The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600G and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 combo ranks 3594th out of 3724 tested combinations for The Medium, placing it in the bottom 4% of all systems. This is a very weak pairing for this title, and the measured frame rates confirm that it is fundamentally unsuitable for smooth gameplay at most settings. The data indicates that this system is severely GPU-limited, with the GTX 1650's 4 GB of VRAM and modest compute capabilities acting as the primary bottleneck.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 3594 out of 3724 tested combinations places it in the 4th percentile of all tested systems. This is a decisive verdict: the combination is among the least capable configurations for running The Medium. The CPU itself is not the main issue; the Ryzen 5 4600G's average benchmark score of 17507 puts it in the 71st percentile of all CPUs, and it sits within 1% of rivals like the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 5355GE (deltaPct 0.1), the Intel Core 7 150U (deltaPct 0.6), and the AMD Ryzen 3 8300GE (deltaPct -0.6). However, the GPU is a different story. The GeForce GTX 1650 has an average benchmark score of 7472, placing it in the 40th percentile of all GPUs, and it is nearly identical in performance to the AMD Radeon HD 8850M (deltaPct 0.3) and Intel UHD Graphics 750 (deltaPct 0.4).

The disparity between the CPU's above-average standing and the GPU's below-average standing is telling. The data suggests that the GTX 1650 is the limiting factor in this pairing. The benchmark results show that the system cannot maintain playable frame rates at 1080p with medium or higher settings, and even at low settings it only manages an average of 44 FPS. The overall rank reflects this severe GPU constraint, and the system's position in the bottom tier of tested combos is consistent with the GPU's low percentile ranking.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run The Medium at 1080p with playable frame rates?

A: At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves an average of 44 FPS, which is technically playable. However, at Medium settings the average drops to 27 FPS, and at High settings it falls to 20 FPS, indicating that only the lowest preset provides a consistently fluid experience.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: The best resolution is 1920x1080, as it is the only resolution where the system can reach an average above 30 FPS, and that is only with Low settings. At 2560x1440, the maximum average FPS is 37 with Low settings, but at 3840x2160, even Low settings only produce a 29 FPS average.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The GTX 1650's average benchmark score of 7472 is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon HD 8850M (7447, deltaPct 0.3) and the Intel UHD Graphics 750 (7441, deltaPct 0.4), while it is about 1% behind the Intel Arc A310 (7550, deltaPct -1). This shows that the GPU is not an outlier in its performance class; it is simply a low-end part.

Q: Is the CPU holding back the GPU in this game?

A: No, the data indicates the opposite. The Ryzen 5 4600G has a 71st percentile CPU ranking and scores within 1% of its nearest rivals. The GPU is in the 40th percentile and is the clear bottleneck, as evidenced by the dramatic FPS drops when moving from Low to Medium settings at any resolution.

Q: What is the difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the average FPS goes from 44 at Low settings down to 27 at Medium, then to 20 at High, and finally to 16 at Ultra. This represents a 64% reduction in frame rate from Low to Ultra, showing that the visual preset has a massive impact on this system's performance.

Q: What is the system's performance at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the system is essentially unplayable. The average FPS is 10 at Ultra, 13 at High, 18 at Medium, and 29 at Low. Even the lowest preset at 4K fails to hit 30 FPS, confirming that this resolution is beyond the capabilities of the GTX 1650.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600G is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 4000 series, built on the Zen 2 architecture using a 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, with 8 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 13593 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 1919 in single-core, which are respectable numbers for a desktop part. Its Passmark multithread score is 15992, and it achieves a 3DMark max threads score of 4889.

In the context of The Medium, this CPU is more than sufficient to feed the GPU. The game's performance is severely limited by the graphics card, not the processor. The benchmark data shows that the CPU's 71st percentile ranking is far higher than the GPU's 40th percentile, and the FPS differences between resolutions and settings are characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. For example, at 1080p Low, the system gets 44 FPS, but at 1080p High, it only gets 20 FPS. This 55% drop is not caused by the CPU, which has ample headroom for the game's logic. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are adequate for the game's multi-threaded workload, and its single-thread performance, as indicated by the 1919 Cinebench R23 score, is sufficient to avoid becoming a bottleneck at the low frame rates this GPU produces. The data shows that this is a case where the processor is waiting on the GPU, not the other way around.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo reveals a consistent pattern of low performance across all resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the lowest tested resolution, the system achieves an average of 44 FPS at Low settings, 27 FPS at Medium (min 23, max 31), 20 FPS at High, and 16 FPS at Ultra. The Medium setting is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum values, showing a range from 23 to 31 FPS.

At 2560x1440, performance drops further. The Low preset delivers an average of 37 FPS, which is still below the 60 FPS target. Medium averages 23 FPS (min 20, max 26), High averages 16 FPS, and Ultra averages 13 FPS. The step from Low to Medium at this resolution is a 38% reduction in frame rate.

At 3840x2160, the system is pushed to its limits. The Low preset averages 29 FPS, which is the only setting at this resolution that comes close to playable. Medium averages 18 FPS (min 15, max 21), High averages 13 FPS, and Ultra averages just 10 FPS. The data shows that the GTX 1650's 4 GB of VRAM is overwhelmed at this resolution, and the frame rates are consistently below 30 FPS across all presets.

The pattern across all resolutions is clear: the system can only reach an average of 44 FPS at 1080p Low, and every other configuration results in sub-30 FPS averages. The frame rate data confirms that this is a low-end gaming experience, with the GTX 1650 unable to handle the game's demands at anything above the lowest settings.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data shows a significant drop in performance as resolution increases, which is a classic sign of a GPU-bound system. From 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, the average FPS at Low settings drops from 44 to 37, a 16% decrease. From 1080p to 3840x2160, the Low settings average drops from 44 to 29, a 34% decrease. This scaling is much steeper than what would be expected from a CPU-bound scenario, where resolution changes have a minimal impact on frame rates.

The data at Medium settings further illustrates this point. At 1080p, the average is 27 FPS; at 1440p, it is 23 FPS; and at 4K, it is 18 FPS. This represents a 33% drop from 1080p to 4K, which is consistent with the GPU struggling to fill more pixels. The GTX 1650's 128.1 GB/s memory bandwidth and 2.984 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are simply insufficient for higher resolutions in a demanding title like The Medium.

The limiting component is clearly the GPU. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar frame rates across different resolutions, but the data shows a consistent decline. The fact that even at 1080p Low, the system only manages 44 FPS, indicates that the GPU is already saturated at the lowest resolution and settings. The resolution scaling confirms that the GTX 1650 is the primary constraint, and upgrading the GPU would be the only way to improve performance in this game.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the only viable setting for this combo in The Medium is 1080p with the Low preset. This is the only configuration that produces an average frame rate above 30 FPS, with an average of 44 FPS. All other settings at 1080p result in averages below 30 FPS: Medium at 27 FPS, High at 20 FPS, and Ultra at 16 FPS.

At 1440p, the Low preset is the only option that approaches playability, with an average of 37 FPS. However, this is still below the 60 FPS target and may result in noticeable stuttering. At 4K, no settings are recommended, as even Low averages only 29 FPS, and the minimum frame rate is likely to be much lower.

For the best experience, the data suggests using 1080p with Low settings. This provides the highest average frame rate and the most stable performance. If visual quality is a priority, the Medium preset at 1080p offers a 27 FPS average, but the minimum frame rate of 23 FPS indicates that there will be noticeable drops during intense scenes. The High and Ultra presets should be avoided entirely, as they produce average frame rates that are below 20 FPS, which is not a smooth gaming experience.

The data shows that this system is not well-suited for The Medium, and users should expect to run the game at the lowest settings and resolution to achieve acceptable performance. The GTX 1650 is the limiting factor, and the CPU has enough headroom to handle the game's requirements. There is no setting that will deliver a high-refresh-rate experience, and the recommendation is to prioritize frame rate over visual fidelity by using the Low preset at 1080p.