedicated GPU, and revisit this game. As tested, this pairing is one of the slowest configurations in the database for this title.

How This Combo Ranks

Out of 3724 tested combinations in The Medium, this CPU and GPU pairing ranks 3439th. That places it in the bottom tier of all measured hardware for this game, which tracks with everything else in the data: a 5th-percentile GPU drags even a 91st-percentile CPU to near the bottom of the standings. The rank is not a reflection of the 9900X3D, whose rivals cluster within about 2% of its average score, but of the integrated graphics solution attached to it. For The Medium specifically, the ranking says the same thing as the frame rate table: the GPU is the component to replace, and until it is replaced, this build sits well below the playable line at every resolution and every preset in the database.