The Medium

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with Medium settings for this combo?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 5600F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combo delivers an average of 98 FPS at 1920x1080 with Medium settings, with a minimum of 83 FPS and a maximum of 112 FPS.

Q: Which resolution provides the highest average frame rate across all settings?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 with Low settings produces the highest average frame rate at 117 FPS, followed closely by 2560x1440 Low at 111 FPS and 3840x2160 Low at 102 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's single-thread performance compare to its multithread score?

A: The Ryzen 5 5600F scores 2,872 in Passmark single-thread tests and 19,236 in Passmark multithread tests. The single-thread score is roughly 15% of the multithread score, reflecting a 6-core, 12-thread design.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The RTX 4080 sits at the 86th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 54,247.

Q: At 4K Ultra settings, what is the average frame rate?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo averages 45 FPS. This is the lowest recorded average across all tested resolutions and settings.

Q: How does the combo rank overall in this game?

A: The combo ranks 622nd out of 3,724 tested combinations for The Medium, placing it in the top 17% of all tested systems.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is a 16 GB GDDR6X card with a 256-bit memory bus delivering 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock runs at 2205 MHz with a boost clock of 2505 MHz, and memory operates at 1400 MHz (22.4 Gbps effective). The card's 9728 shading units, 304 TMUs, and 112 ROPs handle The Medium's fixed-camera horror presentation with substantial headroom.

The GPU's 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores are relevant here, as The Medium uses ray-traced reflections and DLSS support. However, the measured FPS values appear to be native rendering without upscaling, given the straightforward scaling pattern across resolutions. The card's FP32 throughput of 48.74 TFLOPS indicates raw compute capability that aligns with the strong performance deltas seen between Low and Ultra settings.

The 16 GB VRAM capacity is notable for The Medium, which loads entire dual-reality scenes simultaneously. At 4K Ultra, the combo averages 45 FPS, suggesting the GPU is under significant load from the game's split-world rendering technique. The 716.8 GB/s bandwidth helps maintain texture streaming during the game's fluid camera transitions between realities.

Benchmark data places the RTX 4080 at the 86th percentile overall, with an average score of 54,247. Its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores 54,209 (0.1% delta), while the Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54,828 (-1.1%) and the RX 6750 GRE 12 GB scores 55,698 (-2.6%). The RTX 4080's compute benchmark of 20,671 in Passmark GPU compute further confirms its strength in workloads that stress shader and tensor core throughput.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that Medium settings provide the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the combo delivers 98 FPS average with a minimum of 83 FPS, ensuring smooth gameplay. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 92 FPS with a minimum of 78 FPS, still comfortably above typical display refresh rates.

For 4K gaming, the choice becomes more nuanced. High settings at 3840x2160 yield 57 FPS average, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced sequences. Medium at 4K offers 79 FPS average with a minimum of 67 FPS, providing a better balance of visual fidelity and smoothness. The jump from Medium to Ultra at 4K costs 34 FPS (79 to 45), which is a substantial penalty for incremental visual gains.

Low settings across all resolutions show diminishing returns. At 1080p Low, the average is 117 FPS, but the visual compromise in a horror game that relies heavily on atmosphere and lighting is likely too severe. The data indicates that Medium settings represent the sweet spot, delivering 98 FPS at 1080p, 92 FPS at 1440p, and 79 FPS at 4K.

Ultra settings are only recommended for 1080p, where 68 FPS average remains playable. At 1440p Ultra (57 FPS) and 4K Ultra (45 FPS), the frame rates approach or fall below the 60 FPS threshold, which may result in noticeable judder during the game's cinematic camera movements.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo produces a clear progression across settings. Low settings average 117 FPS, Medium averages 98 FPS with a minimum of 83 FPS and maximum of 112 FPS, High averages 86 FPS, and Ultra averages 68 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 49 FPS, indicating that the RTX 4080 scales efficiently with the game's graphics options.

At 2560x1440, the pattern continues but with narrower margins. Low settings average 111 FPS, Medium averages 92 FPS (min 78, max 106), High averages 72 FPS, and Ultra averages 57 FPS. The drop from Medium to High at 1440p is 20 FPS, while the drop from High to Ultra is 15 FPS, suggesting increasing marginal costs for each tier.

At 3840x2160, the resolution scaling becomes more pronounced. Low settings average 102 FPS, Medium averages 79 FPS (min 67, max 91), High averages 57 FPS, and Ultra averages 45 FPS. The difference between Medium and High at 4K is 22 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 12 FPS. Notably, the game's 4K Medium minimum of 67 FPS is higher than the 4K High average of 57 FPS, highlighting the performance cliff between these settings.

Comparing across resolutions, 1080p Medium (98 FPS) versus 1440p Medium (92 FPS) shows only a 6 FPS difference, while 1440p Medium versus 4K Medium (79 FPS) shows a 13 FPS drop. This suggests that the GPU remains the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, while at 1080p, the CPU's 6-core, 12-thread configuration may start to limit frame rates in certain scenes.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 5 5600F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 622nd out of 3,724 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 83rd percentile. This position is notable because the GPU alone sits at the 86th percentile, suggesting the CPU is slightly holding back the system's overall ranking in this specific game.

The RTX 4080's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks show tight clustering. The RTX 4080 SUPER is only 0.1% ahead, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is 1.1% behind and the RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 2.6% behind. This tight grouping implies that the measured FPS differences in The Medium are more attributable to the CPU pairing than to GPU variance.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 36,945 places it in the 85th percentile among all processors. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 (36,938, 0% delta), AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (37,018, -0.2%), AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (37,093, -0.4%), and Intel Core i9-12900T (37,112, -0.5%). All four rivals are within 0.5% of the 5600F's score, indicating that the 5600F is positioned in a dense performance tier where game-specific optimizations matter more than raw CPU power.

Given that the combo ranks 622nd out of 3,724, there are 3,102 tested combos that perform worse in The Medium. This suggests that the 5600F + RTX 4080 pairing is well-suited for this title, despite the CPU being a mid-range option relative to the GPU's high-end positioning.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (Vermeer codename), built on TSMC's 7 nm process with 4,150 million transistors on a 74 mm² die. It runs at a base clock of 3.00 GHz with a boost clock of 4.00 GHz, and features 64 KB L1 cache per core, 512 KB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel configuration with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth, and it connects via PCIe Gen 4 with 20 lanes.

In Passmark benchmarks, the 5600F scores 19,236 in multithread and 2,872 in single-thread tests. The multithread score reflects the 6-core/12-thread design, while the single-thread score of 2,872 is competitive for its class. The data compression score of 232,836 and integer math score of 59,339 indicate strong general-purpose throughput, while floating point math at 34,548 and extended instructions at 16,266 show balanced compute capabilities.

For The Medium, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the gap between Low (117 FPS) and Medium (98 FPS) is 19 FPS, but the gap between Medium and High is only 12 FPS. This compression suggests that at 1080p, the CPU may be approaching its limits, preventing the GPU from fully flexing its muscle. The 4.00 GHz boost clock and 32 MB L3 cache help maintain frame pacing, but the 6-core configuration could be a limiting factor in scenes with heavy AI or physics calculations.

The 5600F's single-thread score of 2,872 places it in the 85th percentile among CPUs, which is respectable but not top-tier. Its nearest rivals all score within 0.5%, indicating that game performance is unlikely to vary significantly due to CPU choice alone. In The Medium, the data shows that the CPU can sustain roughly 117 FPS at 1080p Low, which appears to be the practical ceiling for this processor in this game.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of resolution scaling. From 1080p Low (117 FPS) to 1440p Low (111 FPS) is a 5.1% drop, and to 4K Low (102 FPS) is an 12.8% drop from 1080p. At Medium settings, the progression is 98 FPS (1080p) → 92 FPS (1440p) → 79 FPS (4K), representing drops of 6.1% and 19.4% respectively. High settings show 86 FPS (1080p) → 72 FPS (1440p) → 57 FPS (4K), with drops of 16.3% and 33.7%. Ultra settings show 68 FPS (1080p) → 57 FPS (1440p) → 45 FPS (4K), with drops of 16.2% and 33.8%.

The scaling pattern indicates that at Low and Medium settings, the system is partially CPU-limited at 1080p, as the FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p is minimal (5-6 FPS). However, at High and Ultra settings, the drop from 1440p to 4K is much more pronounced (15-12 FPS), suggesting the GPU becomes the dominant bottleneck as settings increase. This is consistent with the RTX 4080's 16 GB VRAM and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth handling the game's increased texture and shading demands at higher resolutions.

The fact that 4K Low (102 FPS) outperforms 1080p Ultra (68 FPS) by 50% is telling. It indicates that the game's Ultra preset imposes a significant computational cost that scales with resolution, likely due to advanced lighting and shadow effects. The data suggests that players on 4K displays should prefer Medium settings (79 FPS) over High (57 FPS) or Ultra (45 FPS), as the visual improvement from Medium to High is unlikely to justify the 28% performance penalty.

At 1080p, the system remains well above 60 FPS across all settings, with even Ultra averaging 68 FPS. This makes 1080p the only resolution where Ultra settings are fully playable. The 1440p Medium setting (92 FPS) offers the best resolution-to-performance ratio, delivering 94% of the 1080p Medium frame rate while providing 78% more pixels. The scaling behavior confirms that this combo is best suited for 1440p gaming, with 4K requiring settings compromises to maintain smooth frame rates.