The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER pairing delivers a playable but demanding experience in The Medium, a horror title from January 2021. The data shows a system that can handle 1080p comfortably but struggles at 4K, with settings choices making a dramatic difference in frame rate. This combination ranks in the 1019th position out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database for this specific game.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is severe, revealing a GPU-bound workload at higher resolutions. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 45.6 at 1920x1080 to 39.9 at 2560x1440, then plummets to 31.9 at 3840x2160. That represents a 30% reduction in performance when moving from 1080p to 4K, a steep curve that indicates the RTX 2070 SUPER is the primary limiting component at these resolutions.

The scaling pattern shifts when settings are lowered. At Low settings, the drop from 1080p to 4K is 33.8 FPS (from 100.2 to 66.4), which is a smaller percentage loss (about 34%) than the High preset shows. This suggests that at Low settings, the CPU begins to play a larger role, but the GPU still dominates the bottleneck. At Medium settings, the 1080p to 4K drop is 24 FPS (from 65.9 to 41.9), a 36% reduction. The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling, with 1080p at 34.7 FPS falling to 22 FPS at 4K, a 37% loss that pushes the experience below playable thresholds.

The resolution scaling data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming. At 1440p, only Low settings maintain a comfortable frame rate above 60 FPS. The 4K results, with the exception of Low settings, all fall below 42 FPS, making that resolution impractical for smooth gameplay in this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show a clear hierarchy: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra presets, each with distinct performance characteristics. At 1920x1080, Low settings deliver 100.2 FPS average, which is more than double the 45.6 FPS seen at High settings. Medium settings at 65.9 FPS provide the best balance between visual quality and smoothness for this resolution. The jump from Medium to High costs 20.3 FPS, a significant penalty that many players might not consider worthwhile given the modest visual improvements typical of that step.

At 2560x1440, Medium settings produce 54.7 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. Low settings at 84.8 FPS offer the smoothest experience at this resolution, while High drops to 39.9 FPS and Ultra to 32.9 FPS. For 1440p gaming, Low is the recommended preset if frame rate consistency matters more than visual fidelity. Alternatively, Medium provides a playable experience for those who prioritize graphics.

At 3840x2160, the choices are stark. Low settings at 66.4 FPS are the only preset that achieves a smooth frame rate. Medium at 41.9 FPS is borderline, while High at 31.9 FPS and Ultra at 22 FPS are both too slow for comfortable play. The data suggests that 4K should only be attempted with Low settings, and even then, the experience may feel less polished than at lower resolutions. For most users, 1080p Medium or 1440p Low will provide the best overall experience.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. With 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, this Turing architecture card is built for 1440p gaming. The 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present, though The Medium does not appear to leverage ray tracing heavily based on the measured FPS figures.

The GPU's clock speeds are 1605 MHz base and 1770 MHz boost, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). These specifications produce a pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance of 9.062 TFLOPS places this card in a specific performance tier, and the benchmark data shows it sits at the 65th percentile among all GPUs.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p textures in this game, but the dramatic FPS drops at 4K suggest that memory bandwidth and capacity are stressed at higher resolutions. The GPU's 215 W TDP and dual-slot design are typical for this generation, and the PCIe 3.0 x16 interface does not appear to bottleneck performance. The RTX 2070 SUPER's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX A400, which scores 0.5% higher, and the AMD Radeon RX 5700, which scores 2.5% lower, indicating this card sits in a competitive middle ground.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of presets shows the card's versatility. Low settings produce 100.2 FPS average, Medium delivers 65.9 FPS, High drops to 45.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 34.7 FPS. This 65.5 FPS spread between Low and Ultra demonstrates how sensitive this game is to graphics settings.

At 2560x1440, the numbers shift downward predictably. Low averages 84.8 FPS, Medium 54.7 FPS, High 39.9 FPS, and Ultra 32.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 30.1 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 7 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns at the top end.

At 3840x2160, the results are much tighter. Low averages 66.4 FPS, Medium 41.9 FPS, High 31.9 FPS, and Ultra 22 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 44.4 FPS, but the absolute values are low enough that only Low offers a smooth experience. The data shows that the RTX 2070 SUPER can handle 4K in this game only with significant visual compromises, and even then, the performance is only marginally better than 1080p High.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1019 out of 1689 tested combinations places this setup in the 60th percentile of all tested systems for The Medium. This is a lower-middle ranking, reflecting the age of both the CPU and GPU. The Ryzen 5 3600, released in July 2019, and the RTX 2070 SUPER, released in July 2018, are both from an older generation relative to the game's January 2021 release.

The CPU's percentile ranking among all processors is 76, which is solid for a mid-range chip. The GPU's percentile ranking is 65, which is lower and more indicative of its performance ceiling. The combination of a strong CPU with a mid-tier GPU creates a system that is balanced but not exceptional for this title. The rank suggests that many other combinations, particularly those with newer GPUs, will outperform this setup in The Medium.

The measured FPS data confirms this ranking. At 1440p High, the 39.9 FPS average is below the 60 FPS target that most gamers prefer, and at 4K, only Low settings reach that threshold. The combo performs best at 1080p, where it can achieve 100 FPS at Low settings, but this is not a system for high-refresh-rate gaming at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 provides 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. This Zen 2 architecture chip, built on a 7 nm process, has 32 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel configuration. The 65 W TDP and unlocked multiplier make it a flexible option for overclocking, though the measured results do not reflect any manual tuning.

The CPU's benchmark scores show a capable mid-range processor. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15045 and single-core score of 2124 indicate strong performance for its class. The PassMark multithread score of 17700 and single-thread score of 2562 confirm that this chip handles both heavily threaded and single-threaded workloads effectively. The 3DMark scores, including 4605 for 16 threads and 696 for single thread, provide additional context on its gaming performance.

In The Medium, the CPU appears to be less of a bottleneck than the GPU. The FPS differences between resolutions are more consistent with GPU-bound scaling, and the CPU's percentile ranking of 76 suggests it is not the limiting factor. The nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i5-11400 with a 0.1% lower score and the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS with a 0.2% higher score, show that this CPU remains competitive with newer options. The 12 threads provide enough parallelism for modern games, and the 4.20 GHz boost clock handles single-threaded tasks well. For this title, the CPU provides a stable foundation, but the GPU determines the final frame rates.