The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER delivers a strong, versatile experience in The Medium, a horror title that clearly scales with GPU load. The measured data shows this combination ranks 480th out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the upper third of all systems. With the RTX 4070 SUPER’s 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 220 W TDP, the system is well-suited for high-refresh 1080p and smooth 1440p play, though 4K Ultra demands more than this pairing can consistently deliver.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for the RTX 4070 SUPER in The Medium?*

A: Based on measured FPS, 1440p Medium (85.2 FPS) offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. For a locked 60 FPS experience, 1440p High (63.6 FPS) or 1080p Ultra (61.2 FPS) are viable, while 4K High (49.3 FPS) is playable but below 60.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 3600 affect performance in this game?

A: The 6-core, 12-thread processor is not a bottleneck at most settings. At 1080p Low, the system hits 108.8 FPS, showing the GPU is still the primary driver. Its 3.60 GHz base and 4.20 GHz boost clocks provide sufficient single-thread performance for the game’s fixed-camera scenes.

*Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in The Medium?*

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 4K Medium, the combo averages 68.8 FPS, which is smooth. However, 4K Ultra drops to 37.7 FPS, indicating the GPU’s 12 GB memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are saturated by the highest settings.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p Low to 4K Ultra?

A: The average FPS falls dramatically from 108.8 at 1080p Low to 37.7 at 4K Ultra, a 65% reduction. This steep drop highlights that The Medium becomes heavily GPU-bound as resolution and settings increase.

Q: Is the RTX 4070 SUPER overkill for 1080p in this title?

A: The data suggests it is. At 1080p Low, the frame rate is 108.8 FPS, which is high but not extreme. The GPU’s 35.48 TFLOPS FP32 performance is underutilized at this resolution, as the CPU’s single-thread score (2124 in Cinebench R23) becomes the limiting factor.

Q: How does this combo rank against all tested systems?

A: It ranks 480th out of 1689 combos, placing it in the 72nd percentile overall. This is a strong result, indicating the pairing is well-balanced for modern games, though it falls short of top-tier 4K Ultra performance.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 3600 and RTX 4070 SUPER achieves a rank of 480 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places the system in the top 28% of all configurations, a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The rank reflects a system that excels at 1440p and handles 4K at medium settings, but it is not positioned for maximum 4K Ultra fidelity.

Comparatively, the CPU’s average benchmark score of 18129 places it nearly identical to the Intel Core i5-11400 (18150, 0.1% behind) and the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (18158, 0.2% behind). This means the processor is not a differentiator in this context; the GPU does the heavy lifting. The GPU’s average score of 42576 is closely matched with the NVIDIA RTX A6000 (42653, 0.2% ahead) and the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE (42723, 0.3% ahead), confirming the 4070 SUPER is a solid performer in its class.

In game-specific terms, the combo’s 480th rank suggests that while it outperforms many older or lower-tier systems, it sits behind combos with newer CPUs like the Ryzen 7000-series or Intel 13th-gen, which can push higher minimum frame rates in CPU-bound scenes. However, for most players, the measured FPS at 1440p and 1080p will feel fluid and responsive.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the measured results. With 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, the card offers 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. This is sufficient for 1440p High (63.6 FPS) and 4K Medium (68.8 FPS), but the 4K Ultra result of 37.7 FPS shows the memory capacity and bandwidth are stressed by the game’s highest textures.

The GPU’s boost clock of 2475 MHz, combined with its 7168 shading units, delivers 35.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. This raw power is evident in the scaling from Low to High settings. At 1080p, the FPS drops from 108.8 (Low) to 71.9 (High), a 34% reduction that is typical for GPU-intensive effects. The 56 RT cores and 224 tensor cores are present but not heavily utilized in The Medium, as the game’s fixed-camera design relies more on rasterization than real-time ray tracing.

The GPU’s 84th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 42576, confirms it is a high-end part. Its nearest rival, the RTX A6000, scores 42653 (0.2% higher), showing the 4070 SUPER is within 1% of a professional workstation card in synthetic tests. In gaming, this translates to robust performance, but the 4K Ultra result of 37.7 FPS indicates the card is not a 4K60 Ultra solution for this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a clear picture of performance across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers smooth gameplay across all preset levels. Low settings average 108.8 FPS, Medium hits 89.2 FPS, High achieves 71.9 FPS, and Ultra maintains 61.2 FPS. This means even at maximum settings, the system clears 60 FPS, making 1080p Ultra a viable option for high-refresh monitors.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results remain strong. Low settings produce 99.7 FPS, Medium drops to 85.2 FPS, High averages 63.6 FPS, and Ultra falls to 49.1 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra is significant, with a 22% performance loss, suggesting that Ultra presets at 1440p require a more powerful GPU for a locked 60 FPS experience.

At 3840x2160, the GPU begins to show its limits. Low settings still achieve 94.6 FPS, but Medium drops to 68.8 FPS, High to 49.3 FPS, and Ultra to 37.7 FPS. The data reveals that 4K gaming is only practical at Low or Medium settings for a smooth experience. The 4K High result of 49.3 FPS is playable but not ideal for action-heavy sequences.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K illustrates where the bottleneck lies. At Low settings, the FPS drops from 108.8 (1080p) to 94.6 (4K), a modest 13% reduction. This small delta indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU has ample headroom to render higher resolutions without significant frame loss.

At Medium settings, the drop is steeper: 89.2 FPS at 1080p falls to 68.8 FPS at 4K, a 23% reduction. This shows the GPU becoming more involved. At High settings, the reduction from 71.9 FPS to 49.3 FPS is a 31% drop, and at Ultra, the fall from 61.2 FPS to 37.7 FPS is a 38% loss. These increasing deltas confirm that the RTX 4070 SUPER is the primary limiter at higher presets, with its 12 GB memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth struggling to feed the 4K framebuffer.

The data suggests that for players targeting 4K, dropping from Ultra to Medium recovers 31.1 FPS (from 37.7 to 68.8), a massive improvement that makes the game far more playable. This scaling behavior is typical of a GPU-bound title where texture quality and resolution are the dominant factors.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 plays a supporting role in this combo, but its influence is measurable. With 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 2 architecture, the CPU has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost of 4.20 GHz. Its 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps with game data, and its 76th percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates it is a solid mid-range part, though not a top-tier performer.

In The Medium, the CPU’s single-thread performance is critical. Its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2124 is modest by modern standards, but sufficient to keep pace with the GPU at higher resolutions. The 3DMark single-thread score of 696 confirms this. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 108.8 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s practical limit for this game. If a faster CPU were paired with the same GPU, the 1080p Low result might be higher, but the 1440p and 4K results would remain relatively unchanged.

The CPU’s multi-threaded performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15045, is more than adequate for the game’s background tasks. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 4605 shows the CPU can handle parallel workloads, but The Medium does not appear to be heavily multi-threaded. The data indicates that the Ryzen 5 3600 is not a bottleneck in this configuration, except at very low settings and resolutions where the GPU is underutilized.