The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 delivers a playable experience in The Medium, but the data shows that the choice of settings is critical to maintaining smooth performance. The benchmark results across all three resolutions indicate that the Medium preset is the most balanced option, while the Ultra preset pushes the hardware to its limits. The measured frames per second (FPS) for this combination place it in the 1525th position out of 2911 tested combos, putting it in the lower-middle tier of the database. This page analyzes the measured data to provide a methodical breakdown of how this CPU-GPU pairing handles the game at various resolutions and settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combo shows a clear pattern: the Medium preset is the sweet spot for maintaining playable frame rates without sacrificing visual fidelity. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers an average of 68 FPS, which is a substantial improvement over the High preset’s 49 FPS and the Ultra preset’s 39 FPS. The Medium preset also provides a minimum FPS of 58 and a maximum of 78, indicating consistent frame pacing that should avoid noticeable stutter. This makes Medium the recommended starting point for most users.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset drops to an average of 57 FPS, with a minimum of 49 and a maximum of 66. While this is lower than the 1080p result, it remains above the 60 FPS threshold for most of the time, making it a viable option for users with 1440p monitors who prioritize smoothness over maximum detail. The High preset at this resolution falls to 41 FPS, and Ultra drops to 32 FPS, both of which are less ideal for a game that relies on atmospheric tension and smooth camera movement.

For 4K (3840x2160), the Medium preset yields an average of 45 FPS, with a minimum of 38 and a maximum of 52. This is playable but noticeably less smooth than the 1080p experience. The Low preset at 4K achieves 72 FPS, which is the only setting at this resolution that clears the 60 FPS mark. However, the visual quality loss from Low may not be worth the performance gain for all users. The High preset at 4K drops to 32 FPS, and Ultra falls to 25 FPS, both of which are below the threshold for a comfortable gaming experience.

Given the data, the best experience per the measured rows is the Medium preset at 1920x1080, as it offers the highest average FPS (68) among the settings that still provide moderate visual quality. For users who must play at higher resolutions, Medium at 1440p is acceptable, but 4K is best reserved for Low settings if frame rate is the priority. The Ultra preset should be avoided entirely, as it produces the lowest average FPS at every resolution, ranging from 39 at 1080p down to 25 at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank for this specific pairing in The Medium is 1525 out of 2911 tested combinations. This places the system in the 52.4th percentile, meaning it outperforms roughly half of the tested combos but lags behind the other half. This ranking reflects the balance between the CPU and GPU, where neither component is a top-tier performer, but together they provide a baseline experience that is adequate for the game’s requirements.

The CPU’s benchmark scores help contextualize this ranking. The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21765 and a single-core score of 3072. Its average benchmark score is 32750, which places it in the 83rd percentile against all CPUs. This indicates that the processor is a strong performer in general computing tasks, but the game’s performance is likely limited by the GPU rather than the CPU, given the relatively low FPS at higher resolutions.

In terms of nearest rivals, the CPU’s average score of 32750 is nearly identical to the Intel Core i5-14600T, which scores 32707 (a delta of 0.1%). Similarly, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H scores 32812, which is 0.2% higher. These small deltas suggest that the 7400F is competitively positioned within its performance class, and any differences in gaming FPS would be minimal.

The GPU’s ranking is more modest. The RTX 4060 has an average benchmark score of 17639, placing it in the 61st percentile against all GPUs. Its nearest rival is the AMD Radeon HD 7790, which scores 17666 (a delta of -0.2%), showing that the 4060 is slightly below that older card in synthetic benchmarks. This is surprising given the architectural differences, but it highlights that the GPU’s raw compute performance is not exceptionally high. The RTX 4060’s PassMark G3D score of 19545 reinforces this, as it is a mid-range result.

The combination of a high-percentile CPU with a mid-tier GPU explains the overall combo ranking. The system is not bottlenecked by the CPU in most scenarios, but the GPU limits the maximum FPS achievable, particularly at higher resolutions. This is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows a significant drop from 1080p to 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s. The GPU’s boost clock is 2460 MHz, with a base clock of 1830 MHz. These specifications are moderate for a modern graphics card, and the 8 GB VRAM is a potential limitation for The Medium at higher resolutions, although the measured data does not show explicit VRAM-related issues.

The GPU’s performance in The Medium is directly tied to its memory bandwidth and core clock. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves 108 FPS, which suggests that the GPU is not the limiting factor at this resolution and settings combination. However, as the resolution increases to 1440p and 4K, the FPS drops proportionally, indicating that the GPU’s compute units are being saturated. The Medium preset at 1080p (68 FPS) versus 4K (45 FPS) shows a 34% decrease, which is consistent with the increased pixel count.

The RTX 4060’s FP32 performance is rated at 15.11 TFLOPS, which is a measure of its raw compute capability. This is sufficient for The Medium’s fixed camera angles and relatively static scenes, but the game’s use of dual-reality rendering (showing two worlds simultaneously) can be demanding. The GPU’s 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are present, but the game’s ray tracing implementation is not specified in the data, so their impact cannot be quantified.

The memory bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s is a limiting factor at 4K, where the GPU must access more texture data. The measured FPS at 4K High (32 FPS) and Ultra (25 FPS) suggests that the GPU is struggling to keep up with the memory demands, leading to lower averages. The 8 GB VRAM is likely sufficient for the game’s textures at 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, it may be near its capacity, contributing to the lower performance.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this hardware?

A: The best combination is 1920x1080 with the Medium preset, which delivers an average of 68 FPS with a minimum of 58 FPS. This provides the smoothest experience while maintaining moderate visual quality.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 perform in synthetic benchmarks relative to its rivals?

A: The RTX 4060 has an average benchmark score of 17639, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (17666) and 0.3% higher than the AMD Radeon 780M (17588). This indicates it is a mid-range performer in its class.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck for this game?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not the primary bottleneck. The Ryzen 5 7400F scores in the 83rd percentile against all CPUs, and its nearest rival is within 0.2% in average score. The FPS drops are more closely tied to resolution, indicating GPU limitation.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 108 FPS, while the Ultra preset achieves only 39 FPS. This is a difference of 69 FPS, showing a significant performance cost for maximum visual quality.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in The Medium?

A: At 3840x2160, the Medium preset delivers 45 FPS, and Low delivers 72 FPS. While playable, the High (32 FPS) and Ultra (25 FPS) presets are below the 30 FPS threshold for a comfortable experience, making 4K viable only at lower settings.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other tested combinations?

A: This combo ranks 1525 out of 2911 tested combos, placing it in the 52.4th percentile. This means it performs better than about half of all tested systems but worse than the other half.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across resolutions provides insight into which component is limiting performance. Starting at 1920x1080 with the Medium preset, the average FPS is 68. Moving to 2560x1440, the average drops to 57 FPS, a decrease of 16%. Further moving to 3840x2160, the average falls to 45 FPS, a 34% decrease from 1080p. This scaling pattern is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the increased pixel count requires more processing power from the graphics card.

The Low preset shows a similar trend but with higher absolute numbers. At 1080p Low, the average is 108 FPS. At 1440p Low, it drops to 91 FPS (a 16% decrease), and at 4K Low, it reaches 72 FPS (a 33% decrease from 1080p). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU’s workload does not change significantly with resolution.

The Ultra preset exhibits the steepest decline. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 39 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 32 FPS (an 18% decrease), and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 25 FPS (a 36% decrease from 1080p). This suggests that the GPU is heavily taxed at Ultra settings, and the memory bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s is insufficient to maintain high frame rates at 4K.

The data indicates that the RTX 4060’s performance scales almost linearly with the number of pixels, which is characteristic of a GPU-limited workload. The CPU’s strong single-core score (3072 in Cinebench R23) ensures that it can feed the GPU with data, but the GPU’s compute resources are the binding constraint. For users seeking higher frame rates at 1440p or 4K, reducing the settings to Low or Medium is the only way to achieve playable performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. It has a 32 MB shared L3 cache and supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s. These specifications make it a capable gaming CPU, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3072 and multi-core score of 21765.

In The Medium, the CPU’s role is primarily to handle the game’s logic, physics, and scene management. The game’s fixed camera angles and linear progression are not particularly demanding on the CPU, which is why the measured FPS does not vary significantly between resolution changes. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 83rd against all CPUs suggests it is well above average for gaming workloads, and its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-14600T, is within 0.1% in average benchmark score.

The CPU’s multi-core performance is also strong, with a PassMark multi-thread score of 25645. This indicates that the processor can handle background tasks and game threads simultaneously without causing bottlenecks. The 6-core, 12-thread configuration is sufficient for modern games, which typically utilize fewer than 8 cores. In this specific case, the data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor, as the FPS drops are consistent with GPU scaling.

The CPU’s memory support for DDR5 at 83.2 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for feeding the GPU with texture data, but it is not a differentiator in this game. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (108 FPS) suggests that the CPU can push the GPU to its limits, but the GPU’s capabilities cap the maximum frame rate. Overall, the Ryzen 5 7400F provides a solid foundation for this combo, ensuring that the GPU is the primary determinant of performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo provides a comprehensive view of performance across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves the highest average FPS of 108, followed by Medium at 68 FPS, High at 49 FPS, and Ultra at 39 FPS. The Medium preset also has a recorded minimum of 58 FPS and a maximum of 78 FPS, indicating a stable frame rate range. The High and Ultra presets do not have recorded min/max values, so their variance is unknown.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset maintains a strong average of 91 FPS, while Medium drops to 57 FPS with a minimum of 49 and a maximum of 66. High falls to 41 FPS, and Ultra drops to 32 FPS. The 1440p results show a consistent pattern of approximately 15-20% lower FPS compared to 1080p for each settings tier, which is expected given the 78% increase in pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset delivers 72 FPS, making it the only 4K setting that clears 60 FPS. Medium averages 45 FPS with a minimum of 38 and a maximum of 52, which is the most detailed data point at 4K. High drops to 32 FPS, and Ultra falls to 25 FPS, both of which are below the threshold for a smooth experience. The 4K results show a dramatic drop from 1080p, with Medium suffering a 34% reduction in FPS.

The data reveals that the Medium preset is the most consistent across all resolutions, with min/max values recorded for every resolution. This suggests that the game is well-optimized for this settings tier, and the hardware can maintain a steady frame rate without significant spikes or drops. The lack of min/max data for Low, High, and Ultra presets means that their frame pacing is unknown, but the average FPS values provide a clear picture of overall performance. For users who prioritize frame rate stability, the Medium preset is the safest choice, while Low offers higher averages at the cost of visual fidelity.