The Medium

The Medium presents an unusually demanding workload for the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combination, with performance scaling that reveals a title heavily influenced by both processor architecture and graphics memory bandwidth. The data measured across three resolutions and four quality presets shows a system that delivers smooth frame rates at lower settings but struggles to maintain playable performance under maximum graphical loads, particularly as resolution increases.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a pronounced shift in system behavior as resolution climbs from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At the Low preset, the average frame rate drops from 135.6 FPS at 1080p to 125.3 FPS at 1440p, a modest decline of approximately 7.6 percent that suggests the CPU and GPU are both contributing to the workload. However, the jump to 4K tells a different story: the Low preset average falls to 99.4 FPS, representing a 26.7 percent reduction from the 1440p result and a 36.2 percent drop from 1080p. This accelerating degradation points to the RTX 4070’s 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 192-bit bus becoming the primary constraint at higher pixel counts.

The Medium preset exhibits a similar but less dramatic pattern. At 1080p the system produces 93.8 FPS, dropping to 77 FPS at 1440p (a 17.9 percent decrease) and then to 60.4 FPS at 4K (a 21.6 percent drop from 1440p). The High preset shows even steeper scaling: 68.1 FPS at 1080p, 56.2 FPS at 1440p, and 46.1 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset, which represents the most demanding configuration, delivers only 51 FPS at 1080p, falling to 44.6 FPS at 1440p and 34.3 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 4K at Ultra is 32.7 percent, indicating that the GPU is the limiting component at every resolution, but the CPU still plays a meaningful role in preventing the frame rate from collapsing entirely.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 brings six cores and twelve threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This processor’s 32 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth provide the foundation for the measured results. In The Medium, the CPU’s influence is most visible in the scaling between the Low and Medium presets at 1080p, where the frame rate drops from 135.6 FPS to 93.8 FPS. This 41.8 FPS gap (30.8 percent) suggests that while the GPU is the primary bottleneck, the Ryzen 5 5600’s single-thread performance — evidenced by its 3DMark single-thread score of 882 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2584 — matters for maintaining high frame rates when the GPU has headroom.

The processor’s multithreaded capabilities, shown in its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 18309 and Passmark multithread score of 21541, become less relevant as resolution increases because the GPU takes over the rendering burden. However, the Ryzen 5 5600’s 79th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 21765, places it in a competitive position. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon D-1746TER with a delta of 0.6 percent and the AMD EPYC 9554P with a negative 0.6 percent delta, indicating the Ryzen 5 5600 sits in a tight performance cluster where small differences in synthetic tests translate to negligible real-world impact in this horror title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 5600 and RTX 4070 achieves a rank of 466 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 72.4th percentile of all systems evaluated. This ranking reflects a system that is solidly above average but not among the top performers, which makes sense given the game’s heavy reliance on both CPU and GPU resources. The rank suggests that many combinations with more powerful processors or higher-end graphics cards outperform this pairing, particularly at 4K Ultra where the RTX 4070’s 34.3 FPS average reveals a significant performance ceiling.

The RTX 4070’s individual standing provides context for this combo rank. The GPU’s percentile versus all GPUs is 81, with an average benchmark score of 37283, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 with a 0.6 percent negative delta and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile with a 2.2 percent negative delta. This close clustering indicates the RTX 4070 performs similarly to a range of GPUs in synthetic tests, but The Medium’s specific demands expose differences that the combo rank captures. The CPU’s 79th percentile ranking versus the GPU’s 81st percentile suggests a relatively balanced pairing, though the game’s results indicate the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers playable performance across all presets. The Low preset produces 135.6 FPS, Medium achieves 93.8 FPS, High reaches 68.1 FPS, and Ultra drops to 51 FPS. These numbers show that 1080p gaming is comfortable even at the highest quality settings, though the 51 FPS at Ultra falls short of the 60 FPS threshold that many players target. The transition from Medium to High costs 25.7 FPS (27.4 percent), while High to Ultra costs 17.1 FPS (25.1 percent), indicating diminishing returns as settings increase.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages shift downward: Low produces 125.3 FPS, Medium delivers 77 FPS, High yields 56.2 FPS, and Ultra manages 44.6 FPS. The 1440p results show that only the Low and Medium presets maintain frame rates above 60 FPS. The High preset’s 56.2 FPS average is borderline, while Ultra’s 44.6 FPS falls below the playable threshold for many users. The gap between Low and Medium at 1440p is 48.3 FPS (38.5 percent), a larger proportional drop than at 1080p, suggesting the GPU’s memory bandwidth is becoming a more significant factor.

At 3840x2160, the system’s limitations become apparent. Low produces 99.4 FPS, Medium delivers 60.4 FPS, High reaches 46.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 34.3 FPS. Only the Low preset maintains a comfortable frame rate at 4K, while Medium barely hits 60 FPS. The High and Ultra presets produce averages that would cause noticeable stuttering in a horror game where smooth motion is critical for atmosphere. The 4K Low result of 99.4 FPS versus the 1080p Low of 135.6 FPS represents a 26.7 percent penalty, while the 4K Ultra result of 34.3 FPS versus the 1080p Ultra of 51 FPS represents a 32.7 percent penalty, showing that the game’s most demanding settings scale poorly with resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process, provides 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus with 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is the key factor in The Medium’s performance, as the game’s fixed-camera angles and detailed environments require substantial texture data. The GPU’s base clock of 1920 MHz and boost clock of 2475 MHz contribute to its 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, but the measured results show that raw compute is less important than memory throughput in this title.

The RTX 4070’s individual benchmark scores — a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3854, Geekbench OpenCL of 168006, and Passmark G3D of 26927 — place it in the 81st percentile of all GPUs. However, The Medium’s results reveal that the GPU’s performance relative to its peers shifts depending on settings. At 1080p Low, the RTX 4070 produces 135.6 FPS, which is 2.7 times its 4K Ultra result of 34.3 FPS. This scaling factor is steep for a GPU with 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, indicating that the game’s rendering pipeline does not fully utilize the GPU’s compute resources at lower resolutions.

The 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores on the RTX 4070 do not appear to provide a significant advantage in The Medium, as the game’s performance is more dependent on traditional rasterization and memory bandwidth. The GPU’s 200 W TDP and suggested 550 W power supply requirement are consistent with its mid-range positioning, but the measurements show that the 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient while the 192-bit bus width creates a bottleneck at 4K Ultra. The RTX 4070’s nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 with a 0.6 percent negative delta, suggests the GPU’s synthetic performance is competitive, yet The Medium’s measured FPS at 4K Ultra of 34.3 FPS falls below what many would consider playable, highlighting the game’s exceptional demands on graphics memory.