The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title built on Unreal Engine 4, presents a demanding workload that stresses both the CPU and GPU, but the measured data for this AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER combo reveals a system that is consistently GPU-limited across most settings and resolutions. The benchmark results show a clear hierarchy of performance that scales predictably with both resolution and graphical preset, and the data provides a methodical path to identifying the optimal configuration for this hardware pairing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data across all four settings presets at three resolutions points to a single dominant recommendation: the Low preset is the only configuration that provides a consistently playable experience. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 68.2 FPS, which is the only setting at any resolution that clears the 60 FPS threshold. This is a substantial 47.4% improvement over the Medium preset at the same resolution, which averages 46.3 FPS. The gap widens further when compared to High (33.8 FPS) and Ultra (23.7 FPS), where the game becomes increasingly sluggish.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset still delivers a respectable 57.5 FPS average, which is close to the 60 FPS target and far smoother than the Medium preset's 38.1 FPS. At 4K (3840x2160), the Low preset drops to 45.9 FPS, which is playable but begins to show the strain on the GPU. The data strongly suggests that for users prioritizing a smooth, responsive experience, the Low preset is the only viable option. The Medium preset, while offering better visual fidelity, produces average frame rates of 46.3 FPS at 1080p, 38.1 FPS at 1440p, and 30.7 FPS at 4K, which are all below the ideal playability threshold. The High and Ultra presets are effectively unplayable, with averages ranging from 33.8 FPS down to 17.7 FPS, making them suitable only for static screenshots or very low-intensity scenes. The data does not show a scenario where Medium or higher provides a balanced trade-off; the performance cost is simply too steep for this GPU.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is the primary performance bottleneck in this configuration, and its characteristics directly explain the FPS trends observed. The GPU features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. Its boost clock is rated at 1785 MHz, and it has a texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s. These specifications, while capable for 1080p gaming, are insufficient for the higher resolutions and demanding presets tested in The Medium.

The benchmark results show a stark drop in performance as the graphical load increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (68.2 FPS) and Ultra (23.7 FPS) is a 65.2% reduction in frame rate, indicating that the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth are saturated by the game's effects and geometry. The GPU's FP32 performance of 5.027 TFLOPS is simply not enough to handle the computational load of the High and Ultra presets, which likely include more complex lighting and post-processing effects. The 6 GB VRAM capacity is also a factor; while the exact VRAM usage is not provided, the dramatic performance cliff between Medium and High suggests that the card may be exceeding its memory buffer at higher settings, forcing additional data transfer that further bottlenecks the frame rate. The GPU's percentile rank of 55 versus all GPUs places it in the lower half of the market, and its average benchmark score of 14286 is within 0.7% of the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, confirming its position as a mainstream 1080p-oriented part.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 7600 and the GTX 1660 SUPER ranks at position 1471 out of 1689 tested combos in this game, placing it in the bottom 13% of all configurations. This ranking is primarily a consequence of the GPU's limited performance, as the CPU is a much stronger component. The Ryzen 5 7600 has an average benchmark score of 26617, which puts it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs, and it performs nearly identically to its nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (0.2% higher) and the Intel Core i9-11900K (0.3% higher). In contrast, the GTX 1660 SUPER's average benchmark score of 14286 places it in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, and it is slightly outclassed by the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, which scores 0.7% higher.

This pairing creates a significant imbalance. The data shows that the combo's rank in-game is dragged down by the GPU, which is unable to translate the CPU's processing power into high frame rates in this GPU-intensive title. The CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with data at a much higher rate than the GPU can render, making the graphics card the definitive limiting factor. This is not a balanced configuration for The Medium; it is a system where a powerful processor is paired with a mid-range graphics card, and the benchmark results reflect this mismatch.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive look at how the system performs across all tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the average FPS values are as follows: Low 68.2, Medium 46.3, High 33.8, and Ultra 23.7. The progression shows a steady decline of roughly 20 FPS between each preset step, illustrating a linear impact on the GPU workload.

At 2560x1440, the averages drop to: Low 57.5, Medium 38.1, High 29.7, and Ultra 23.9. The gap between Low and Medium narrows to 19.4 FPS, but the difference between High and Ultra becomes almost negligible (5.8 FPS), suggesting that the GPU is hitting a hard performance ceiling at these higher settings. The 1440p High preset (29.7 FPS) performs nearly identically to the 1080p Ultra preset (23.7 FPS), further confirming the GPU's saturation point.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 45.9, Medium 30.7, High 19.8, and Ultra 17.7. Here, the Ultra preset produces the lowest average frame rate of any configuration tested. The data across all resolutions shows a consistent pattern: the GTX 1660 SUPER can handle the Low preset with relative ease, but every step up in quality results in a significant loss of performance. The FPS values are entirely dictated by the GPU's rendering capabilities, with no evidence of CPU-related frame rate limitations.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling analysis reveals a clear picture of a GPU-bound system. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on the Low preset results in a drop from 68.2 FPS to 57.5 FPS, a reduction of 15.7%. The jump to 3840x2160 on the same preset brings the average down to 45.9 FPS, a further 20.2% drop from 1440p. These proportional decreases are consistent with the additional pixel count that the GPU must process.

The impact of resolution is more pronounced at higher settings. On the Medium preset, the 1080p to 4K transition sees FPS fall from 46.3 to 30.7, representing a 33.7% loss. The High preset shows a similar trend, with FPS dropping from 33.8 at 1080p to 19.8 at 4K, a 41.4% reduction. This indicates that as the graphical preset increases, the GPU becomes even more sensitive to resolution changes, as the per-pixel workload becomes more complex. The scaling behavior confirms that the limiting component is the GPU. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS to remain relatively flat across resolutions, as the CPU's work is independent of pixel count. Instead, the frame rate drops consistently with every resolution increase, which is the hallmark of a GPU-limited scenario.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 plays a supporting role in this configuration, and its capabilities are largely untapped by this game. The CPU has 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. It is based on the Zen 4 architecture, manufactured on a 5 nm process, and supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s. Its benchmark results are strong: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22992 and a single-core score of 3246, placing it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs.

However, the measured FPS data shows no sign of CPU bottlenecking. The consistent frame rate drops with increasing resolution and settings are entirely attributable to the GPU's workload. The CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache and high single-thread performance are more than sufficient to handle the game's logic and draw calls, even at the lowest frame rates. The data suggests that the Ryzen 5 7600 is idling relative to its potential, waiting for the GTX 1660 SUPER to complete its rendering tasks. In a different pairing with a more powerful GPU, this CPU would likely deliver significantly higher frame rates, but in this specific combo, its role is to feed a GPU that cannot keep up. The CPU's average benchmark score of 26617 is 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, indicating that it has ample headroom for more demanding graphics cards.