The Medium

The Medium presents an unusually heavy load for the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 combination. With a combo rank of 1399 out of 1689 tested configurations, this pairing sits in the lower third of all tested systems. The data reveals a configuration that is consistently playable only at lower settings, with the GPU emerging as the primary constraint across all resolutions. The measured frames per second (FPS) figures show a steep performance cliff as visual fidelity increases, making preset selection the single most important factor for playability with this hardware.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 provides six cores and twelve threads, operating at a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Built on the Zen 3 architecture with a 7 nm process, this processor includes 32 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with dual-channel bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 18309 and a single-core score of 2584, placing it in the 79th percentile among all CPUs.

For The Medium, these specifications suggest the processor has sufficient headroom for the game’s fixed camera angles and scripted sequences. The game’s horror genre relies on pre-rendered backgrounds and limited on-screen agents, which typically favors single-thread performance over multi-core scaling. The 5600’s single-core score of 2584 in Cinebench R23 is respectable, and its 3DMark single-thread score of 882 indicates strong per-core capability. However, the measured FPS across all settings and resolutions shows a pattern where the GPU saturates well before the CPU becomes a limiting factor.

At 1080p Low, the configuration achieves 81.4 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the dataset. This suggests that even at lower resolutions, the CPU can feed the GPU adequately. The gap between 1080p Low (81.4 FPS) and 1080p Medium (52.2 FPS) is a 29.2 FPS drop, which is more attributable to GPU load than CPU limitations. The CPU’s nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon D-1746TER with an average score of 21635 (0.6% delta) and the AMD EPYC 9554P with 21899 (-0.6% delta), indicating that the 5600’s raw compute is competitive with enterprise parts. Yet in this game, the CPU rarely dictates the final frame rate.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured data provides four presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—across three resolutions. The optimal experience depends heavily on the target resolution and acceptable frame rate. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers 81.4 FPS, which is the only setting that approaches high-refresh-rate territory. Medium at 1080p drops to 52.2 FPS, still playable but noticeably less smooth. High at 1080p yields 36.9 FPS, and Ultra falls to 28.5 FPS, both of which are below the 30 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for a playable experience.

For 1440p, the Low preset achieves 68.5 FPS, which is a strong result for this resolution. Medium at 1440p produces 41.9 FPS, and High drops to 33.2 FPS. Ultra at 1440p is only 22.5 FPS, making it unsuitable for sustained play. At 4K, the situation becomes more constrained: Low yields 53.2 FPS, Medium 34.4 FPS, High 27 FPS, and Ultra 19.3 FPS.

Given these numbers, the Low preset is the only consistent choice across all resolutions. At 1080p, the Low preset’s 81.4 FPS provides a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS target. At 1440p, the 68.5 FPS figure remains above 60 FPS, offering a viable path for users with 1440p displays. Even at 4K, the Low preset’s 53.2 FPS is the only setting that stays above the 30 FPS playability floor. The Medium preset is a secondary option at 1080p (52.2 FPS) and 1440p (41.9 FPS), but it fails to maintain 30 FPS at 4K (34.4 FPS, which is close but not comfortable). High and Ultra are not recommended at any resolution, as they fail to reach 30 FPS at 4K and only achieve 36.9 FPS and 28.5 FPS at 1080p, respectively.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario. At the Low preset, the configuration moves from 81.4 FPS at 1080p to 68.5 FPS at 1440p, then to 53.2 FPS at 4K. This represents a 34.6% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The Medium preset shows a similar pattern: 52.2 FPS at 1080p, 41.9 FPS at 1440p, and 34.4 FPS at 4K—a 34.1% drop. High settings produce 36.9 FPS at 1080p, 33.2 FPS at 1440p, and 27 FPS at 4K, a 26.8% decline. Ultra settings are the steepest: 28.5 FPS at 1080p, 22.5 FPS at 1440p, and 19.3 FPS at 4K, a 32.3% reduction.

The consistent percentage drops across presets indicate that resolution scaling is uniform and driven by pixel count rather than CPU overhead. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain relatively flat as resolution increases, because the same number of draw calls would be processed regardless of pixel output. Instead, the FPS falls proportionally with the increase in pixel count, which is the signature of a GPU-limited system. The RTX 2060’s 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth are being saturated by The Medium’s rendering demands, particularly at higher settings where texture and lighting effects consume more memory and compute resources.

The 4K Low result of 53.2 FPS versus the 1080p Ultra result of 28.5 FPS is particularly telling. The Low preset at 4K has over 4 times the pixels of 1080p Ultra, yet it performs 24.7 FPS faster. This demonstrates that the GPU’s compute throughput, not memory bandwidth, is the primary limiter. The RTX 2060’s 6.451 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 201.6 GTexel/s texture rate are insufficient to maintain high-fidelity settings even at lower resolutions, forcing users to sacrifice visual quality to achieve playable frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks 1399 out of 1689 tested combinations in The Medium. This places the configuration in the bottom 17% of all tested systems, indicating that it is well below the median performance for this game. The rank reflects the combined capabilities of the CPU and GPU, but given the GPU-bound nature of the game, the RTX 2060 is the dominant factor in this low ranking.

The CPU’s individual percentile (79th among all CPUs) is substantially higher than the combo’s overall rank. This discrepancy underscores that the processor is not the limiting factor. The RTX 2060, which sits in the 58th percentile among all GPUs, is the weak link. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 16074 is close to its nearest rivals: the AMD Radeon RX 7600S scores 15996 (0.5% delta), and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 scores 15786 (1.8% delta). These rival GPUs would likely produce similar results in The Medium, confirming that the RTX 2060’s performance class is the bottleneck.

The 1689 total tested combos include many configurations with more powerful GPUs, which explains why this combo ranks so low. For users with this hardware, the data suggests that upgrading the GPU would yield a far greater improvement in The Medium than upgrading the CPU. The CPU’s headroom is evident in its ability to maintain playable frame rates at low settings, but the GPU’s limitations cap the experience at medium-quality visuals even at 1080p.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip manufactured on a 12 nm process. It features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost clock of 1680 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). It includes 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units, along with 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores.

The 6 GB VRAM capacity is a critical factor in The Medium’s performance. The game’s horror environments use high-resolution textures and complex lighting, which can exceed 6 GB at higher settings and resolutions. The measured FPS drops from Low to Medium to High to Ultra are consistent with VRAM pressure and memory bandwidth saturation. At 4K Ultra, the configuration achieves only 19.3 FPS, which is below the 30 FPS floor. This is not just a compute issue; the 192-bit memory bus and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for 4K Ultra textures.

The GPU’s texture rate of 201.6 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 80.64 GPixel/s provide context for the measured results. At 1080p Low, the GPU can process the relatively simple scene geometry and lighting quickly, resulting in 81.4 FPS. As settings increase, the pixel and texture rates become the bottleneck, dragging FPS down to 28.5 FPS at 1080p Ultra. The RTX 2060’s FP32 performance of 6.451 TFLOPS is modest by modern standards, and The Medium’s shader complexity at higher presets overwhelms this compute capacity.

The GPU’s percentile rank of 58th among all GPUs places it slightly above the median, but its nearest rivals (RX 7600S at 15996, Radeon Pro 5600M at 16351) all fall within a 1.7% delta. This indicates that the RTX 2060 is a mid-tier card that struggles with demanding titles like The Medium. The data shows that the GPU, not the CPU, determines the playability ceiling for this configuration, and users must accept Low or Medium presets to achieve smooth frame rates at any resolution.