The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT combination delivers a benchmark profile in The Medium that clearly illustrates the GPU-bound nature of this horror title. The data shows a processor with strong single-threaded fundamentals paired with a mid-range graphics card, resulting in a system that excels at lower resolutions but struggles to maintain playable frame rates at 4K with high visual fidelity. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS across resolutions and settings, contextualizes the combo's standing among 1,689 tested configurations, and examines the distinct roles of the CPU and GPU in shaping the final results.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor built on the Zen 4 architecture. It operates with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, which are the figures directly relevant to its performance in The Medium. The chip features a 32 MB shared L3 cache and supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, providing a memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s. These specifications position the CPU as a modern mid-range part, and its benchmark scores confirm its capability to feed a discrete GPU without becoming a primary bottleneck in this title.

In synthetic tests, the 7500F achieves a single-thread score of 3,218 in Cinebench R23 and 2,759 in Geekbench single-core. Multi-threaded performance is equally robust, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22,799 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 12,686. These numbers indicate that the processor has ample headroom for the game's logic and rendering threads. The 7500F's percentile ranking of 82 among all CPUs further underscores its position as a capable gaming processor, though the data suggests that in The Medium, the CPU's influence on frame rates diminishes as resolution increases.

The game's performance scaling across settings points to a CPU that is not the limiting factor at 1080p. For instance, at 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 107.6 FPS, while dropping to Ultra settings yields 40.6 FPS. This 62% reduction in performance is primarily attributable to the GPU's workload, not the CPU's processing power. The 7500F's 12 threads and high boost clock are sufficient to keep up with the RX 6700 XT at lower resolutions, but as the pixel count rises, the graphics card becomes the dominant constraint. The CPU's nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i7-11850H and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, show average benchmark scores within 0.4% of the 7500F, indicating that this processor is well-matched to its peer group for this workload.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Ryzen 5 7500F and RX 6700 XT holds a rank of 928 out of 1,689 tested combos in The Medium. This places the system in the middle of the distribution, which is a notable finding given the individual strengths of the components. The CPU's 82nd percentile ranking and the GPU's 77th percentile ranking suggest that both parts are above average, yet the combined configuration lands in the 55th percentile of all tested combos. This discrepancy highlights how the pairing of a mid-range CPU with a mid-range GPU does not necessarily translate to a top-tier gaming experience, particularly in a graphically demanding title like The Medium.

The combo's rank indicates that there are 928 other configurations that outperform it, while 761 configurations perform worse. This middle-of-the-pack placement is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows playable frame rates at lower settings but significant drops at higher presets. The gap between the combo's theoretical component potential and its actual game ranking can be attributed to the game's reliance on GPU-intensive effects, such as the dual-reality rendering mechanic that The Medium is known for. The data does not include a direct comparison to the combo's nearest rivals, but the individual component benchmarks suggest that the 7500F is competitive with processors like the Intel Core i7-11850H (0.1% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX (0.4% delta), while the RX 6700 XT is within 1.3% of the NVIDIA RTX A5000's average score.

The rank of 928 also implies that users with higher-end GPUs, such as those from the RX 6800 tier, will see better performance, as the GPU's delta of 0.7% over the RX 6700 XT in average benchmark score is likely amplified in gaming scenarios. Conversely, the combo outperforms configurations with older or lower-tier GPUs, as indicated by the RX 6700 XT's 77th percentile ranking. The overall picture is one of a balanced but not exceptional system, where the CPU and GPU work in concert to deliver consistent, mid-range performance in The Medium.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data across three resolutions reveals a clear pattern of diminishing returns as pixel count increases, which is a classic indicator of a GPU-bound system. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the combo achieves 40.6 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings, the frame rate drops to 32.4 FPS, a 20% decrease. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset yields just 28.2 FPS, representing a 31% drop from 1440p and a 44% drop from 1080p. This steep decline is consistent with the RX 6700 XT being the primary bottleneck, as the GPU's rendering workload scales directly with the number of pixels.

The scaling behavior at lower settings reinforces this conclusion. At Low settings, the combo produces 107.6 FPS at 1080p, 95.0 FPS at 1440p, and 73.7 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 12% from 1080p to 1440p and 22% from 1440p to 4K. This is a much shallower curve than at Ultra settings, which suggests that the CPU is capable of maintaining higher frame rates when the GPU is less stressed. The fact that the 4K Low result (73.7 FPS) is significantly higher than the 1080p Ultra result (40.6 FPS) indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor; instead, the GPU's ability to render complex effects at high settings is what caps performance.

The data also shows that the gap between 1080p and 4K narrows as settings are reduced. At High settings, the drop from 1080p (46.8 FPS) to 4K (29.6 FPS) is 37%, while at Low settings, the same resolution change results in a 31% drop. This pattern is typical of a GPU that is more sensitive to resolution than to settings, meaning that the RX 6700 XT's 12 GB of VRAM and 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth are sufficient for the data load, but the compute units are stretched at higher resolutions. The conclusion is unambiguous: the RX 6700 XT is the limiting component in this combo, and the Ryzen 5 7500F has more than enough headroom to support the GPU at all tested resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

At 1920x1080, the combo demonstrates its strongest performance. The Low preset achieves an average of 107.6 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. The Medium preset drops to 67.4 FPS, while High yields 46.8 FPS. The Ultra preset produces 40.6 FPS, which is still playable but indicates that the GPU is beginning to strain under the load of the game's highest-quality effects. The spread from Low to Ultra is 67 FPS, showing that the settings have a profound impact on frame rates at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance decreases across all settings. Low settings deliver 95.0 FPS, a 12% drop from 1080p. Medium settings produce 58.3 FPS, a 14% drop from the 1080p Medium result. High settings yield 43.8 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 32.4 FPS. The relative performance at 1440p suggests that the GPU is still capable of delivering high frame rates at lower settings, but the Ultra preset falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making it less suitable for smooth gameplay. The 1440p results are 12-20% lower than their 1080p counterparts, which is a moderate penalty for the increased resolution.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles to maintain playable frame rates at higher settings. Low settings achieve 73.7 FPS, which is a 22% drop from 1440p Low and a 31% drop from 1080p Low. Medium settings produce 46.9 FPS, while High settings yield 29.6 FPS. The Ultra preset bottoms out at 28.2 FPS, which is the lowest measured result in the dataset. The 4K results clearly show that the RX 6700 XT is not suited for high-fidelity gaming at this resolution, as even the Medium preset struggles to hit 50 FPS. The data indicates that 1080p is the sweet spot for this combo, with 1440p being viable at Medium settings or lower, and 4K only playable at Low settings.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the dominant component in determining this combo's gaming performance. It is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 22 chip and features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 384.0 GB/s. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2321 MHz and a boost clock of 2581 MHz, with a game clock of 2424 MHz. These clock speeds, combined with 2,560 shading units and 40 ray accelerators, make the RX 6700 XT a capable mid-range card, but one that is clearly outpaced by higher-tier models in demanding titles.

The GPU's memory capacity of 12 GB is sufficient for The Medium at all tested resolutions, as the game does not appear to exceed this limit even at 4K Ultra settings. However, the bandwidth of 384.0 GB/s is a limiting factor at higher resolutions, where the GPU must move more texture and geometry data. The measured FPS data supports this, as the drop from 1440p to 4K is more pronounced at Ultra settings (13% decrease) than at Low settings (22% decrease), indicating that the GPU's compute units are the bottleneck rather than its memory subsystem.

The RX 6700 XT's benchmark scores place it in the 77th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 33,721. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6800 (0.7% higher score), the AMD Radeon HD 7950 (1% lower), and the NVIDIA RTX A5000 (1.3% higher). These small deltas in synthetic benchmarks contrast sharply with the large performance gaps seen in The Medium between settings and resolutions. This suggests that the game's specific rendering techniques, such as its use of volumetric lighting and dual-world rendering, are particularly taxing on the GPU's raw compute power. The RX 6700 XT's 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is adequate for 1080p and 1440p at lower settings, but the data shows that it is insufficient for consistent 60 FPS at higher presets, especially at 4K. The GPU's role is therefore central: it defines the ceiling for this combo's performance, and the CPU's role is to ensure that this ceiling is reached without introducing additional bottlenecks.