The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 produces a highly curious dataset in The Medium, one that reveals a significant bottleneck that shifts depending on the resolution and settings preset. The RTX 5090, with its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, is a GPU designed for extreme throughput. Its boost clock of 2407 MHz and 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute place it in the top tier of available graphics hardware, sitting at the 94th percentile of all GPUs. In contrast, the Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread Zen 2 processor from 2019, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15045 and a single-core score of 2124, place it at the 76th percentile of all CPUs, a solid mid-range performer but clearly a generation behind the GPU in raw capability.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The RTX 5090's specifications are almost absurdly overprovisioned for a horror title like The Medium, yet the measured frame rates reveal that this excess does not translate into linear performance gains. The GPU's 32 GB of VRAM is more than double what any current game would require for texture data, ensuring that memory capacity is never a limiting factor at any resolution in this test. The memory clock of 1750 MHz, running at 28 Gbps effective, provides a staggering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for feeding the 21760 shading units and 680 texture mapping units. The base clock of 2017 MHz and boost clock of 2407 MHz are the raw drivers of compute, and the data shows that at 1080p, the GPU is not the primary constraint on performance.

At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 109.9 FPS. When moving to Ultra settings at the same resolution, the frame rate drops to 74.1 FPS, a 32.6% reduction. This drop is substantial but not catastrophic, suggesting that the GPU is still doing significant work. However, the RTX 5090's raw compute power, as indicated by its 14411 score in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, is so high that it should be able to crush 1080p Ultra in most titles. The fact that it only reaches 74.1 FPS here points to a CPU limitation, where the Ryzen 5 3600 cannot issue draw calls and game logic fast enough to feed the GPU. The GPU's role at 1080p is therefore partially idle, waiting on the processor. The situation changes at 4K, where the GPU's sheer pixel-pushing power becomes the dominant factor, as evidenced by the 63.5 FPS at High settings, which is only slightly lower than the 73.7 FPS at 1440p High.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The scaling pattern from 1080p to 4K is the most revealing aspect of this dataset. At 1080p High, the combo produces 79.5 FPS. At 1440p High, the frame rate drops to 73.7 FPS, a modest 7.3% decrease. At 4K High, it falls to 63.5 FPS, a further 13.8% decrease from 1440p. This gentle slope from 1080p to 4K is unusual, as most GPU-bound systems will see a dramatic drop when transitioning from 1440p to 4K due to the 2.25x increase in pixel count. The fact that the drop is only 10.2 FPS (from 73.7 to 63.5) suggests that the system is not purely GPU-bound at 1440p. If it were, the 4K result would be far lower.

Look at the Low settings row for a clearer picture. At 1080p Low, the system hits 109.9 FPS. At 1440p Low, it drops to 101.6 FPS, only an 8.3 FPS decrease. At 4K Low, it is 96.1 FPS, a mere 5.5 FPS drop from 1440p. This near-flat scaling across resolutions at Low settings is a classic sign of a CPU bottleneck. The Ryzen 5 3600 is capping the maximum frame rate around 110 FPS at 1080p Low, and as resolution increases, the GPU has more work to do, but it still has enough headroom to maintain a high frame rate because the CPU is already at its limit. The system is CPU-bound at 1080p and becomes progressively more GPU-bound as resolution rises, but even at 4K, the CPU is still limiting the absolute ceiling, preventing the RTX 5090 from fully stretching its legs.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

Within the database of 1689 tested combinations for The Medium, this specific pairing of the Ryzen 5 3600 and RTX 5090 ranks at position 348. This places it in the top 20.6% of all tested combos, which is a strong showing, but the percentile of the GPU (94th) and the CPU (76th) suggest the ranking should be higher. The data indicates that the combination is underperforming relative to what the GPU alone could achieve. The rank of 348 is not driven by the GPU's capabilities but by the CPU's inability to keep up.

The nearest rivals for the GPU show a delta of only 0.1% to 0.2% in average benchmark score compared to the RTX 5090 D and RTX 5050 Mobile, meaning the GPU is at the top of its class. The CPU's nearest rivals, the Intel Core i5-11400 and AMD Ryzen 5 1600, have delta percentages of -0.1% and -0.2%, respectively, indicating they are virtually identical in average performance. This means that swapping the Ryzen 5 3600 for a similar-tier CPU would not change the outcome in The Medium. The bottleneck is structural to the CPU's architecture and clock speed, not a specific defect of this chip. The combo rank of 348 is therefore a reflection of the CPU's place in the hierarchy, not the GPU's.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of the system's behavior. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are as follows: Low settings yield 109.9 FPS, Medium yields 88.2 FPS, High yields 79.5 FPS, and Ultra yields 74.1 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 35.8 FPS, showing that the CPU can push a high frame rate when the GPU has less work, but the GPU's increased load at Ultra settings brings the CPU closer to its limit, reducing the frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the numbers are: Low at 101.6 FPS, Medium at 82.2 FPS, High at 73.7 FPS, and Ultra at 66.2 FPS. The drop from 1080p Low to 1440p Low is only 8.3 FPS, while the drop from 1080p Ultra to 1440p Ultra is 7.9 FPS. This consistency across settings at these two resolutions reinforces the CPU-bound nature of the system.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low at 96.1 FPS, Medium at 76.2 FPS, High at 63.5 FPS, and Ultra at 48.7 FPS. Here, the scaling becomes more pronounced. The drop from 1440p Low to 4K Low is 5.5 FPS, but the drop from 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra is 17.5 FPS. This shows that at 4K Ultra, the GPU is finally becoming the primary bottleneck, as the pixel load overwhelms the shading units. The 48.7 FPS at 4K Ultra is the only result that falls below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that the GPU is being pushed to its absolute limit in this specific configuration.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Interpreting the measured rows, the most balanced experience is at 2560x1440 with High settings, which delivers 73.7 FPS. This resolution provides a significant visual upgrade over 1080p while maintaining a smooth frame rate. The 4K High setting at 63.5 FPS is also playable, but the 1440p High result offers a higher frame rate with a smaller pixel count, making it a more stable choice.

For players targeting 1080p, the High preset at 79.5 FPS is superior to Ultra at 74.1 FPS. The 5.4 FPS difference is negligible visually, but High settings often carry lower performance costs for shadow and post-processing effects, making it the more efficient choice. At 4K, High at 63.5 FPS is the recommended preset, as the Medium preset at 76.2 FPS is also viable, but High offers a better visual quality with only a 12.7 FPS penalty over Medium. Ultra at 4K should be avoided, as the 48.7 FPS result falls below the playable threshold for a smooth experience.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 has 6 cores and 12 threads, a configuration that was mid-range in 2019. Its base clock of 3.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.20 GHz are modest by modern standards. The benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2124 and a multi-core score of 15045. The multi-core score is respectable, but the single-core score is the critical metric for gaming. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1361 and 4-thread score of 2579 indicate that the CPU's performance on the few threads that games typically use is limited.

In The Medium, the data clearly shows that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p and 1440p. The fact that the system only reaches 109.9 FPS at 1080p Low, despite the RTX 5090's immense power, is a direct result of the CPU's single-threaded performance ceiling. The 6-core, 12-thread design is sufficient for the game's multi-threaded engine, but the per-core clock speed of 4.20 GHz is not high enough to feed the GPU at higher frame rates. The CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps with game data, but it cannot overcome the fundamental limit of the Zen 2 architecture. The result is that the RTX 5090 is starved for data at lower resolutions, and the system's performance is capped around 110 FPS. This CPU bottleneck is evident in the near-flat scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, and it persists even at 4K High, where the GPU is still waiting on the CPU to deliver draw calls. The Ryzen 5 3600 is the weak link in this pairing, and its performance ceiling dictates the overall experience.