The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 combination delivers a playable experience in The Medium, but the data reveals a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher settings. The benchmark results show a clear progression of performance that scales predictably with resolution and quality presets, making this a straightforward pairing to analyze for a fixed-platform horror title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset produces an average of 52 FPS, with a minimum of 44 FPS and a maximum of 60 FPS. This is the only settings tier that provides both a stable frame rate above 50 FPS and a meaningful visual upgrade over the Low preset. The Low preset at 1080p achieves 84 FPS average, which is smooth, but it sacrifices the graphical fidelity that defines the atmospheric horror genre. The High preset at 1080p drops to 37 FPS average, which is below the threshold for consistent smoothness in a game that relies on tension and timing. The Ultra preset at 1080p falls further to 30 FPS average, making it the least viable option for this resolution.

For 2560x1440, the Medium preset remains the best choice, yielding an average of 44 FPS with a minimum of 37 FPS and a maximum of 51 FPS. This is playable, though it requires some tolerance for frame rate dips during intense scenes. The Low preset at 1440p produces 71 FPS average, which is excellent for a horror title, but the visual downgrade is noticeable on larger displays. The High preset at 1440p averages 32 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 25 FPS, both of which are too low for a game that benefits from smooth camera movement. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset averages 35 FPS with a minimum of 29 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS. This is borderline playable, but the Low preset at 4K averages 55 FPS, making it the only 4K option that avoids frequent stutter. The data suggests that Medium is the optimal preset for most users, with Low serving as a fallback for 4K or for those who prioritize frame rate above all else.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 7500F and the RX 6600 ranks 2904 out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium. This places the pairing in the lower-middle portion of the database, indicating that it is not a top-tier configuration for this title. The rank reflects the GPU's limitations rather than the CPU's capabilities, as the RX 6600's 8 GB of VRAM and its overall performance tier are the primary bottlenecks in this game. The combo's position suggests that many other hardware pairings deliver higher frame rates, but it also means that this setup is far from the worst, offering a functional baseline for 1080p and 1440p gaming.

The percentile data for the individual components supports this interpretation. The CPU sits in the 77th percentile among all processors, while the GPU sits in the 63rd percentile among all graphics cards. This disparity indicates that the Ryzen 5 7500F has headroom that the RX 6600 cannot fully utilize in The Medium. The nearest rivals for the CPU, such as the Intel Core i7-11850H with a deltaPct of 0.1 and the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F with a deltaPct of -0.2, show that the 7500F is performance-equivalent to its direct competitors. The GPU's nearest rivals, including the NVIDIA Quadro K6000 with a deltaPct of 0 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile with a deltaPct of -0.1, further confirm that the RX 6600 is a mid-range part that cannot push this game to high frame rates at demanding settings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 23 chip, manufactured on a 7 nm process. It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. The base clock is 1626 MHz, with a game clock of 2044 MHz and a boost clock of 2491 MHz. The memory operates at 1750 MHz, which translates to 14 Gbps effective. The GPU has 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation units, along with 28 ray tracing cores. Its peak FP32 performance is 8.928 TFLOPS, and the pixel rate is 159.4 GPixel/s, with a texture rate of 279.0 GTexel/s.

In The Medium, the GPU's role is dominant, as evidenced by the sharp drop in frame rates when moving from Low to High settings at any resolution. At 1080p, the average frame rate falls from 84 FPS on Low to 37 FPS on High, a reduction of 56%. This indicates that the game's visual effects, likely including volumetric lighting and shadow quality, are highly demanding on the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth. The 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at Medium settings, but the data suggests that higher presets may exceed the effective memory capacity, causing the frame rate to plummet. The GPU's 63rd percentile ranking among all graphics cards places it in the lower half of the performance distribution, which aligns with the observed results in this title.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Medium?*

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 with the Medium preset provides the best balance, averaging 52 FPS with a minimum of 44 FPS. This is the only tested configuration that combines a frame rate above 50 FPS with moderate visual quality.

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

A: At 3840x2160, the Medium preset averages 35 FPS, and the Low preset averages 55 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to 20 FPS. The data suggests that 4K is only playable on the Low preset, while Medium requires tolerance for frame rates in the low 30s.

Q: How much performance is lost when switching from Low to Ultra at 1080p?

A: The average frame rate falls from 84 FPS on Low to 30 FPS on Ultra at 1920x1080, a reduction of 54 FPS. This indicates that the Ultra preset is not viable for this hardware.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU ranks in the 77th percentile, while the GPU ranks in the 63rd percentile. The frame rate drops significantly with higher settings, which is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios.

*Q: Does the RX 6600 have enough VRAM for The Medium?*

A: The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory is adequate for 1080p and 1440p on Medium settings. However, the frame rate collapse at High and Ultra presets suggests that the game's textures and effects may be pushing against the VRAM limit.

Q: What are the minimum frame rates for the Medium preset?

A: The Medium preset shows a minimum of 44 FPS at 1080p, 37 FPS at 1440p, and 29 FPS at 4K. These minimums indicate that the frame rate can dip noticeably during heavy scenes.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling across resolutions reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound performance. At the Medium preset, the average frame rate drops from 52 FPS at 1080p to 44 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 15.4%. Moving from 1440p to 4K, the frame rate falls to 35 FPS, a further reduction of 20.5%. This scaling is consistent with a system where the GPU's rendering capabilities are the primary constraint, as the CPU's performance remains constant regardless of resolution.

The Low preset shows a similar trend, with 84 FPS at 1080p, 71 FPS at 1440p, and 55 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 15.5% and 22.5%, respectively, which mirrors the Medium preset's behavior. The High preset, however, shows a steeper decline, with 37 FPS at 1080p, 32 FPS at 1440p, and 25 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 21.9%, indicating that the higher settings amplify the GPU's workload disproportionately. The Ultra preset is the most affected, with 30 FPS at 1080p, 25 FPS at 1440p, and 20 FPS at 4K. This data indicates that the RX 6600's memory bandwidth and shading throughput are insufficient for high-quality rendering at higher resolutions, and the game becomes progressively less playable as pixel count increases.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Raphael, and manufactured on a 5 nm process. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz, with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The CPU has 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s. The processor's benchmarks show strong single-threaded performance, with a 3dmark single-thread score of 974 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3218. Its multi-threaded scores are equally robust, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22799 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 12362.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU. The frame rate differences between resolutions at the same settings are consistent, indicating that the CPU is not a bottleneck. The 7500F's single-thread performance, which ranks in the 77th percentile, is more than sufficient to feed the RX 6600 in this game. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-11850H, has an average score of 24935 with a deltaPct of 0.1, showing that the 7500F is well-matched against its peers. The CPU's high boost clock of 5.00 GHz and 32 MB of L3 cache ensure that the game's logic and asset streaming are handled without introducing frame time spikes. The data shows that even at the lowest settings, where the GPU's load is reduced, the frame rates scale smoothly from 84 FPS at 1080p to 55 FPS at 4K, confirming that the CPU maintains a consistent level of performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 84 FPS, the highest of any configuration. The Medium preset averages 52 FPS, with a minimum of 44 FPS and a maximum of 60 FPS. The High preset averages 37 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 30 FPS. This shows a linear progression of performance loss as settings increase, with each tier reducing the average frame rate by roughly 15 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 71 FPS, while the Medium preset averages 44 FPS with a minimum of 37 FPS and a maximum of 51 FPS. The High preset averages 32 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 25 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 1440p is 27 FPS, which is larger than the 32 FPS gap at 1080p, indicating that the GPU's workload scales more steeply at higher resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 55 FPS, which is the only playable option at this resolution. The Medium preset averages 35 FPS with a minimum of 29 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS. The High preset averages 25 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 20 FPS. The data shows that the RX 6600 cannot maintain 60 FPS at any settings level, even at 1080p, and that the Medium preset is the highest quality tier that keeps the average frame rate above 50 FPS at 1080p. The overall pattern is consistent: the GPU is the limiting component, and the CPU's performance is sufficient to avoid introducing additional frame rate penalties.