The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER combination lands at rank 3179 out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the lower tier of systems for this title. This pairing sits in the bottom 15 percent of tested configurations, indicating that while it can run the game, it requires careful settings management to deliver a smooth experience. The data shows a system that is fundamentally capable but constrained, with the GPU acting as the primary bottleneck across all tested resolutions. The benchmark results paint a clear picture of a hardware duo that prioritizes consistency over high-end performance, making it a viable option only for those willing to accept compromises in visual fidelity or resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 3179 out of 3724 tested combinations places it firmly in the lower quartile of systems evaluated for The Medium. This position reflects the significant performance gap between the GTX 1660 SUPER and more modern GPUs, even when paired with a strong mid-range processor like the Ryzen 5 7500F. The CPU itself is no slouch, sitting at the 77th percentile among all processors with an average benchmark score of 24964, but the GPU's 53rd percentile standing among all graphics cards drags the overall experience down.

Benchmark data indicates that the GTX 1660 SUPER's average score of 12986 places it within 0.4 percent of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile and 0.4 percent of the AMD Radeon RX 580, showing that it trades blows with those competitors. The Ryzen 5 7500F, meanwhile, sits within 0.2 percent of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and 0.1 percent of the Intel Core i7-11850H in average CPU scores. This combination of a top-tier CPU with a mid-range GPU creates a system where the processor is rarely the limiting factor, but the graphics card consistently holds back frame rates in The Medium's demanding scenes.

The ranking data suggests that the system's overall position is heavily influenced by the GPU's performance ceiling. At 1080p, the combo manages playable frame rates at lower settings, but the score drops off dramatically as resolution and quality settings increase. The 3179th rank out of 3724 combinations means that roughly 85 percent of tested systems outperform this pairing in The Medium, which is a sobering statistic for anyone expecting high-refresh-rate gameplay or maxed-out visuals.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear hierarchy of playable settings for this combo. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers an average of 70 FPS, which is the only configuration that approaches high-refresh-rate territory. The Medium preset at 1080p produces 44 FPS on average, with minimums of 37 FPS and maximums of 51 FPS, providing a playable but not entirely smooth experience. The High preset drops to 32 FPS average, while Ultra falls to 25 FPS, both of which are below the threshold for comfortable gameplay in a horror title that relies on atmosphere and pacing.

At 1440p, the Low preset still manages a respectable 59 FPS average, making it the only viable option at this resolution for smooth play. The Medium preset at 1440p yields 37 FPS average with a range of 32 to 43 FPS, which is borderline playable but may feel inconsistent during intense sequences. The High and Ultra presets at 1440p drop to 27 and 21 FPS respectively, making them unsuitable for anything other than static observation or screenshots.

For 4K resolution, the data shows that only the Low preset at 47 FPS average is remotely playable, while Medium drops to 29 FPS, High to 21 FPS, and Ultra to 17 FPS. Based on these results, the recommended configuration is the Low preset at 1080p for the best balance of frame rate and playability, or the Low preset at 1440p if image clarity is prioritized over smoothness. The Medium preset at 1080p is a secondary option for those who want better visual quality and can tolerate occasional frame dips below 40 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data demonstrates a steep performance penalty as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At the Low preset, the average frame rate drops from 70 FPS at 1080p to 59 FPS at 1440p, representing a 15.7 percent decrease, and then further to 47 FPS at 4K, a 32.9 percent drop from 1080p. This scaling pattern is consistent with a GPU-bound workload, where the GTX 1660 SUPER's pixel throughput becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The Medium preset shows a similar trend, with averages of 44 FPS at 1080p, 37 FPS at 1440p, and 29 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops from 1080p to 4K are 15.9 percent for 1440p and 34.1 percent for 4K, closely mirroring the Low preset's scaling. This consistency indicates that the GPU is operating at its performance ceiling across all settings, and the additional pixel count at higher resolutions directly translates to fewer frames rendered per second.

The High preset follows the same pattern, dropping from 32 FPS at 1080p to 27 FPS at 1440p and 21 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset, while starting at a low 25 FPS at 1080p, falls to 21 FPS at 1440p and 17 FPS at 4K. The scaling behavior suggests that the Ryzen 5 7500F is not the limiting component in any of these configurations; the GPU's rendering capabilities dictate the frame rates at every resolution. The 6-core, 12-thread processor with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz provides ample headroom, as evidenced by the consistent frame rate drops that align with GPU workload increases.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p resolution, the measured FPS values show a wide spread across settings. The Low preset achieves 70 FPS average, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. The Medium preset produces 44 FPS average with minimum and maximum values of 37 and 51 FPS, providing a measurable range of performance. The High preset drops to 32 FPS average, while the Ultra preset bottoms out at 25 FPS average. These numbers indicate that the GTX 1660 SUPER can handle 1080p gaming comfortably only at the lowest settings, with each step up in quality costing roughly 10-12 FPS.

Moving to 1440p, the Low preset delivers 59 FPS average, still playable but noticeably lower than the 1080p equivalent. The Medium preset at 1440p yields 37 FPS average with a range of 32 to 43 FPS, showing tighter variance than the 1080p Medium result. The High preset falls to 27 FPS average, and the Ultra preset reaches just 21 FPS average. The 1440p results reinforce the pattern that this combo is best suited for Low settings at this resolution.

At 4K resolution, the data becomes less encouraging. The Low preset manages 47 FPS average, which is the only playable option at this resolution. The Medium preset drops to 29 FPS average with a range of 25 to 33 FPS, showing that even the minimum frame rates are below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The High preset produces 21 FPS average, and the Ultra preset drops to 17 FPS average, making both unusable for actual play. The 4K results confirm that this combination is not designed for high-resolution gaming without significant compromises in visual quality.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the TU116 chip using a 12 nm process from TSMC, with a die size of 284 mm² and 6,600 million transistors. The GPU features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. The base clock runs at 1530 MHz with a boost clock of 1785 MHz, while the memory operates at 1750 MHz or 14 Gbps effective. These specifications place the GPU in the mid-range category, with a PassMark G3D score of 12699 and a percentile ranking of 53 among all GPUs.

The measured FPS data shows that the GPU's 6 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for The Medium at 1080p and 1440p, but the rendering performance is the limiting factor. The FP32 compute power of 5.027 TFLOPS and the texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s are the key specifications that determine how quickly the GPU can process the game's graphical workloads. The pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s directly impacts performance at higher resolutions, explaining the steep frame rate drops observed at 4K.

The GPU's 1408 shading units and 88 texture mapping units provide the raw processing power needed for The Medium's horror visuals, but the 48 ROPs become a bottleneck at higher resolutions. The benchmark results indicate that the GTX 1660 SUPER performs within 0.4 percent of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile and 0.4 percent of the AMD Radeon RX 580, showing that it competes with these older and mobile variants. The GPU's 12 nm process node and 125 W TDP suggest that it draws moderate power, but the performance ceiling is clear from the measured FPS data.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F provides the computational foundation for this combo, featuring 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture on a 5 nm process from TSMC. The processor has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU is built on the AMD Socket AM5 platform and supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel configuration, delivering a memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s. These specifications place the processor at the 77th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 24964.

The CPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks shows strong multi-threaded capabilities, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 22799 and a Geekbench multicore score of 12362. The single-thread performance is also respectable, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3218 and a Geekbench singlecore score of 2374. The PassMark multithread score of 26825 and the 3DMark max threads score of 6379 indicate that the processor has ample headroom for gaming workloads.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and handle game logic, which the 6-core, 12-thread configuration does effectively. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU bottlenecking, as frame rates scale consistently with resolution and settings changes. The processor's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-11850H with a score of 24935 (0.1 percent difference), the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F with a score of 25005 (-0.2 percent), and the Intel Core i7-13620H with a score of 24911 (0.2 percent). This positioning confirms that the Ryzen 5 7500F is a capable gaming processor that will not hold back the GTX 1660 SUPER in this title.