The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT pairing delivers a playable, though sometimes strained, experience in The Medium, a horror title from 2021. The benchmark data reveals a system where the GPU is the primary driver of performance scaling, while the older six-core CPU provides a stable foundation. Across the measured resolutions and presets, the frame rates range from a highly fluid 97.1 FPS at 1080p Low to a cinematic 23.8 FPS at 4K Ultra, illustrating a wide performance envelope that depends heavily on the user's settings choices.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data shows a predictable and steep decline as resolution increases, but the pattern reveals important details about the system's bottleneck. At 1080p High, the combo produces 40.8 FPS. Moving to 1440p High drops the average to 35.2 FPS, a reduction of 5.6 FPS. The jump to 4K High further reduces performance to 28.2 FPS, another 7 FPS loss. This consistent, linear degradation suggests that the graphics card is the limiting factor; the GPU simply has more pixels to process at each step.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K is more dramatic on the lower presets. At Low settings, the system achieves 97.1 FPS at 1080p, which falls to 82 FPS at 1440p, and then plummets to 63.5 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Low is about 35% (97.1 to 63.5), while at High the drop is about 31% (40.8 to 28.2). The steeper relative decline at Low settings indicates that the GPU is still the main constraint even when the workload is lighter, as the sheer number of pixels at 4K overwhelms the Radeon RX 6650 XT's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus.

The data implies that 4K is only viable on the Low preset, where 63.5 FPS is achieved. The Ultra preset at 4K yields just 23.8 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The scaling pattern strongly suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at any resolution; the consistent frame rate drops with each resolution increase are a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario. The Ryzen 5 2600, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, appears to feed the GPU adequately, as the frame rate differences between resolutions are solely attributable to pixel count.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Medium?*

A: Based on the measured data, 1080p offers the most consistent performance, with all presets exceeding 37 FPS. At 1440p, the Low preset hits 82 FPS, but High drops to 35.2 FPS. 4K is only playable on Low, achieving 63.5 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset perform at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440 with Ultra settings, the system averages 26.2 FPS. This is a demanding configuration that pushes the GPU to its limits, resulting in a frame rate that is not ideal for a smooth experience.

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 5 2600 holding back the Radeon RX 6650 XT?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not the primary limiter. The frame rate scales consistently with resolution, which is a hallmark of GPU-bound performance. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads appear sufficient to maintain the frame rates shown.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and High at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 97.1 FPS, while High averages 40.8 FPS. This is a significant 56.3 FPS difference, indicating that the High preset nearly doubles the rendering workload compared to Low.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in this title?

A: Yes, but only on the Low preset, which yields 63.5 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K drops to 38.2 FPS, and High and Ultra fall to 28.2 and 23.8 FPS, respectively, making them largely unplayable for most users.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: For The Medium, this specific combination of CPU and GPU ranks 1088 out of 1689 tested combos. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the performance spectrum.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT is the workhorse of this pairing, and its specifications directly correlate with the measured frame rates. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is a likely contributor to the performance cliff seen at 4K; the higher resolution demands more memory capacity and bandwidth, which the card struggles to provide at higher settings. The 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs are tasked with pixel processing, and the data shows that as resolution and settings increase, these resources become saturated.

The GPU's clock speeds are also relevant. The base clock is 2055 MHz, with a boost clock of 2635 MHz and a game clock of 2410 MHz. The boost clock represents the maximum potential, but sustained performance likely hovers near the game clock. The benchmark results show that the card can deliver strong performance at lower resolutions, such as 97.1 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating that the RDNA 2.0 architecture is efficient when not memory-limited. The FP32 performance is rated at 10.79 TFLOPS, which provides the raw compute power for the game's rendering, but the memory subsystem appears to be the bottleneck at higher resolutions.

The GPU's percentile rank of 72 among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 29024, place it in a mid-range tier. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6800M with a deltaPct of 0 and the AMD Radeon RX 470 with a deltaPct of 0.1. This indicates that the RX 6650 XT performs nearly identically to a high-end mobile GPU and a much older desktop card in synthetic tests, but the The Medium data shows its real-world behavior is heavily influenced by the game's specific demands on memory and bandwidth.

Settings Recommendations

For the best balance of visual quality and performance, the Medium preset at 1080p appears to be the sweet spot. It delivers 60.8 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. This preset likely offers a significant visual upgrade over Low (97.1 FPS) while maintaining a playable frame rate. At 1440p, the Medium preset yields 47.4 FPS, which is a more demanding target but still playable for those who prefer higher resolutions.

The High preset is not recommended for any resolution except perhaps 1080p, where it achieves 40.8 FPS, but this is below the 60 FPS mark. At 1440p High, the frame rate drops to 35.2 FPS, and at 4K High, it is a sluggish 28.2 FPS. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, and the data shows it is only viable at 1080p (37 FPS), and even then, it is a marginal experience. The performance gap between Medium and High is substantial, suggesting that the High preset enables effects that are disproportionately expensive on this GPU. The data indicates that users should prioritize the Medium preset for a smooth experience, or drop to Low if they want to play at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT ranks 1088 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This puts it in the 35th percentile of all combos, meaning that roughly 64% of tested systems perform better in this game. The rank reflects the GPU's mid-range standing; its percentile of 72 among all GPUs is tempered by the CPU's percentile of 77 among all CPUs, resulting in a combo that is solidly mid-pack.

The CPU's nearest rivals provide context for its contribution. The Intel Core i5-1345U has an average score of 19691, a deltaPct of -0.4 from the Ryzen 5 2600's average of 19616. The AMD Ryzen 5 7530U is 0.6% ahead, and the Intel Core i5-11600KF is 0.6% behind. These tiny deltas indicate that the Ryzen 5 2600 is functionally equivalent to these other processors in general compute tasks. The GPU's nearest rivals also show minimal differences, with the RX 6800M being 0% different and the RX 470 being 0.1% ahead. This suggests that the combo's rank is not due to any single weak component, but rather the overall level of hardware, which is firmly in the mid-range tier.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates provide a complete picture of the system's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the system achieves 97.1 FPS on Low, 60.8 FPS on Medium, 40.8 FPS on High, and 37 FPS on Ultra. This shows a clear progression of cost for each preset tier. At 2560x1440, the results are 82 FPS on Low, 47.4 FPS on Medium, 35.2 FPS on High, and 26.2 FPS on Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is most pronounced on the Medium preset, which loses 13.4 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the performance falls further. The Low preset still manages 63.5 FPS, but Medium drops to 38.2 FPS. High yields 28.2 FPS, and Ultra is the worst at 23.8 FPS. The data shows that the Low preset is the only option that consistently stays above 60 FPS across all resolutions, albeit with the lowest visual quality. The jump from 1440p to 4K on the Low preset is a drop of 18.5 FPS, which is the largest single-resolution penalty for that setting. This reinforces the notion that the GPU's memory bandwidth is severely taxed at 4K.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 provides the processing foundation for this system, and its characteristics are important for understanding the overall performance. It has 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 3.90 GHz. The architecture is Zen, on a 12 nm process, and it has a total of 16 MB of shared L3 cache. This configuration is capable of handling the game's logic and physics, as evidenced by the frame rates not collapsing at lower resolutions where the GPU is less stressed.

The CPU's benchmark scores reflect its mid-range standing. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 11186, and its single-core score is 1579. The Passmark multi-thread score is 13160, and the single-thread score is 2239. These scores are consistent with a processor that is not a top-tier performer but is sufficient for gaming. The CPU's percentile rank of 77 indicates it is better than 77% of all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 19616 puts it in close competition with the Intel Core i5-1345U (19691) and AMD Ryzen 5 7530U (19508).

The CPU's memory support is DDR4 with a dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 46.9 GB/s. This is a potential limitation, but the data suggests that it is not the primary bottleneck in The Medium. The fact that frame rates scale so consistently with resolution implies that the CPU can keep up with the GPU's demands, even at 1080p Low where the frame rate reaches 97.1 FPS. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see frame rates plateau or become inconsistent across different resolutions, which is not the case in this data set.