The Medium

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 4600G and Intel Arc B580 places at rank 1325 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This positions the pairing in the lower half of the database, a result that reflects the underlying hardware balance. The processor holds a 75th percentile ranking among all CPUs, while the graphics card sits at the 66th percentile among all GPUs, suggesting that neither component is a league-leading outlier. The combo rank of 1325 translates to roughly the 78th percentile from the bottom, meaning most other pairings deliver higher frame rates in this specific horror title.

The data shows that this is not a high-end configuration for The Medium. The game, released in early 2021, presents significant rendering demands, and the measured FPS figures across all resolutions confirm that the Arc B580 is being pushed hard. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 17489 places it nearly even with the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 5355GE, differing by 0 percent, and just 0.1 percent behind the Intel Core i5-12450H. Meanwhile, the GPU’s average score of 23021 is a hair above the AMD Radeon 760M by 0.1 percent, and notably close to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, which trails by only 0.7 percent. These rival scores indicate that the Arc B580 is competitive with mainstream options, but the overall combo ranking shows that the Ryzen 5 4600G, with its Zen 2 architecture, does not boost the system into upper-tier territory for this workload.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 brings 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s. This memory capacity is generous for a game like The Medium, which relies on streaming assets and dual-world rendering. The 12 GB frame buffer helps avoid capacity-related hitches at higher resolutions, though the performance data indicates that raw throughput, not capacity, is the limiting factor. The GPU’s base and boost clocks are both fixed at 2670 MHz, and its 2560 shading units operate at a peak FP32 rate of 13.67 TFLOPS. These specifications place the card in a solid mid-range tier, but the measured FPS shows that The Medium’s visual effects, including ray-traced elements, stress the architecture heavily.

The Arc B580’s 20 ray tracing cores are present in the specification, but their impact in this title is modest. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS collapses to 18.6, a figure that indicates the GPU is overwhelmed by the combination of resolution and settings. The card’s 80 ROPs and 160 TMUs provide a texture fill rate of 427.2 GTexel/s, yet the data reveals that the pixel throughput of 213.6 GPixel/s is insufficient for high-fidelity 4K output in this game. The GPU’s percentile of 66 versus all GPUs, combined with its average benchmark score of 23021, underscores that it is a competent 1080p and 1440p performer, but not a 4K solution for demanding titles. The memory clock of 2375 MHz, effective 19 Gbps, keeps the bus fed, but the compute ceiling is reached well before memory bandwidth becomes a bottleneck, as seen in the steep FPS drops when moving from Low to Ultra settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of scaling across resolutions, with the GPU emerging as the primary limiter. From 1080p to 1440p, average FPS drops are consistent across all settings, but the magnitude varies. At Low settings, performance falls from 88.3 FPS at 1080p to 76 at 1440p, a 13.9 percent reduction, and then to 55.4 at 4K, a further 27.1 percent drop from 1440p. This progressive decline indicates that the GPU is the bottleneck, as the CPU has ample headroom at these lower settings. The Ryzen 5 4600G, with 6 cores and 12 threads, is not being stressed at Low presets, where the Arc B580 is doing the heavy lifting.

At higher settings, the resolution scaling becomes more pronounced. For High settings, 1080p yields 40.3 FPS, 1440p drops to 33.4, and 4K falls to 26.8. The gaps between resolutions shrink in absolute terms, but the percentage loss remains significant. Ultra settings show the most dramatic collapse: 30.8 FPS at 1080p, 25.6 at 1440p, and 18.6 at 4K. This pattern suggests that as settings increase, the GPU’s compute and memory subsystems become saturated, and the frame rate becomes heavily dependent on resolution. The data implies that the CPU is not the limiting component at any resolution, as even the most demanding 4K Ultra scenario shows a frame rate that would be far lower if the processor were the constraint. Instead, the Arc B580’s architecture, with its 13.67 TFLOPS peak, is the deciding factor across the board.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the benchmark results show a wide spread across presets. Low settings produce an average of 88.3 FPS, which is smooth and playable. Medium settings drop to 53.5 FPS, a 39.4 percent reduction from Low, indicating that the game’s medium preset introduces substantial rendering complexity. High settings yield 40.3 FPS, a further 24.7 percent drop from Medium, while Ultra falls to 30.8 FPS, a 23.6 percent decline from High. These diminishing returns are typical of a GPU-bound title, where each preset tier adds effects that tax the shading units and memory bandwidth.

Moving to 1440p, the same trend persists but at lower absolute values. Low settings average 76 FPS, still capable of a smooth experience. Medium drops to 46.8 FPS, a 38.4 percent reduction from Low, mirroring the 1080p pattern. High settings produce 33.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 25.6 FPS. The 1440p Medium result of 46.8 FPS is close to the 1080p High result of 40.3 FPS, suggesting that resolution and settings trade-offs are roughly equivalent in this range. At 4K, the numbers become marginal. Low settings average 55.4 FPS, which is the only playable option at this resolution. Medium drops to 36.4 FPS, High to 26.8, and Ultra to 18.6. The 4K Low result is notably higher than the 1440p Ultra result, indicating that reducing settings has a larger impact than lowering resolution in this game.

The data shows that the Arc B580 can handle 1080p Medium and 1440p Low with ease, but struggles at 4K beyond Low settings. The 1080p Medium figure of 53.5 FPS is the sweet spot for balanced visual quality and performance, while 1440p Medium at 46.8 FPS remains viable for those prioritizing resolution over frame rate. The 4K Ultra result of 18.6 FPS is the worst-case scenario, confirming that this combo is not designed for maximum fidelity at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS, the optimal experience for this combo is at 1080p with Medium settings, which delivers 53.5 FPS. This preset offers a balance between visual fidelity and smoothness, avoiding the steep performance penalty of High settings while providing a substantial upgrade over Low. For users with 1440p monitors, the Low preset at 76 FPS is the recommended choice, as it maintains a high frame rate above the 60 FPS threshold, while the Medium preset at 46.8 FPS may introduce noticeable stutter in fast-paced scenes. At 4K, only the Low preset at 55.4 FPS is viable, and even this may feel inconsistent due to the game’s horror pacing, which benefits from stable frame times.

The data suggests that High and Ultra presets are not worth their performance cost at any resolution. At 1080p High, the 40.3 FPS average is barely above the 30 FPS minimum for playability, but the jump from Medium to High does not justify the 24.7 percent performance loss. Similarly, Ultra at 1080p yields 30.8 FPS, which dips below the ideal smoothness threshold. For the best experience per the measured rows, users should prioritize the Medium preset at 1080p or the Low preset at 1440p. The GPU’s 12 GB memory allows for higher texture quality without exceeding capacity, but the compute limits dominate, making settings reductions more effective than resolution reductions in this title. The Ryzen 5 4600G’s performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 13593, is sufficient to avoid becoming a bottleneck at these settings, as the GPU is clearly the limiting factor.