The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 in The Medium produces a combo that ranks 3082nd out of 3724 tested combinations, placing it in the lower third of all systems. The data indicates that this pairing is heavily constrained by the graphics card, particularly at higher resolutions, while the processor offers ample headroom that goes largely unused in this horror title. Across all measured settings and resolutions, the system fails to deliver consistently smooth performance, with the only playable results appearing at Low settings or at 1080p Medium, where average frame rates remain below the 60 FPS threshold.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Zen 4 Raphael architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It operates with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a 105 W TDP. This is a modern, high-performance desktop chip that ranks in the 79th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27,636. In synthetic tests, it achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15,236 and a single-core score of 1,965, while its Geekbench multi-core and single-core results are 13,858 and 2,603 respectively.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the 7600X sits in a tight performance cluster. It trails the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and the Intel Core i5-12600K by just 0.2 percent, but leads the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE by 0.3 percent and the AMD Ryzen 7 5800 by 0.4 percent. These delta values are negligible, indicating that the 7600X delivers essentially the same compute performance as its closest competitors in aggregate benchmarks.

In The Medium, however, the CPU's substantial processing power does not translate into high frame rates. At 1080p Low, the system produces 75 FPS, which is the highest average across all tested configurations. Dropping to 1080p Medium yields 47 FPS, and High settings reduce this further to 34 FPS. The pattern across resolutions shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor: at 4K Low, the system still manages 50 FPS, while at 4K High it falls to 22 FPS, a clear indication that the GPU is responsible for the performance ceiling. The processor's 32 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support provide ample bandwidth for game logic, but the benchmark results show that this hardware combination is not CPU-bound in any of the measured scenarios.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is a Pascal-architecture card from the GeForce 10-series, featuring the GP104 chip manufactured on a 16 nm process at TSMC. It comes with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The card's base clock is 1506 MHz with a boost clock of 1683 MHz, and its memory runs at 2002 MHz or 8 Gbps effective. It offers 1,920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operations pipelines, delivering 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 compute performance.

The GTX 1070 ranks in the 47th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 9,780. Its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD FirePro W5000, which is 0.2 percent slower, and the NVIDIA Quadro M2000M, which is 0.5 percent slower. On the other side, the NVIDIA Tesla M10 and Tesla C2070 are 0.6 and 0.7 percent faster respectively. These are professional or older workstation cards, which underscores that the GTX 1070, while aging, still holds a middle-of-the-pack position in raw compute benchmarks.

In The Medium, the GPU's limitations are stark. At 1080p Low, the card produces 75 FPS, but this drops to 47 FPS at Medium and 34 FPS at High. The 4K results are particularly poor: 50 FPS at Low, 31 FPS at Medium with a minimum of 26 FPS, 22 FPS at High, and just 18 FPS at Ultra. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the game's textures at these settings, but the Pascal architecture's raw throughput is insufficient for the game's demands at higher presets. The data clearly shows that the GTX 1070 is the bottleneck across all scenarios, with frame rates scaling almost linearly with resolution and preset changes.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the optimal experience for this combo is at 1080p with Low settings, which produces an average of 75 FPS. This is the only configuration that approaches a smooth 60 FPS experience, and even then it exceeds that threshold by a comfortable margin. At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 47 FPS with a minimum of 40 FPS, which may be playable for some users but falls short of the 60 FPS target.

At 1440p, the results are more constrained. Low settings yield 63 FPS, which is again the only playable option at this resolution, while Medium drops to 40 FPS and High to 28 FPS. At 4K, no setting achieves a playable frame rate; even Low only reaches 50 FPS, and Medium falls to 31 FPS with a minimum of 26 FPS. The Ultra preset is uniformly unplayable across all resolutions, with 27 FPS at 1080p, 22 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K.

The measured data suggests that users should prioritize resolution over visual fidelity. Dropping to Low settings at 1080p provides the best balance of playability and image clarity, as the jump from Low to Medium costs 28 FPS at 1080p, while the jump from Medium to High costs an additional 13 FPS. The Medium preset at 1080p, with its 40 FPS minimum, represents the highest visual quality that maintains a consistent frame rate, but it does not reach the smoothness of the Low preset.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 ranks 3082nd out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the bottom 17 percent of all systems tested. This low ranking is directly attributable to the GPU, as the CPU is a high-performing part that ranks in the 79th percentile among all processors. The disparity between the CPU's strong benchmark position and the combo's weak in-game performance highlights the GPU-bound nature of this pairing.

The benchmark results show that the GTX 1070, despite being an end-of-life product, still holds a 47th percentile position among all GPUs in aggregate benchmarks. However, this does not translate to competitive performance in The Medium, where the game's rendering demands overwhelm the Pascal architecture. The combo's rank is consistent with the GPU's age, as the GTX 1070 was released in 2016, and the game was released in 2021, a five-year gap that explains the performance deficit.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear GPU bottleneck. At Low settings, the system delivers 75 FPS at 1080p, 63 FPS at 1440p, and 50 FPS at 4K, representing a 33 percent drop from 1080p to 4K. At Medium settings, the drop is more pronounced: 47 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 31 FPS at 4K, a 34 percent reduction. High settings show 34 FPS at 1080p, 28 FPS at 1440p, and 22 FPS at 4K, a 35 percent decrease.

This consistent 33-35 percent reduction in frame rates from 1080p to 4K across all settings indicates that the GPU is the sole limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate would remain relatively constant as resolution increases, but the data shows a steady decline proportional to the pixel count increase. The 4K resolution has 4 times the pixels of 1080p, and the GTX 1070's 256.3 GB/s memory bandwidth and 6.463 TFLOPS compute throughput are insufficient to maintain frame rates at higher resolutions. The 1080p results, while still not ideal, represent the best-case scenario for this combo, as the GPU can allocate more of its limited resources to rendering rather than managing higher-resolution frame buffers.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average frame rate this combo can achieve in The Medium?

A: The highest average frame rate measured is 75 FPS at 1080p with Low settings. This is the only configuration that exceeds 60 FPS, with the next closest being 63 FPS at 1440p Low.

Q: Is this system capable of running The Medium at 4K resolution?

A: The data shows no playable frame rates at 4K. The best 4K result is 50 FPS at Low settings, but Medium drops to 31 FPS, High to 22 FPS, and Ultra to 18 FPS, all below the 60 FPS target.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X scores 0.2 percent lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and Intel Core i5-12600K, but 0.3 percent higher than the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE and 0.4 percent higher than the AMD Ryzen 7 5800.

Q: What is the minimum frame rate at 1080p Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the minimum measured frame rate is 40 FPS, with an average of 47 FPS and a maximum of 54 FPS.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the limiting factor in this combo?

A: The benchmark data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU ranks in the 79th percentile among all CPUs, while the frame rates drop consistently with resolution increases, a pattern that points to GPU constraints.

Q: How does the GTX 1070's benchmark score compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The GTX 1070 has an average benchmark score of 9,780, which is 0.2 percent higher than the AMD FirePro W5000 and 0.5 percent higher than the NVIDIA Quadro M2000M, but 0.6 percent lower than the NVIDIA Tesla M10 and 0.7 percent lower than the NVIDIA Tesla C2070.