The Medium

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 serves as the dominant graphics processor in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the measured frame rates in The Medium. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2235 MHz and boosts to 2520 MHz, with 16384 shading units and 512 TMUs driving the rendering pipeline. Its 176 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s, which is particularly relevant for a horror title that relies on dense visual effects and layered scene compositions.

Memory capacity and bandwidth are decisive factors here. The RTX 4090 carries 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, yielding 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The Medium is a game that frequently stresses memory throughput due to its fixed-camera angles and high-resolution textures, and the data confirms this: at 4K Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 50, suggesting the GPU is being pushed to its limits by the combination of resolution and preset complexity. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective), which feeds the 1.01 TB/s bandwidth figure that becomes critical when the GPU is asked to handle 3840x2160 output with Ultra settings.

The RTX 4090's architectural foundation is Ada Lovelace on TSMC's 5 nm process, with 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die. This density allows for 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores, though The Medium's benchmark results do not show a dramatic RT-specific performance cliff, indicating the traditional rasterization pipeline is the primary workload. The FP32 throughput of 82.58 TFLOPS, paired with the same FP16 figure, gives the GPU headroom that manifests in the Low preset results—at 1080p Low, the average FPS reaches 164, which is more than three times the 4K Ultra result.

The GPU's percentile ranking against all tested GPUs stands at 88, and its average benchmark score is 60347. In the nearestRivals comparison, the RTX 4090 sits within 0.3% of the Intel Arc Pro A60 and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48, though this parity is likely an artifact of the benchmark aggregation rather than a reflection of gaming performance. The deltaPct values show the RTX 4090 trailing the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M by 2.5% and leading the AMD Radeon PRO V710 by 2.9%, but these synthetic scores do not translate to the measured FPS in The Medium, where the RTX 4090 clearly dominates.

The 450 W TDP and 850 W suggested PSU indicate the power envelope required to sustain these clocks, but the gaming data shows that the GPU does not bottleneck at any tested resolution. The step from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings reduces the average FPS from 132 to 87, a 34% drop, which is a modest scaling curve for a GPU of this class. This suggests that while the RTX 4090 is the primary driver of frame output, the CPU begins to exert influence at lower resolutions, as detailed in the next section.

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

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 provides the processing foundation with 6 cores and 12 threads, a configuration that is adequate for The Medium's fixed-camera horror mechanics but not overprovisioned for high-refresh gaming. The base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.10 GHz give the CPU strong single-thread performance, which is evidenced by its 3DMark single-thread score of 999 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1852. This single-thread capability is crucial for a game that may not fully utilize multi-threaded scaling, but the data suggests the CPU is rarely the limiting factor.

The CPU's cache hierarchy—64 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3—provides sufficient data locality for game logic and asset streaming. The memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s via dual-channel DDR5 is modest compared to the GPU's 1.01 TB/s, but this does not create a visible bottleneck in the measured results. The Ryzen 5 7600's 5 nm Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Raphael, delivers a balance of efficiency and performance that aligns with the 65 W TDP.

The CPU's benchmark scores place it in the 78th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 26324. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX with a deltaPct of 0.2% and the Intel Core i9-11900KF with a deltaPct of 0.4%, indicating that the Ryzen 5 7600 is competitively positioned within its performance class. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 12735 and Geekbench multi-core score of 13413 show balanced multi-threaded capability, but the PassMark single-thread score of 3910 highlights the CPU's strength in lightly threaded workloads.

In The Medium, the CPU's role becomes more apparent when examining the FPS scaling across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 164, which is close to the CPU's practical ceiling for this game. When the resolution increases to 4K Low, the average FPS drops to 140, a 15% reduction that indicates the GPU is now taking on more of the workload. This pattern suggests that at 1080p, the Ryzen 5 7600's 6-core/12-thread configuration is sufficient to feed the RTX 4090, but the CPU's influence diminishes as resolution scales, which is expected given the GPU's massive compute resources.

The 3DMark 16-thread score of 6499 and max-thread score of 6503 show that the CPU's multi-threading is consistent, but The Medium does not appear to be a heavily threaded title. The benchmark results across settings show that the CPU does not bottleneck even at 1080p Ultra, where the average FPS is 75—this is a GPU-limited scenario, as the RTX 4090 is working harder to render the Ultra preset's effects. The Ryzen 5 7600's 12 threads are adequate for the game's physics and AI systems, and the data indicates no CPU-induced frame pacing issues, as the Medium preset shows a minimum FPS of 112 at 1080p.

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

The measured FPS data reveals a clear scaling pattern that identifies the GPU as the primary limiting component at higher resolutions, with the CPU becoming more relevant at 1080p. At Medium settings, the average FPS progresses from 132 at 1080p to 111 at 1440p (a 16% drop) and then to 87 at 4K (a 34% drop from 1440p). This scaling curve is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where each resolution increase demands exponentially more pixel throughput from the RTX 4090.

The Low preset shows a different scaling profile: 164 FPS at 1080p, 155 FPS at 1440p (a 5.5% drop), and 140 FPS at 4K (a 15% drop from 1440p). The relatively smaller drops at Low settings indicate that the CPU is holding the frame rate closer to its maximum potential at 1080p, but even at 4K Low, the RTX 4090 is still delivering a highly playable 140 FPS. This suggests that the Low preset's reduced visual complexity shifts the bottleneck toward the CPU, but the Ryzen 5 7600's single-thread performance keeps the frame rate high.

The High preset shows a similar pattern to Medium, with 95 FPS at 1080p, 80 FPS at 1440p (a 16% drop), and 63 FPS at 4K (a 21% drop from 1440p). The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling: 75 FPS at 1080p, 63 FPS at 1440p (a 16% drop), and 50 FPS at 4K (a 21% drop from 1440p). These results demonstrate that the RTX 4090's performance scales predictably with resolution, and the GPU is the dominant constraint across all presets.

The 4K Medium preset includes minimum and maximum FPS values of 74 and 101, respectively, giving a range of 27 FPS that indicates consistent frame pacing. At 1440p Medium, the range is 33 FPS (95 to 128), and at 1080p Medium, the range is 40 FPS (112 to 152). This increasing variance at lower resolutions further supports the conclusion that the CPU is introducing more frame time variability at 1080p, while the GPU's consistent output at 4K produces a tighter FPS distribution.

The resolution scaling data shows that the RTX 4090 is not fully utilized at 1080p Low, where the 164 FPS ceiling is likely set by the CPU's IPC and memory latency rather than the GPU's compute capability. However, the Ryzen 5 7600's boost clock of 5.10 GHz and single-thread score of 999 (3DMark) ensure that this CPU ceiling is high enough to keep the experience smooth. The 4K results, particularly the 50 FPS at Ultra, indicate that the GPU is the limiting component at this resolution, which is expected given the RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS being fully engaged.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 118th out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 3.2% of all configurations. This ranking is impressive given that the CPU is a mainstream 6-core part, while the GPU is a flagship product. The rank reflects the GPU's dominance in this title, as the RTX 4090's 88th percentile ranking against all GPUs and the CPU's 78th percentile ranking combine to produce a system that excels in GPU-bound scenarios.

The combo's ranking is particularly noteworthy when considering the CPU's position in the broader market. The Ryzen 5 7600's nearest rivals—the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX, AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS, Intel Core i9-11900KF, and AMD Ryzen 5 8540U—all have average scores within 0.5% of the Ryzen 5 7600, indicating that the CPU is not a differentiator in this pairing. The RTX 4090, however, has a more varied competitive landscape, with its nearest rivals showing deltaPct values from -2.5% to 2.9%, but the GPU's gaming performance in The Medium is what drives the combo's rank.

The 118th rank out of 3724 combos suggests that the RTX 4090's sheer graphics horsepower can overcome any potential CPU limitations. In a game like The Medium, which is visually demanding but not necessarily CPU-intensive, the GPU's 24 GB of VRAM and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are the key assets. The rank also indicates that this combo outperforms many configurations with higher-end CPUs paired with lesser GPUs, confirming that the RTX 4090 is the primary factor in this game's performance.

The data shows that the combo's ranking is not an outlier but rather a consistent reflection of the GPU's capabilities. At 4K Ultra, the combo delivers 50 FPS, which is above the playable threshold for a horror title where atmospheric tension matters more than competitive frame rates. At 1080p Medium, the 132 FPS average provides a high-refresh experience, and the combo's rank of 118 suggests that only a few configurations—likely those with even faster CPUs or multi-GPU setups—can surpass this performance.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo. At 4K Medium, the average FPS is 87 with a minimum of 74 and maximum of 101, providing a smooth experience that stays well above the 60 FPS threshold for most displays. The 74 FPS minimum ensures that even demanding scenes do not cause noticeable stuttering, which is critical for a horror game that relies on immersion.

For users with 1440p displays, the Medium preset delivers 111 FPS on average, with a minimum of 95 FPS, making it the recommended choice for high-refresh monitors. The High preset at 1440p yields 80 FPS, which is also playable but leaves less headroom for frame drops. At 1080p, the Medium preset provides 132 FPS with a minimum of 112 FPS, which is ideal for 144 Hz displays, while the High preset's 95 FPS is adequate for 100 Hz monitors.

The Ultra preset is not recommended for this combo, as it produces only 50 FPS at 4K and 63 FPS at 1440p. While the Ultra preset may offer marginal visual improvements, the frame rate penalty is substantial—a 43% reduction from Medium at 4K (from 87 to 50 FPS) and a 43% reduction at 1440p (from 111 to 63 FPS). The Low preset, while delivering the highest frame rates (164 FPS at 1080p, 155 FPS at 1440p, 140 FPS at 4K), sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a game that emphasizes atmospheric environments.

The Medium preset's measured frame range at 4K (74-101 FPS) indicates that the RTX 4090 is operating within a comfortable efficiency window, avoiding the thermal and power extremes that could occur at Ultra settings. The 450 W TDP of the GPU is more manageable at Medium settings, and the consistent frame pacing suggests that the combination of the Ryzen 5 7600's 5.10 GHz boost clock and the RTX 4090's 2520 MHz boost clock is well matched for this preset.

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

3840x2160 (4K)

• Ultra: Average FPS of 50. This is the lowest result across all settings and resolutions, indicating that the RTX 4090 is fully saturated by the Ultra preset's effects at 4K.
• High: Average FPS of 63. This represents a 26% improvement over Ultra, making it the minimum viable preset for a 60 FPS experience at 4K.
• Medium: Average FPS of 87, with a minimum of 74 and maximum of 101. This is the recommended 4K preset, offering a 74% improvement over Ultra while maintaining smooth frame pacing.
• Low: Average FPS of 140. This is a 180% improvement over Ultra, showing that the Low preset dramatically reduces GPU load, but the visual compromise is significant for a horror title.

2560x1440 (1440p)

• Ultra: Average FPS of 63. This is identical to the 4K High result, indicating that the Ultra preset at 1440p has similar GPU demands to High at 4K.
• High: Average FPS of 80. This provides a 27% improvement over Ultra, making it a viable option for 75 Hz monitors.
• Medium: Average FPS of 111, with a minimum of 95 and maximum of 128. This is the sweet spot for 1440p, delivering a 76% improvement over Ultra.
• Low: Average FPS of 155. This is the highest 1440p result, only 9 FPS below the 1080p Low result, indicating that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor at this resolution.

1920x1080 (1080p)

• Ultra: Average FPS of 75. This is a 50% improvement over the 4K Ultra result, showing that the RTX 4090 has ample headroom at 1080p even with the most demanding preset.
• High: Average FPS of 95. This is a 27% improvement over Ultra, making it suitable for 100 Hz displays.
• Medium: Average FPS of 132, with a minimum of 112 and maximum of 152. This is the recommended 1080p preset, providing a 76% improvement over Ultra.
• Low: Average FPS of 164. This is the highest measured FPS across all tests, and it likely approaches the CPU's maximum frame output for this game, given the Ryzen 5 7600's single-thread performance.

The data shows a consistent pattern: the Medium preset provides the best experience at every resolution, with the 4K Medium result of 87 FPS being the most impressive given the resolution's demands. The Low preset's 164 FPS at 1080p is the only result that appears CPU-limited, as the 15% drop to 140 FPS at 4K Low is smaller than the drops seen at other presets, suggesting the CPU's 5.10 GHz boost clock is the ceiling for this particular configuration.