The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 delivers a fundamentally constrained experience in The Medium, ranking in the bottom 6% of tested combinations. The data indicates that this hardware pairing is out of its depth for most settings, with playable performance only achievable at the lowest graphical preset. The primary bottleneck is the GPU, whose 4 GB VRAM and modest compute throughput cannot sustain the game's demands at higher resolutions or quality levels.

FAQ

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

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 42.7, which occurs at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low preset. At 2560x1440 Low, the average drops to 40.1 FPS, and at 3840x2160 Low, it falls to 29.2 FPS.

Q: Is this combination capable of running the game at Ultra settings?

A: No. The data shows that Ultra settings are not viable at any resolution. The average frame rates at Ultra are 15.3 FPS at 1080p, 15.9 FPS at 1440p, and 10.5 FPS at 4K, which are all below playable thresholds.

Q: How does the GPU's memory capacity affect performance?

A: The Radeon RX 570 features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The benchmark results show a steep decline in performance when moving from Low to Medium settings, suggesting that the limited VRAM capacity is quickly saturated by the game's textures and assets.

Q: What is the performance difference between 1080p and 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average frame rate is 29.6 FPS at 1920x1080. This drops by 22.7% to 22.9 FPS at 2560x1440, and then by a further 11.4% to 20.3 FPS at 3840x2160.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 1591 out of 1689 tested combinations for The Medium, placing it in the bottom 6% of all tested combos. This indicates that it is among the least capable systems for running this title.

Q: Is the CPU a limiting factor in this game?

A: Based on the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K, the GPU appears to be the primary limiting factor. The CPU, with 6 cores and 12 threads, is likely not the main bottleneck, as frame rates drop significantly with increased resolution, which stresses the GPU more than the CPU.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the decisive component in this configuration's performance. The GPU, built on the GCN 4.0 architecture, operates at a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz. Its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory, while connected via a 256-bit bus for 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, proves insufficient for The Medium's higher presets. The data shows a stark contrast between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p, where the average FPS falls from 42.7 to 15.3, a reduction of 64.2%. This significant drop is characteristic of a GPU that is both VRAM-limited and compute-limited.

The GPU's compute capabilities, rated at 5.095 TFLOPS for FP32, are simply not enough to handle the game's rendering load at high quality. The transition from Medium (29.6 FPS) to High (20.3 FPS) at 1080p further illustrates this, as the additional graphical effects and shading demands overwhelm the Polaris 20 chip. The data suggests that the RX 570 is only comfortable when the game is stripped down to its most basic visual state, as seen in the Low preset results. The GPU is the clear bottleneck, as evidenced by the benchmark scores; its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, which are in a completely different performance class, despite the RX 570's percentile ranking of 74 among all GPUs.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear directive for users of this hardware: the Low preset is the only setting that offers a consistently playable experience, and only at 1080p. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the average FPS is 42.7, which is the only configuration in the entire dataset that approaches a smooth 60 FPS target. While 2560x1440 Low (40.1 FPS) is marginally lower, the 1080p Low preset is the most stable option.

Medium settings are a compromise that does not pay off. At 1080p, the average FPS drops to 29.6, and at 1440p it falls to 22.9 FPS. These numbers indicate a sub-30 FPS experience, which is generally considered the threshold for playability in a slow-paced horror game, but it is not recommended due to the significant drop from Low. High and Ultra presets are entirely non-viable, with all resolutions producing average frame rates below 21 FPS. The performance cost of moving from Low to Medium is a 30.7% reduction in FPS at 1080p, which is a substantial penalty for what is likely a modest visual improvement. Therefore, the best experience is unequivocally the 1080p Low preset.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 1591 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the bottom 6% of all systems tested, indicating that it is one of the least capable configurations for this game. The ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU's limitations, as the CPU is a relatively modern 6-core, 12-thread part.

The CPU's own benchmark performance is respectable; its average benchmark score is 18129, with a percentile rank of 76 among all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-11400, achieves a score of 18150, a delta of -0.1%, showing they are statistically tied in general compute tasks. However, this CPU strength is irrelevant when the GPU cannot keep up with the rendering demands. The combo's low ranking reflects the fact that the GPU is the sole arbiter of performance in this title, and the RX 570's 4 GB VRAM and aging architecture are insufficient for the game's requirements.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 3000 series, based on the Zen 2 architecture. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. While this CPU is a capable part for many tasks, its role in The Medium is primarily to feed the GPU. The data suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck, as the frame rates scale inversely with resolution. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the frame rates would be more consistent across resolutions.

The CPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks, such as a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15045 and a single-core score of 2124, indicates it has ample processing power for game logic and physics. However, the measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 42.7 FPS, which is far below what the CPU is capable of supporting. This indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, as it cannot translate the CPU's capability into higher frame rates. The CPU is effectively waiting on the GPU to finish its work, as evidenced by the frame rate drop from 42.7 FPS at 1080p Low to 29.2 FPS at 4K Low, which is a GPU-bound workload.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following is a detailed breakdown of the measured average FPS for every tested configuration.

1920x1080

• Low: 42.7 FPS
• Medium: 29.6 FPS
• High: 20.3 FPS
• Ultra: 15.3 FPS

At 1080p, the drop from Low to Medium is 13.1 FPS, and from Medium to High it is 9.3 FPS. The gap from High to Ultra narrows to 5.0 FPS, indicating diminishing returns as the GPU becomes increasingly saturated.

2560x1440

• Low: 40.1 FPS
• Medium: 22.9 FPS
• High: 18.8 FPS
• Ultra: 15.9 FPS

At 1440p, the performance collapses at Medium settings. The drop from Low to Medium is 17.2 FPS, which is a larger absolute penalty than at 1080p. High and Ultra settings are both below 20 FPS, making them unplayable.

3840x2160

• Low: 29.2 FPS
• Medium: 20.3 FPS
• High: 12.3 FPS
• Ultra: 10.5 FPS

At 4K, even the Low preset fails to maintain a playable frame rate. The average FPS at Low is 29.2, which is barely above 30 FPS. The High and Ultra presets are effectively slideshows, with average frame rates of 12.3 and 10.5 FPS, respectively.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system heavily constrained by the GPU. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 42.7 at 1080p to 40.1 at 1440p, a modest 6.1% decrease. However, moving from 1440p to 4K results in a more significant drop to 29.2 FPS, a 27.2% reduction. This pattern suggests that the GPU is struggling to fill the increased pixel count, but is not entirely overwhelmed until 4K.

The scaling is much more severe at higher settings. At Medium, the frame rate drops from 29.6 FPS at 1080p to 22.9 FPS at 1440p (a 22.6% decrease), and then to 20.3 FPS at 4K (an 11.4% decrease). This indicates that the GPU is hitting a hard performance wall, likely due to the 4 GB VRAM being exhausted. The minimal difference between 1440p and 4K at Medium, High, and Ultra settings suggests that the GPU is so severely limited by memory bandwidth and capacity that adding more pixels has a diminishing effect; it is already at its absolute limit. The data clearly shows that the limiting component is the GPU, as the performance degradation is directly tied to the rendering load and memory pressure, not the CPU's processing capability.