The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding fixed-camera horror experience, and the combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER shows a clear performance profile across its four quality presets. The data indicates a system that scales predictably, but the relationship between resolution, settings, and frame rate reveals where this hardware pairing is most comfortable.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates demonstrate an expected pattern of decreasing performance as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop varies significantly depending on the quality preset. At the Low setting, the transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 results in a drop from 141.3 FPS to 108.8 FPS, which is a reduction of approximately 23%. This relatively modest scaling penalty suggests that at lower settings, the system is not entirely constrained by the GPU, allowing the resolution increase to be absorbed more gracefully.

The Medium preset shows a steeper decline. Starting at 105.6 FPS at 1920x1080, performance falls to 91.1 FPS at 2560x1440 and then to 68.3 FPS at 3840x2160. The jump from 1440p to 4K here represents a 25% drop, indicating that the game is beginning to lean more heavily on the graphics card as the pixel count grows.

High settings amplify this effect further. The frame rate goes from 71.8 FPS at 1080p to 65.9 FPS at 1440p, a relatively gentle 8% decline, but then drops to 46.8 FPS at 4K, which is a 29% reduction from the 1440p result. This pattern points to a GPU that handles moderate resolutions well but starts to feel the pressure of 4K output when the visual fidelity is raised.

The Ultra preset exhibits the most dramatic scaling. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 57.9 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 brings this down to 52.9 FPS, and at 3840x2160, the average falls to 40.1 FPS. The overall decline from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is roughly 31%, which is the largest relative drop across all settings. This suggests that at the highest quality level, the RTX 4070 SUPER becomes the primary limiting component, and the 6-core Ryzen 5 5600X has ample headroom to feed the GPU with frames.

The data also reveals that the gap between Low and Ultra widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference is 83.4 FPS (141.3 versus 57.9). At 4K, this gap narrows to 68.7 FPS (108.8 versus 40.1). This compression indicates that resolution scaling becomes a more dominant factor than settings at higher pixel counts, which is typical behavior for a title that relies heavily on shader and texture work rather than CPU-bound logic.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy for playability. For a 60 FPS target, the Medium preset is the minimum viable option at 1920x1080, delivering 105.6 FPS, which is well above the threshold. At 2560x1440, Medium yields 91.1 FPS, still comfortably above 60. Even at 3840x2160, Medium manages 68.3 FPS, which is playable on a standard 60 Hz display.

High settings present a more nuanced picture. At 1080p, the average of 71.8 FPS is smooth, and at 1440p, 65.9 FPS remains acceptable for most users. However, at 4K, High drops to 46.8 FPS, which will be noticeable on a high-refresh-rate panel or a display with VRR enabled. For those targeting 4K, High is borderline, and users should expect occasional dips below 50 FPS during intense scenes.

Ultra is the most demanding configuration, and the data shows it is best reserved for 1080p gaming. The 57.9 FPS average at that resolution is workable but not ideal for competitive play or motion clarity. At 1440p, Ultra falls to 52.9 FPS, and at 4K, it drops to 40.1 FPS, which is below the standard 60 FPS target and will feel sluggish in a horror title where timing and atmosphere matter.

The Low preset is interesting for high-refresh-rate monitors. At 1080p, it hits 141.3 FPS, and at 1440p, it reaches 135.1 FPS. Even at 4K, Low produces 108.8 FPS, which exceeds 100 FPS and makes this preset a viable choice for esports-style play, although it sacrifices the visual fidelity that The Medium is known for. For most users, the Medium preset at 1440p or High at 1080p offers the best balance of image quality and frame rate based on the measured data.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER holds the 291st position out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the top 17% of all configurations, which is a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with an upper-mid-range GPU. The ranking reflects the overall capability of the system to run this game across a variety of settings, and the percentile position suggests it outperforms the majority of tested hardware.

The Ryzen 5 5600X itself sits at the 78th percentile among all CPUs in the benchmark database, with an average benchmark score of 20680. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT at 20740, the Intel Core i7-10700 at 20746, and the Intel Core i5-12490F at 20794. The 5600X trails these by a margin of 0.3% to 0.5%, which is negligible in real-world gaming. Conversely, it leads the Intel Xeon 6325P by 0.7%, a delta that has no practical impact on frame rates.

The RTX 4070 SUPER is positioned at the 84th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 42576. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA RTX A6000 at 42653, the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE at 42723, and the AMD Radeon Pro 580X at 41991. The 4070 SUPER sits within 0.2% to 0.3% of the top two rivals and leads the lower two by 1.4% to 1.6%. This indicates that the GPU is well-matched to its peers, and the overall combo ranking is driven more by the GPU's capability than the CPU's raw compute.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers 141.3 FPS on Low, 105.6 FPS on Medium, 71.8 FPS on High, and 57.9 FPS on Ultra. The progression shows a near-linear decline as settings increase, with the largest single-step drop occurring between Medium and High at 33.8 FPS. This suggests that High introduces significant shader and lighting effects that tax the GPU considerably.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers are 135.1 FPS on Low, 91.1 FPS on Medium, 65.9 FPS on High, and 52.9 FPS on Ultra. The Low preset remains above 130 FPS, indicating that the GPU is not the bottleneck at this resolution and settings level. The Medium preset stays above 90 FPS, while High and Ultra fall below the 70 FPS and 55 FPS marks respectively.

At 3840x2160, the results are 108.8 FPS on Low, 68.3 FPS on Medium, 46.8 FPS on High, and 40.1 FPS on Ultra. The Low preset still exceeds 100 FPS, which confirms the GPU's raw throughput at reduced quality. However, the High and Ultra presets both fall below 50 FPS, making 4K gaming with these settings a marginal experience. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 68.7 FPS, which is the narrowest of all three resolutions, reinforcing that the GPU is the limiting factor at this pixel count.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run The Medium at 60 FPS on a 4K display?

A: Yes, but only on the Medium preset, which averages 68.3 FPS at 3840x2160. The High preset drops to 46.8 FPS, and Ultra falls to 40.1 FPS, so a 60 FPS target at 4K requires the Medium settings or lower.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 1440p monitor?

A: The Medium preset delivers 91.1 FPS at 2560x1440, which is well above 60 FPS and leaves headroom for demanding scenes. High settings at 65.9 FPS are also acceptable, but the data shows Medium provides a more comfortable margin.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the primary bottleneck at 1080p Ultra?

A: The GPU is the limiting component. At 1920x1080 Ultra, the system produces 57.9 FPS, and lowering the resolution to 1440p only reduces this to 52.9 FPS. The relatively small drop indicates the GPU is saturated, while the Ryzen 5 5600X has sufficient single-thread performance to keep up.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 SUPER compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER scores 42576 on average, which is within 0.3% of the NVIDIA RTX A6000 and AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE, and it leads the AMD Radeon Pro 580X by 1.4% and the NVIDIA Tesla M40 by 1.6%.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with Low settings?

A: The measured average is 141.3 FPS, which is the highest result across all tested configurations. This is suitable for high-refresh-rate displays, and even at 1440p Low, the system maintains 135.1 FPS.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 5600X a weak link in this pairing?

A: No. The CPU's average benchmark score of 20680 places it near the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT (20740) and Intel Core i7-10700 (20746), with deltas of only 0.3%. The frame rate data shows consistent scaling, indicating the CPU is not causing any unexpected stutters or drops.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is the dominant component in this configuration, and its specifications align closely with the measured performance. The GPU is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC, with a die size of 294 mm² and 35,800 million transistors. It features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s, which is more than sufficient for the texture and asset streaming demands of a horror title like The Medium.

The core clocks are set at 1980 MHz base and 2475 MHz boost, with memory running at 1313 MHz or 21 Gbps effective. The shading units number 7168, paired with 224 texture mapping units and 80 render output units. The GPU also includes 56 ray tracing cores and 224 tensor cores, which support the DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set that The Medium can leverage for its visual effects. The pixel rate is 198.0 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 554.4 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance at 35.48 TFLOPS.

The 220 W TDP and a suggested PSU of 550 W indicate that this is a power-hungry card, but the measured frame rates show that the power budget is used effectively. The data reveals that at 4K Ultra, the GPU is stretched to 40.1 FPS, which is a clear sign that the VRAM capacity and bandwidth are not the limiting factors, but rather the raw compute throughput is being taxed by the game's shader complexity. The 12 GB VRAM is adequate for this title at all tested settings, as there are no signs of texture pop-in or stutter that would indicate memory pressure. The GPU's 84th percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms that it is a high-end part, and the measured results in The Medium reflect that positioning, with the card delivering playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p across most presets, while 4K requires careful settings selection.