The Medium

The Medium is a demanding title, and the data for the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER combination shows a system that is consistently bound by the graphics card. The performance scaling across resolutions and settings tells a clear story about where this hardware hits its limits and how to best configure the game for a playable experience.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K results in a significant performance drop, confirming that the RTX 2070 SUPER is the primary bottleneck in this configuration. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 42.6 FPS at 1920x1080 to 36.6 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of roughly 14%. The drop becomes far more severe when moving to 3840x2160, where the average plummets to 28.7 FPS, a 32% decrease from the 1440p figure and a 33% decrease from the 1080p baseline. This pattern indicates that the GPU's rendering workload is scaling heavily with pixel count, and the 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are being saturated at the higher resolutions.

The scaling behavior is more dramatic at lower settings, which further isolates the GPU as the limiting factor. At Low settings, the system achieves 102.9 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 84.2 FPS at 1440p and then to 68 FPS at 4K. The 4K result is 34% slower than the 1080p result, a larger relative gap than at High settings. This suggests that even when the graphical load is reduced, the sheer number of pixels at 4K overwhelms the GPU's fillrate and memory bandwidth. The RTX 2070 SUPER's pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s are simply not sufficient to maintain high frame rates at 4K, regardless of the visual complexity.

The data shows that 1080p is the only resolution where this combo can consistently push past the 60 FPS threshold, and only at Low and Medium settings. At 1440p, the system is firmly in the 30-50 FPS range for most presets, making it a viable but not high-refresh-rate experience. The 4K results, with a maximum average of 68 FPS at Low settings, are mostly below 30 FPS for anything above Medium, indicating that 4K is not a practical target for this hardware in The Medium.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows suggest that the optimal experience balances visual fidelity with a playable frame rate. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset yields an average of 62.6 FPS, which is a solid target for smooth gameplay. The High preset drops to 42.6 FPS, which is still playable but noticeably less fluid. The jump from Medium to High costs roughly 32% of the frame rate, a steep price for the visual improvements. Low offers 102.9 FPS, but the visual downgrade is substantial, making it less desirable for a horror game that relies on atmosphere.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is the sweet spot, producing an average of 52 FPS. High settings drop to 36.6 FPS, which may be acceptable for a slower-paced horror title, but the Medium preset provides a more comfortable margin above the 30 FPS line. The Low preset at 1440p delivers 84.2 FPS, but the graphical compromises are likely too severe for an immersive experience. Ultra settings are not recommended at any resolution, as the average frame rates of 35.6 FPS at 1080p, 27.7 FPS at 1440p, and 24.1 FPS at 4K are all below the threshold for smooth motion.

For 4K, the data is clear: only the Low preset, at 68 FPS, offers a playable frame rate. The Medium preset at 40.6 FPS is borderline, but the High and Ultra presets, at 28.7 and 24.1 FPS respectively, fall below the generally accepted playability threshold. The practical recommendation from the data is to stick with Medium settings for 1080p and 1440p, and to only consider 4K if you are willing to use Low settings. The performance cost of moving from Medium to High is consistently high across all resolutions, making Medium the most efficient preset in terms of frame rate per visual quality.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing. Its performance percentile of 65 versus all GPUs places it in the mid-to-upper tier, but the data shows it struggles with the demands of The Medium at higher resolutions. The GPU's memory configuration, 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, is a key factor. The game's texture and geometry demands at 4K likely exceed the available memory bandwidth, which is rated at 448.0 GB/s. This is reflected in the steep performance drop from 1080p to 4K, which is more pronounced than what would be expected from a purely compute-bound scenario.

The clock speeds, with a base of 1605 MHz and a boost of 1770 MHz, are typical for this class of card. However, the benchmark results indicate that raw clock speed is not the limiting factor here. The GPU's architectural capabilities, specifically its 2560 shading units and 64 ROPs, determine its pixel output. The measured pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s is insufficient for high frame rates at 4K, as seen in the 4K High preset result of 28.7 FPS. The GPU is also compared to the NVIDIA RTX A400, which has an average score of 22307 and a deltaPct of -0.5, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z, with a score of 22006 and a deltaPct of 0.9. These rivals show that the RTX 2070 SUPER is in a similar performance bracket, but none of them are configured for the high-resolution demands of this game.

The GPU's memory bandwidth is a critical bottleneck in The Medium. The 4K Low preset achieves 68 FPS, which is significantly higher than the 4K High preset at 28.7 FPS. This suggests that reducing texture quality and other memory-intensive settings alleviates the bandwidth pressure, allowing the GPU to render frames more quickly. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB frame buffer is also a concern, as modern games at high resolutions can easily exceed this capacity, leading to texture streaming issues that impact frame times.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 102.9 FPS for Low, 62.6 FPS for Medium, 42.6 FPS for High, and 35.6 FPS for Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium is 40.3 FPS, indicating a large performance penalty for the first step up in quality. The gap between Medium and High is 20 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 7 FPS, showing diminishing returns at the higher presets.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 84.2 FPS for Low, 52 FPS for Medium, 36.6 FPS for High, and 27.7 FPS for Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 18.7 FPS for Low, 10.6 FPS for Medium, 6 FPS for High, and 7.9 FPS for Ultra. This scaling shows that the performance cost of increasing resolution is relatively consistent across settings, but the lower presets maintain higher absolute frame rates.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 68 FPS for Low, 40.6 FPS for Medium, 28.7 FPS for High, and 24.1 FPS for Ultra. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 16.2 FPS for Low, 11.4 FPS for Medium, 7.9 FPS for High, and 3.6 FPS for Ultra. The smaller absolute drop at Ultra settings suggests that the game is already so demanding at that preset that the resolution increase has less relative impact, as the GPU is already struggling.

The data shows a clear pattern: the RTX 2070 SUPER can handle the game at 1080p and 1440p with Medium settings, but the 4K resolution is only viable with the Low preset. The High and Ultra presets are consistently below 43 FPS at 1080p and below 37 FPS at 1440p, making them less suitable for a smooth experience.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks 1047 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the database, indicating that while it is not a low-end system, it is far from the top tier for this specific game. The rank of 1047 suggests that a significant number of other CPU and GPU pairings deliver better performance in The Medium, which is consistent with the GPU being a mid-range part from the previous generation.

The CPU's overall average benchmark score is 20680, and it ranks in the 78th percentile versus all CPUs. This suggests that the Ryzen 5 5600X is a capable processor, but it is not the limiting factor in this game. The GPU's average benchmark score is 22206, and it ranks in the 65th percentile versus all GPUs. The combined rank of 1047 out of 1689 reflects the GPU's lower percentile ranking, which pulls the overall combo down. The data implies that the system is held back by the graphics card, and that a more powerful GPU would significantly improve the ranking in this title.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. Its benchmark scores are strong, including a single-thread score of 917 in 3DMark and a multi-thread score of 5588 in 3DMark with max threads. The Cinebench R23 results show a single-core score of 2622 and a multi-core score of 18578. These figures indicate that the CPU has ample processing power for gaming workloads.

In The Medium, however, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU. The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K is primarily driven by the graphics card, as the frame rates drop consistently with increasing resolution. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar frame rates across resolutions, as the CPU's workload does not change significantly with resolution. Instead, the data shows a clear GPU bottleneck, with the CPU likely having headroom to spare.

The CPU's 32 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s are sufficient for this game. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 5582 and 8-thread score of 4811 demonstrate strong multi-threading capabilities, which can help with game logic and streaming. However, the game's performance is not limited by the CPU, as evidenced by the fact that the frame rates are much lower at 4K than at 1080p. The Ryzen 5 5600X is performing its role adequately, but it is the RTX 2070 SUPER that determines the final frame rates.