The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT delivers a playable, though not universally smooth, experience in The Medium. The data shows a configuration where the GPU is the primary bottleneck, with frame rates scaling dramatically with both resolution and quality presets. This analysis breaks down the measured performance across three resolutions and four settings, contextualized by the hardware’s broader benchmark profile.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and consistent pattern: performance drops sharply as resolution increases, indicating that the Radeon RX 7600 XT is the limiting component in this pairing. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 93 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 82 FPS, a reduction of 11 FPS, and at 4K Low the average falls further to 63.9 FPS. This 31% decrease from 1080p to 4K at Low settings demonstrates the GPU’s struggle to maintain frame rates as pixel count grows.

The trend is more pronounced at higher quality presets. At Medium settings, the average FPS goes from 58.8 at 1080p, to 52.8 at 1440p, and down to 41.6 at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 4K at Medium is a 17.2 FPS difference. At High settings, the slide continues: 42.3 FPS at 1080p, 35.6 FPS at 1440p, and 28.1 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling, with 33.7 FPS at 1080p, 27.6 FPS at 1440p, and a nearly unplayable 23.3 FPS at 4K.

This scaling behavior suggests that the CPU, a 6-core/12-thread Zen 4 part with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, has ample headroom even at lower resolutions. The 7500F’s single-thread performance, evidenced by a 3DMark single-thread score of 974 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3218, is sufficient to feed the GPU at 1080p. As resolution increases, the GPU’s fill-rate and memory bandwidth constraints become the dominant factor. The 128-bit memory bus and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth are likely saturated by the high-resolution textures and effects in The Medium, explaining the steep FPS drops.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for a smooth experience with this combo?

A: Based on the measured data, 1080p is the only resolution where the average FPS stays above 60 on Low settings (93 FPS) and above 40 on Medium (58.8 FPS). 1440p is viable only on Low (82 FPS) or Medium (52.8 FPS), while 4K performance falls below 30 FPS on all presets except Low.

Q: How does the RX 7600 XT perform relative to its nearest rivals in general benchmarks?

A: The RX 7600 XT’s average benchmark score is 20146, placing it 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX 7600, 1.9% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER, and 1.9% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile. Its percentile ranking is 63, meaning it outperforms 63% of all GPUs in the database.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 7500F a bottleneck in this game?

A: The data indicates no. The CPU’s average benchmark score is 24993, which is 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-11850H and 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX. The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K is nearly linear with the GPU’s workload, suggesting the processor is not the limiting factor.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 1440p, the Low preset delivers 82 FPS average, while the Ultra preset delivers 27.6 FPS average. This is a difference of 54.4 FPS, a 66% reduction in performance, highlighting the massive cost of the Ultra preset’s visual features.

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

A: Only barely, and only on Low settings, where the average FPS is 63.9. At Medium settings, the average drops to 41.6 FPS, and at High it falls to 28.1 FPS. The Ultra preset is not playable at 4K, with an average of 23.3 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 7600 XT’s compute performance compare to its DirectX 12 score?

A: The GPU’s Passmark G3D score is 17132, while its DirectX 12 score is 65. This large discrepancy suggests that the card’s raw compute power (22.57 TFLOPS FP32) is not fully translated into DirectX 12 gaming performance, possibly due to driver or architectural limitations in specific workloads.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy for settings. For a target of 60 FPS average, the only viable options are 1080p Low (93 FPS) and 1440p Low (82 FPS). At 1080p Medium, the average is 58.8 FPS, which is just shy of the 60 FPS target but may be acceptable for many users.

For a target of 30 FPS average, more options open. At 1440p Medium, the combo achieves 52.8 FPS, and at 1440p High, it reaches 35.6 FPS. At 4K, the Low preset is the only reasonable choice, with an average of 63.9 FPS. The High preset at 4K (28.1 FPS) and the Ultra preset at 1440p (27.6 FPS) and 1080p (33.7 FPS) all fall below the 30 FPS line, making them undesirable for a consistent experience.

The data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance at 1080p and 1440p. At 1080p Medium, the system achieves 58.8 FPS, which is a 35.1 FPS improvement over the Ultra preset (33.7 FPS). At 1440p Medium, the 52.8 FPS average is nearly double the Ultra preset’s 27.6 FPS. Given that the jump from Medium to Ultra yields a significant performance penalty, the Medium preset is the recommended starting point for this hardware.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for The Medium, this specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F and AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT ranks 1075 out of 1689 total combos. This places it in the lower-middle tier of all tested systems, which is consistent with the measured FPS data showing sub-60 FPS performance at 1440p High and 4K Medium.

The ranking reflects the GPU’s mid-range positioning. The RX 7600 XT sits at the 63rd percentile of all GPUs, and the CPU sits at the 82nd percentile of all CPUs. The combo’s overall rank is likely pulled down by the GPU’s performance ceiling rather than the CPU’s capabilities. The 7500F’s strong multi-threaded scores, such as 22799 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, ensure that it does not hinder the GPU, but the RX 7600 XT’s 16 GB of VRAM and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth are not enough to maintain high frame rates at higher resolutions in this title.

Compared to other combos, this setup is not designed for maximum fidelity. Instead, it is a balanced pairing for 1080p gaming. The rank of 1075 out of 1689 suggests that a significant number of systems outperform it, but it is also far from the bottom, indicating that it provides a baseline playable experience for most users.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is the decisive component in this configuration. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is a double-edged sword: the large capacity is beneficial for high-resolution textures, but the narrow bus width limits the speed at which data can be moved.

The GPU’s clock speeds are notable. The base clock is 1980 MHz, with a game clock of 2470 MHz and a boost clock of 2755 MHz. These high clocks, combined with 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs, yield a pixel rate of 176.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 352.6 GTexel/s. These specifications explain the card’s ability to maintain decent frame rates at 1080p, but the 4K results show that the raw throughput is insufficient for the increased pixel count.

The benchmark data for the GPU shows a Passmark G3D score of 17132 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2348. The DirectX 12 score of 65 is notably low, which may indicate that the RDNA 3.0 architecture is not fully optimized for this game’s engine. The GPU’s performance in The Medium is heavily influenced by the preset. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 34.2 FPS (from 93 to 58.8), and the jump from Medium to High costs another 16.5 FPS (to 42.3). This steep curve suggests that the GPU is sensitive to the game’s shadow quality and post-processing effects, which are likely more demanding than the raw texture memory usage.