The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600G paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 produces a starkly contrasting performance profile in The Medium, where the GPU’s raw capabilities are consistently throttled by the CPU’s architectural limits, particularly at lower resolutions and higher settings. The measured data reveals a system that can deliver smooth frame rates at 1080p with optimized settings but struggles to maintain playable performance at 4K Ultra, positioning this combination as a mid-range pairing that requires careful settings management to balance visual fidelity against the significant frame rate penalties imposed by the game’s demanding rendering pipeline.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior of this configuration demonstrates a classic GPU-bound progression, albeit with a notable caveat at the highest settings. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average frame rate drops from 51.7 FPS to 38.9 FPS, representing a 24.8% performance loss—a substantial but expected penalty for a 77% increase in pixel count. The scaling from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 at High settings is more severe, with the average falling from 38.9 FPS to 29.5 FPS, a 24.2% reduction, indicating that the RTX 4060’s 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth are increasingly strained as resolution climbs.

However, the scaling behavior shifts dramatically when examining Low settings. At 1920x1080 Low, the system produces 106.4 FPS, but this drops to 89.6 FPS at 2560x1440 Low (a 15.8% decrease) and further to 73.5 FPS at 3840x2160 Low (an 18.0% decrease from 1440p). This pattern suggests that at Low settings, the limiting component becomes more balanced between CPU and GPU, as the reduced graphical load allows the Ryzen 5 4600G’s single-thread performance to emerge as a more significant factor. The Ultra settings tell a different story entirely: at 1920x1080 Ultra the system manages 41.3 FPS, dropping to 30.7 FPS at 1440p and a marginal 24.5 FPS at 4K, with the latter representing a 40.7% degradation from the 1080p result. This indicates that Ultra settings impose a rendering cost that overwhelms the GPU’s capabilities, making 4K Ultra effectively unplayable and even 1080p Ultra requiring compromises for smooth gameplay.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600G, built on the Zen 2 architecture with a 7 nm process, provides six cores and twelve threads with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its benchmark results reveal a processor that is competent but not exceptional for gaming workloads: a single-thread score of 726 in 3DMark and 1919 in Cinebench R23 single-core, with a multi-thread score of 13593 in Cinebench R23. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 75 against all CPUs places it in the upper quartile, yet its nearest rivals—including the Intel Core i3-13100F with a deltaPct of -1%—indicate that the 4600G’s performance ceiling is closely matched by newer, lower-core-count parts.

In The Medium, the CPU’s role becomes apparent when examining the frame rate differences between Low and High settings at the same resolution. At 1920x1080, the jump from Low (106.4 FPS) to High (51.7 FPS) represents a 51.4% reduction, which is far larger than the difference between High and Ultra (41.3 FPS, a 20.1% drop). This nonlinear scaling suggests that the game’s higher settings introduce effects that disproportionately load the GPU, while at Low settings the CPU is able to feed the graphics card more effectively. The Ryzen 5 4600G’s 8 MB shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game’s requirements, but the processor’s Zen 2 architecture, which predates the game’s 2021 release, may lack optimizations found in newer designs, contributing to the observed frame rate ceilings at lower resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, based on the Ada Lovelace architecture and fabricated on a 5 nm process, delivers 3072 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units, with 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores. Its boost clock of 2460 MHz and memory clock of 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective) feed an 8 GB GDDR6 buffer across a 128-bit bus, yielding 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s FP32 compute of 15.11 TFLOPS and texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s position it as a capable 1080p performer, with its percentile ranking of 66 against all GPUs confirming its mid-range status.

The RTX 4060’s performance in The Medium is highly settings-dependent, as the data shows a massive spread between Low and Ultra at every resolution. At 1920x1080, the GPU produces 106.4 FPS at Low but just 41.3 FPS at Ultra, a 61.2% performance drop that underscores how the game’s high-fidelity effects—likely including volumetric lighting and complex shadow rendering—tax the GPU’s resources. The 8 GB VRAM capacity becomes a potential constraint at higher resolutions; at 3840x2160, the difference between Low (73.5 FPS) and High (29.5 FPS) is 59.9%, while Medium (44.4 FPS) sits between these extremes, suggesting that memory capacity and bandwidth play a role in the scaling. The GPU’s nearest rivals include the Intel Arc B580 with a deltaPct of 0.7% and the AMD Radeon RX 6600M at -0.6%, indicating that the RTX 4060’s performance is closely grouped with other mid-range solutions, though its architectural advantages in ray tracing do not appear to benefit this particular title based on the measured results.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for smooth gameplay?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the system achieves 68.3 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play. Low settings at 1080p yield 106.4 FPS for competitive or high-refresh-rate play, while High settings at 1080p drop to 51.7 FPS, which may be acceptable for slower-paced horror gameplay.

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

A: At 3840x2160, only Low settings (73.5 FPS) and Medium settings (44.4 FPS) produce playable frame rates. High settings at 29.5 FPS and Ultra at 24.5 FPS are below the 30 FPS minimum generally needed for playable performance, making 4K with high visual fidelity impractical.

Q: How does the CPU affect performance compared to the GPU?

A: The CPU’s single-thread performance (726 in 3DMark) and multi-thread capabilities (4889 in 3DMark max threads) are sufficient to drive the GPU at Low settings across all resolutions. However, at higher settings, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck, as evidenced by the larger frame rate drops between Low and High compared to CPU-bound scenarios.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 1440p at Ultra settings?

A: At Ultra settings, the average frame rate falls from 41.3 FPS at 1920x1080 to 30.7 FPS at 2560x1440, a 25.7% reduction. This indicates that Ultra settings at 1440p are marginal for smooth gameplay, and users should consider High settings for better performance.

Q: Is the RTX 4060’s 8 GB VRAM sufficient for this game?

A: Based on the measured data, the 8 GB GDDR6 memory appears adequate, as the system produces playable frame rates at 1440p with Medium settings (55.5 FPS). The severe frame rate drops at 4K High and Ultra (29.5 and 24.5 FPS, respectively) suggest that memory bandwidth, rather than capacity, may be the limiting factor.

Q: How does this system compare to other GPU configurations?

A: The RTX 4060’s average benchmark score of 23181 is closely matched by the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23321, -0.6% delta) and the Intel Arc B580 (23021, +0.7% delta). This indicates that the GPU’s performance in The Medium is representative of its overall mid-range positioning, with no significant advantage over direct competitors.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following average frame rates were measured across all resolution and settings combinations, with higher values indicating better performance:

3840x2160 (4K UHD):

• Low: 73.5 FPS
• Medium: 44.4 FPS
• High: 29.5 FPS
• Ultra: 24.5 FPS

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 89.6 FPS
• Medium: 55.5 FPS
• High: 38.9 FPS
• Ultra: 30.7 FPS

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 106.4 FPS
• Medium: 68.3 FPS
• High: 51.7 FPS
• Ultra: 41.3 FPS

The data reveals a consistent pattern where Low settings provide the highest frame rates across all resolutions, with a maximum of 106.4 FPS at 1080p and a minimum of 73.5 FPS at 4K. Medium settings offer a balanced compromise, maintaining at least 44.4 FPS even at 4K. High settings are playable only at 1080p (51.7 FPS) and 1440p (38.9 FPS), while Ultra settings fall below 30 FPS at 4K and remain marginal at 1440p. The overall combination rank of 975 out of 1689 tested configurations places this system in the upper-middle tier for The Medium, indicating that while it is not a top-tier performer, it can deliver acceptable experiences with appropriate settings adjustments. The measured data confirms that the RTX 4060’s capabilities are best utilized at 1080p with Medium or High settings, where the Ryzen 5 4600G’s six cores and twelve threads provide adequate support without creating a significant bottleneck.