The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT combination produces a highly variable experience in The Medium, where the GPU’s raw horsepower is frequently held in check by the demanding preset scaling. The benchmark data shows a clear pattern: this combo is a 1080p and 1440p powerhouse at lower settings, but it struggles to maintain smooth frame rates at 4K Ultra, indicating that the game’s visual fidelity options are the primary bottleneck rather than the CPU or GPU silicon itself.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a steep performance cliff as resolution increases, but the slope depends heavily on the selected preset. At Low settings, the combo delivers 150.9 FPS at 1080p, dropping to 124.9 FPS at 1440p and 96.7 FPS at 4K. That translates to a 17% loss from 1080p to 1440p and a further 23% loss from 1440p to 4K, suggesting the RX 9070 XT still has ample headroom at lower quality levels even at 4K. The scaling is far more aggressive on Medium: 96 FPS at 1080p falls to 76.2 FPS at 1440p (a 21% drop) and then to 60.2 FPS at 4K (a 21% drop again), showing a consistent linear penalty as pixel count rises.

The High preset tells a different story. Starting at 65.9 FPS in 1080p, the frame rate drops to 56.3 FPS at 1440p—a 15% reduction—and then plummets to 46.9 FPS at 4K, a 17% further decline. This is where the data hints at a shift in the limiting factor: the gap between 1440p and 4K is proportionally smaller than the gap between Low and Medium settings, implying that the game’s shading and texture complexity are starting to saturate the GPU’s compute units. Ultra is the harshest test, with 52.2 FPS at 1080p falling to 41.6 FPS at 1440p and just 37.1 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is only 29% of the 1080p Low score, a massive differential that underscores how the RX 9070 XT’s 16 GB frame buffer and 644.6 GB/s memory bandwidth are not the constraint—rather, the fixed-function hardware is being overwhelmed by the preset’s effects.

Interpreting the data, the combo is clearly GPU-limited at every resolution and setting tested. The CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, never appears to be the bottleneck because the frame rate scales almost perfectly with the expected pixel workload. A 4K Low run at 96.7 FPS versus a 1080p Ultra run at 52.2 FPS is a 54% gap, which cannot be explained by CPU differences. The pattern suggests that players targeting 4K should stick to Low or Medium, as the jump from 60.2 FPS at Medium to 46.9 FPS at High is a 22% penalty that may not justify the visual gain.

Settings Recommendations

For a smooth 60 FPS experience, the data points to 1440p Medium as the sweet spot, delivering 76.2 FPS with a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. At 4K, Medium is the only preset that clears 60 FPS—at 60.2 FPS exactly—making it the optimal choice for Ultra HD displays. The 1080p Medium result of 96 FPS is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors, but the jump to Low at 150.9 FPS suggests that competitive players might sacrifice quality for speed.

The High preset is a trap at higher resolutions. At 1080p it yields 65.9 FPS, which is playable, but at 1440p it drops to 56.3 FPS and at 4K to 46.9 FPS—both below the 60 FPS target. The Ultra preset is only viable at 1080p, where it hits 52.2 FPS, but even then it fails to reach 60 FPS. The data indicates that Ultra is not recommended for this combo in The Medium, as the 37.1 FPS at 4K is a slideshow compared to the 60.2 FPS from Medium.

The best experience per the measured rows is 1440p Medium, offering a 76.2 FPS average that balances visual fidelity with responsiveness. For 4K users, Medium is the only rational choice. The delta between Medium and High at 1440p is 19.9 FPS (26%), which is a significant hit for what is likely a marginal visual upgrade in a horror title where atmosphere matters more than sharpness. The data also shows that Low at 1080p (150.9 FPS) is the only preset exceeding 120 FPS, so esports-oriented players should use that setting.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the measured results. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. That memory pool is sufficient for The Medium’s textures at all tested settings, as the frame rate drops from Low to Ultra at the same resolution are not accompanied by any signs of stutter or allocation failure in the data. The clocks are also telling: a base of 1660 MHz, a game clock of 2400 MHz, and a boost of 2970 MHz. The wide gap between base and boost suggests the card is thermally and power-limited, which is consistent with the 304 W TDP.

The GPU’s raw compute is substantial—48.66 TFLOPS FP32 and 97.32 TFLOPS FP16—but the benchmark results show that The Medium does not scale linearly with this throughput. At 4K Ultra, the card delivers 37.1 FPS, which is a 61% reduction from the 96.7 FPS at 4K Low. This indicates that the game’s Ultra preset introduces effects that are not purely fill-rate bound. The pixel rate of 380.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 760.3 GTexel/s are high, yet the Ultra preset’s additional ray-traced or post-processing work is likely what drags the score down. The 64 RT cores are present, but the game may not be fully optimized for RDNA 4.0’s architecture.

The GPU’s percentile ranking of 82 places it above the average, but its nearest rivals in the database—like the AMD Radeon Pro 575 and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile—are workstation or mobile parts with different driver optimizations. The RX 9070 XT’s avgBenchmarkScore of 39647 is only 0.1% higher than the Radeon Pro 575’s 39703, yet in The Medium the gap between Low and Ultra is massive, proving that synthetic scores do not predict real-world preset scaling. The 16 GB VRAM is never a limiting factor here, as even the 4K Ultra run at 37.1 FPS does not show a memory-related crash or drop to a lower-res texture pool.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1440p Medium as the best balance, delivering 76.2 FPS. For 4K, Medium is the only preset that hits exactly 60.2 FPS, making it the highest resolution viable for smooth gameplay.

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

A: No. The measured 4K Ultra result is 37.1 FPS, which is well below the 60 FPS threshold. The 4K High preset at 46.9 FPS is also insufficient, so 4K users should stick to Medium.

Q: How does the RX 9070 XT’s 16 GB VRAM affect performance?

A: The 16 GB frame buffer is not a bottleneck in any tested configuration. The frame rate differences between presets are consistent and smooth, indicating that memory capacity is sufficient even at 4K Ultra.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 7500F holding back the GPU?

A: The data does not indicate CPU limitation. The frame rate scales predictably with resolution and settings, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. The 7500F’s single-thread score of 3218 in Cinebench R23 is adequate for this game.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, Low delivers 150.9 FPS while Ultra delivers 52.2 FPS. That is a 98.7 FPS difference, or a 65% reduction, showing the massive cost of the Ultra preset.

Q: How does this combo’s 4K Medium result compare to its 1440p High result?

A: The 4K Medium score is 60.2 FPS, while 1440p High is 56.3 FPS. Interestingly, the higher resolution at a lower preset is faster than the lower resolution at a higher preset, suggesting that Medium is more efficient than High.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT ranks 435 out of 1689 combos in The Medium. That places it in the top 26% of all tested systems, which is a strong result given the game’s demanding nature. The rank is determined by the measured FPS across all settings and resolutions, and the combo’s ability to hit 150.9 FPS at 1080p Low while still managing 96.7 FPS at 4K Low is what boosts it above the median.

The rank of 435 is notable because the CPU’s nearest rivals—such as the Intel Core i7-11850H and AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX—have nearly identical average benchmark scores (within 0.4%), but this combo’s performance in The Medium is driven almost entirely by the GPU. The RX 9070 XT’s 82nd percentile ranking among GPUs confirms that this is a high-end part, but the game’s Ultra preset is so punishing that even this hardware falls to 37.1 FPS at 4K. The combo’s rank would likely be higher if the game had better scaling at Ultra, as the 16 GB VRAM and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth are not being fully utilized.

Compared to the full field of 1689 combos, this system sits in the upper quartile, meaning it outperforms over 1200 other tested configurations. The data suggests that the bottleneck at 4K Ultra is not the combination itself but the game’s optimization, as the 52.2 FPS at 1080p Ultra is still a playable outcome. The rank of 435 is a fair representation of a system that excels at lower settings but cannot brute-force the highest quality preset. For a horror game like The Medium, where the fixed camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds reduce the need for extreme frame rates, the 46.9 FPS at 4K High may still be acceptable to some players, but the benchmark data clearly recommends 1440p Medium for the best experience.