The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers a benchmark combination that lands in the 136th position out of 1,689 tested combos in The Medium. This places the pairing in the top 8% of all configurations, a strong showing that reflects the GPU's dominance. While the CPU is not the fastest on the market, its 6-core, 12-thread layout is sufficient to keep the RTX 4090 fed at most settings, though the data reveals a nuanced relationship between the two components that becomes more apparent at higher resolutions and quality presets.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 136 out of 1,689 tested configurations places this pairing firmly in the upper tier of systems evaluated for The Medium. This is a position that suggests the RTX 4090 is doing most of the heavy lifting, as the Ryzen 5 5500's average benchmark score of 20,875 puts it in the 79th percentile among all CPUs. That CPU score is respectable, but it is not elite; the GPU, with an average benchmark score of 66,473 and a 91st percentile ranking, is clearly the stronger component. The delta between the CPU and GPU percentiles indicates that the graphics card is the primary driver of this combo's high placement.

When examining the CPU's nearest rivals, the Ryzen 5 5500 sits within a very tight performance band. The Intel Core i5-12500 scores 20,897, a delta of -0.1% from the AMD part, while the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE scores 20,900, also at -0.1%. The AMD EPYC 7J13 trails by 0.1% with a score of 20,845, and the Intel Core i5-12600T leads by 0.2% at 20,917. These margins are negligible, meaning the CPU is not a differentiating factor in this combo's ranking; any of these processors would yield nearly identical results in The Medium.

The GPU's nearest rivals tell a different story. The NVIDIA Tesla T4 scores 66,733, which is 0.4% higher than the RTX 4090's 66,473, while the Tesla P40 is 0.5% lower at 66,127. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 and NVIDIA Quadro P6000 are 0.9% and 1.3% higher, respectively. These are workstation-class cards in a different market segment, so the RTX 4090's position among them is not directly relevant to gaming performance. What matters is that the RTX 4090 is among the fastest consumer GPUs, and its 91st percentile ranking confirms this.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the defining component in this configuration, and its specifications make that clear. With 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, the card has a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s, which is more than sufficient for The Medium's assets at any resolution. The GPU's base clock is 2235 MHz with a boost clock of 2520 MHz, and its memory runs at 1313 MHz, translating to 21 Gbps effective. This clock architecture allows the card to maintain high throughput across the 16,384 shading units.

The RTX 4090's FP32 performance of 82.58 TFLOPS is substantial, and the 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores provide dedicated hardware for ray tracing and AI features, though The Medium's implementation of these technologies is not detailed in the data. The pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s ensure that the card can handle the game's visual effects without becoming a bottleneck at lower resolutions. At 1080p and 1440p, the GPU is often waiting on the CPU, but at 4K, it becomes the limiting factor, which is typical for a horror title with complex lighting.

The benchmark results for the GPU, such as a Passmark G3D score of 38,194 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 317,684, reflect its raw compute power. These scores do not directly translate to gaming performance but indicate that the card has ample headroom for the most demanding scenarios. In The Medium, the GPU's role is to push high frame rates at 4K, and the measured FPS at that resolution shows it is capable, though the CPU's influence becomes apparent at lower settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of scaling from 1080p to 4K, with the RTX 4090's dominance diminishing as resolution increases. At 1080p with High settings, the combo achieves 95.4 FPS, which drops to 81.9 FPS at 1440p and 64.7 FPS at 4K. This is a 32% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU is not fully saturated at the lower resolution. The CPU is likely limiting performance at 1080p, as the Ryzen 5 5500's 6 cores cannot keep up with the GPU's ability to render frames quickly.

At Low settings, the pattern is even more pronounced. The combo hits 126.1 FPS at 1080p, 119.4 FPS at 1440p, and 113.3 FPS at 4K. The difference between 1080p and 4K is only 10%, which suggests that the CPU is the primary bottleneck even at 4K with Low settings. The GPU is so powerful that it can render frames faster than the CPU can feed it, even at 4K. This is a typical scenario for a high-end GPU paired with a mid-range CPU.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is steeper. The combo achieves 76.3 FPS at 1080p, 64.0 FPS at 1440p, and 48.1 FPS at 4K. This is a 37% drop from 1080p to 4K, showing that the GPU is now the limiting factor. The RTX 4090's 24 GB of VRAM is not an issue, but the sheer compute required for Ultra settings at 4K pushes the card to its limits. The medium settings show a similar trend, with 106.0 FPS at 1080p, 102.3 FPS at 1440p, and 84.8 FPS at 4K, a 20% drop.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Medium?

A: At 1080p with High settings, the combo achieves 95.4 FPS, which is smooth, but the CPU limits performance. At 4K with High settings, the frame rate drops to 64.7 FPS, which is still playable. The sweet spot is 1440p with High settings at 81.9 FPS, balancing visual quality and frame rate.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 5500 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 5 5500 has an average benchmark score of 20,875, which is nearly identical to the Intel Core i5-12500 (20,897, -0.1%), the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE (20,900, -0.1%), and the AMD EPYC 7J13 (20,845, 0.1%). The Intel Core i5-12600T is 0.2% faster at 20,917.

Q: Is the RTX 4090 the bottleneck at 4K?

A: Yes, at 4K Ultra settings, the frame rate drops to 48.1 FPS, while at 1080p Ultra it is 76.3 FPS. This 37% drop indicates the GPU is the limiting component at 4K, as the CPU's 6 cores are less of a factor at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 136th out of 1,689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 8% of all systems tested.

Q: Does the CPU limit performance at 1080p?

A: The data suggests yes. At Low settings, the frame rate only drops from 126.1 FPS at 1080p to 113.3 FPS at 4K, a 10% difference. This small gap indicates that the Ryzen 5 5500 is preventing the RTX 4090 from reaching its full potential at lower resolutions.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 4090 have, and is it enough?

A: The RTX 4090 has 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus with 1.01 TB/s bandwidth. This is more than enough for The Medium at any resolution and settings, as the game does not appear to exceed this capacity based on the measured FPS.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Cezanne, manufactured on a 7 nm process at TSMC. Its base clock is 3.60 GHz with a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, and it has 16 MB of L3 cache. The CPU's 3DMark scores show a scaling pattern from 836 in single-thread to 5,411 in max threads, indicating that it can handle multi-threaded workloads, but its single-thread performance is modest. In Cinebench R23, the multicore score is 16,429 and the single-core score is 2,319, which places it in the mid-range of desktop CPUs.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is to feed the RTX 4090, and the data shows that it is adequate but not ideal. At 1080p, the frame rates are lower than at 4K in some cases, which is counterintuitive but indicative of a CPU bottleneck. For example, at High settings, the combo achieves 95.4 FPS at 1080p, 81.9 FPS at 1440p, and 64.7 FPS at 4K. This scaling is what one would expect as resolution increases, but the 1080p frame rate is lower than the 1440p frame rate at Low settings (126.1 vs 119.4), suggesting the CPU cannot keep up with the GPU's frame generation at low resolutions.

The Ryzen 5 5500's 6 cores are sufficient for The Medium, which is a horror game that likely uses fewer threads. However, the CPU's 79th percentile ranking among all CPUs means it is not a top-tier part. Its nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i5-12500, are within 0.2% of its average score, so the CPU is not a unique weak point. The Passmark multithread score of 19,330 and single-thread score of 3,058 confirm that the CPU has reasonable performance, but it is not in the same league as the RTX 4090's 91st percentile ranking.

The CPU's memory support for DDR4 and dual-channel configuration with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth is standard for its class, and its PCIe Gen 3 interface may slightly limit data transfer to the GPU, but this is not a major factor in The Medium. Overall, the Ryzen 5 5500 is a capable mid-range CPU that allows the RTX 4090 to deliver high frame rates, but the combo's ranking would likely improve with a more powerful processor. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (48.1 FPS) is the lowest, and this is where the GPU is the bottleneck, not the CPU.