The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 1613 out of 1689 tested combinations in The Medium. This places the combo in the bottom 5% of all tested systems, reflecting a substantial performance deficit for this particular title. The data shows a configuration that struggles to maintain playable frame rates across most settings, with the rank indicating that the vast majority of rival hardware combinations deliver superior results.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame position of 1613 out of 1689 combos is a clear indicator of severe performance limitations. Benchmark results place this pairing near the bottom of the database, with only 76 combinations performing worse. The percentile standing suggests that this hardware setup falls significantly behind the median tested system, and the measured FPS data corroborates this ranking across all resolutions.

The rank reflects the combined bottleneck of both components. The Ryzen 5 5500’s average benchmark score of 20875 places it in the 79th percentile among all CPUs, which is respectable for a desktop processor. However, the RX 570’s average benchmark score of 30158 and its 74th percentile among all GPUs does not compensate for the demanding nature of The Medium. The game’s heavy rendering load exposes the GPU’s age, and the resulting frame rates drag the combo’s overall standing down dramatically.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s base clock runs at 1168 MHz with a boost clock of 1244 MHz, while the memory operates at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective). These specifications, combined with 2048 shading units and 32 ROPs, yield a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s.

The 4 GB VRAM capacity is a critical constraint in The Medium, a game known for its cinematic presentation and detailed environments. At 3840x2160 with High settings, the average FPS drops to 10.8, while Ultra settings yield just 8.6 FPS. The data suggests that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and capacity become saturated quickly as resolution and quality increase. The 224.0 GB/s bandwidth is insufficient for the high-resolution textures and effects this game demands, leading to severe frame rate degradation. The FP32 performance of 5.095 TFLOPS is modest by modern standards, further limiting the GPU’s ability to process the game’s complex shaders efficiently.

Resolution Scaling

Analyzing the FPS progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a steep performance cliff that points directly to the GPU as the primary limiting factor. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 45.4 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 Low drops this to 39.3 FPS, and at 3840x2160 Low it falls to 31.2 FPS. The scaling is roughly linear, with each resolution step costing about 6-8 FPS at Low settings.

The scaling becomes more dramatic at higher quality presets. At Medium settings, the frame rate goes from 30.6 FPS at 1080p to 24.4 FPS at 1440p, then plunges to 18.7 FPS at 4K. The High preset shows a similar pattern: 19.2 FPS at 1080p, 15.8 FPS at 1440p, and 10.8 FPS at 4K. This consistent drop across all settings indicates that the GPU’s rendering throughput, not the CPU, is the binding constraint. The Ryzen 5 5500’s six cores and twelve threads are sufficient to feed the GPU at these frame rates, as evidenced by the CPU’s strong benchmark scores in multi-threaded tests.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor. Low settings produce 31.2 FPS, which is the only playable result at this resolution, though barely so. Medium drops to 18.7 FPS, High falls to 10.8 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 8.6 FPS. None of these figures approach the 60 FPS target that modern displays expect, and even 30 FPS is only achievable at Low.

Moving to 2560x1440, the situation improves marginally. Low settings yield 39.3 FPS, which is approaching playability for slower-paced horror games. Medium produces 24.4 FPS, High gives 15.8 FPS, and Ultra limps to 11 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is substantial, suggesting that the Medium preset introduces significant additional rendering complexity.

At 1920x1080, the best results appear. Low settings achieve 45.4 FPS, the highest measured value in the entire dataset. Medium reaches 30.6 FPS, which is borderline playable. High drops to 19.2 FPS, and Ultra manages 17.6 FPS. The data shows that even at the lowest resolution, the combo cannot maintain a stable 60 FPS at any quality level, and only Low settings provide a consistently smooth experience.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal experience is achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings, yielding 45.4 FPS. This is the only configuration that approaches a fluid frame rate, though it still falls short of the 60 FPS ideal. For players who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate, 2560x1440 at Low settings with 39.3 FPS offers a reasonable compromise, providing higher resolution while maintaining a similar playability threshold.

The Medium preset at 1920x1080 produces 30.6 FPS, which is technically playable but will feel stuttery during fast camera movements. The High and Ultra presets are not recommended at any resolution, as they consistently produce frame rates below 20 FPS, which is insufficient for a horror game that relies on atmospheric tension and smooth exploration. The data suggests that the Low preset is the only viable option for this hardware, with 1080p being the primary resolution target.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 brings six cores and twelve threads with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Based on the Zen 3 architecture (Cezanne codename) on a 7 nm process from TSMC, the CPU offers 16 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 20875 places it at the 79th percentile, and its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12500, scores 20897, a delta of -0.1%.

The CPU’s performance is not the limiting factor in this combo. The multi-threaded benchmark results, such as the Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16429 and PassMark multithread score of 19330, indicate ample processing power for The Medium’s AI and physics calculations. The single-thread performance, evidenced by the Cinebench R23 singlecore score of 2319, is also adequate. The bottleneck clearly lies with the GPU, as evidenced by the resolution scaling: if the CPU were the constraint, frame rates would remain flat across resolutions rather than dropping sharply as they do.

The Ryzen 5 5500’s 65 W TDP and PCIe Gen 3 interface are adequate for this workload. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the GPU is least stressed, the frame rate only reaches 45.4 FPS, suggesting the GPU is still the primary limiter. The CPU’s 12 threads provide enough parallelism to handle the game’s background streaming and logic without introducing CPU-side frame pacing issues. In this configuration, the CPU has headroom remaining, but the GPU cannot translate that headroom into higher frame rates.