The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT lands at rank 1941 out of 3724 tested combinations for The Medium. This places the combo in the lower-middle tier of the database, meaning that while it can run the game, a substantial portion of other tested hardware combinations deliver higher frame rates. The data indicates this pairing is workable for the game's fixed-camera horror scenes, but it is not positioned among the high-performing configurations, and users seeking maximum visual fidelity or high refresh rates will find the hardware hitting its limits.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 1941 out of 3724 represents the 52nd percentile of all tested combinations. This is a median placement, suggesting that the Ryzen 5 8400F and RX 6700 XT deliver a balanced but unremarkable experience in The Medium. The CPU itself sits at the 77th percentile among all CPUs, which is a stronger relative position than the combo's overall ranking, hinting that the graphics card is more likely the limiting factor in this pairing. The GPU, at the 72nd percentile among all GPUs, is also above average but not exceptional.

Looking at the measured results, the combo's performance scales predictably with settings. At 1080p Low, it achieves 110 FPS, which is a comfortable level, but at 1080p Ultra, the average drops to 39 FPS. This wide gap suggests that the hardware is capable of smooth gameplay only at lower presets. The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F, shows a delta of just 0.2 percent in average benchmark score, meaning the 8400F is essentially performance-equivalent to that chip. On the GPU side, the RX 6700 XT's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile, with a delta of 0 percent, indicating that in raw compute terms, these two graphics processors are virtually identical in the database's aggregate scoring.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combo run The Medium at 4K resolution?*

A: Yes, but only at lower settings. At 4K Low, the average FPS is 73, which is playable. However, at 4K Medium, the average drops to 45 FPS, and at 4K High it falls to 32 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the average is just 26 FPS, which is likely too stuttery for a smooth experience.

Q: What settings provide the best balance of visual quality and frame rate at 1080p?

A: The data shows that 1080p Medium delivers 69 FPS average, with a minimum of 58 FPS and a maximum of 79 FPS. This is the highest preset that maintains a frame rate above 60 FPS on average at this resolution. High settings drop to 49 FPS, which is below the smooth threshold.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its direct rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 5 8400F has an average benchmark score of 25005. Its closest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F, scores 24964, a delta of 0.2 percent. The Intel Core i7-11850H and i7-13620H are within 0.3 and 0.4 percent respectively. This indicates the CPU is very competitive with its peers, with no significant performance gap.

Q: Is the GPU more powerful than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090?

A: No. The RX 6700 XT has an average benchmark score of 27425, while the RTX 3090 scores 27565. The delta is -0.5 percent, meaning the RTX 3090 is slightly faster in the database's aggregate metrics. The difference is marginal, however.

*Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo can achieve in The Medium?*

A: The highest recorded average FPS in the measured data is 110, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only setting and resolution combination that surpasses the 100 FPS mark.

Q: Is there a significant frame rate drop between 1440p Medium and 4K Medium?

A: Yes, the drop is substantial. At 2560x1440 Medium, the average FPS is 58, while at 3840x2160 Medium, it falls to 45. This represents a 22.4 percent reduction in average frame rate when moving from 1440p to 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound pattern. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 69 at 1080p to 58 at 1440p, then to 45 at 4K. This is a steady decline of roughly 16 percent and 22 percent respectively for each resolution step up. The pattern is similar at High settings, where FPS goes from 49 at 1080p to 41 at 1440p and finally to 32 at 4K.

This scaling behavior strongly indicates that the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the limiting component as resolution increases. The CPU's workload does not scale linearly with pixel count, so the frame rate drops are attributable to the GPU struggling to fill more pixels. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 26 is barely above a slideshow, and even 4K High at 32 FPS is below the 60 FPS target that many players expect. The data suggests that 1080p is the sweet spot for this combo, with 1440p being playable at Medium settings, but 4K should be reserved for Low presets if a smooth frame rate is desired.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings at any given resolution is also telling. At 1080p, the difference is 71 FPS (110 vs 39), while at 4K, the difference narrows to 47 FPS (73 vs 26). This compression at higher resolutions further confirms that the GPU is the bottleneck, as the pixel fill rate becomes the dominant factor regardless of the quality preset.

Settings Recommendations

For the best measured experience, the data points to 1920x1080 with Medium settings. This combination yields an average FPS of 69, with a minimum of 58 and a maximum of 79. The minimum frame rate of 58 is just below the 60 FPS threshold, but the average is comfortably above it, providing a mostly smooth experience with occasional dips.

Moving up to High at 1080p drops the average to 49 FPS, which is a notable decrease of 29 percent compared to Medium. This suggests that the jump from Medium to High is costly in The Medium, and the visual improvements may not justify the frame rate loss. At 1440p, Medium is the highest playable preset, with an average of 58 FPS and a minimum of 49. This is playable but not ideal for fast-paced scenes.

Ultra settings are not recommended for any resolution, as the average FPS never exceeds 39 at 1080p and falls to as low as 26 at 4K. The game's horror atmosphere may benefit from higher visual fidelity, but the data shows that the hardware cannot maintain a consistent frame rate at this preset. For a balance of visual quality and smoothness, 1080p Medium is the clear winner, while 1440p Medium is a viable alternative for users with higher-resolution monitors who can tolerate occasional frame rate dips.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers an average of 110 FPS on Low settings, 69 FPS on Medium (with a range of 58 to 79), 49 FPS on High, and 39 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset shows the only recorded minimum and maximum values in the entire dataset, indicating that this setting was tested more thoroughly or exhibits more variance.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 92 FPS on Low, 58 FPS on Medium (range 49 to 66), 41 FPS on High, and 33 FPS on Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is most pronounced at Low settings, where FPS falls from 110 to 92, a 16.4 percent reduction. At Ultra, the drop is smaller, from 39 to 33 FPS, a 15.4 percent decrease.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 73 FPS on Low, 45 FPS on Medium (range 39 to 52), 32 FPS on High, and 26 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low setting is the only 4K preset that achieves a playable frame rate above 60 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K at Low settings shows a drop from 92 to 73 FPS, which is a 20.7 percent reduction. This is the largest percentage drop observed for any single resolution step in the dataset, reinforcing the GPU's struggle with the higher pixel count.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a base clock of 4.20 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. It has a 65W TDP and supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus, offering a memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s. The CPU's benchmark scores show strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 20851 and a single-core score of 2943.

In The Medium, the CPU's role appears to be secondary to the GPU. The game's fixed-camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds likely place less stress on the CPU than typical open-world titles. The 8400F's six cores and 12 threads are more than sufficient for this type of workload, as evidenced by the fact that the frame rate drops are consistent with GPU-bound behavior. The CPU's percentile rank of 77 among all CPUs indicates it is well above average, and its nearest rival, the Ryzen 5 7500F, performs nearly identically.

The CPU's single-thread performance, with a 3DMark single-thread score of 951 and a Passmark single-thread score of 3685, is adequate for the game's logic and AI computations. However, since the measured FPS scales so heavily with resolution and settings, it is clear that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this pairing. The data implies that the 8400F has headroom to spare, and any frame rate limitations are almost entirely due to the GPU's rendering capabilities.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a 7nm process. It features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 384.0 GB/s. The GPU has a base clock of 2321 MHz, a game clock of 2424 MHz, and a boost clock of 2581 MHz. It contains 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with 40 ray tracing cores. The GPU's TDP is 230W, and it requires a dual-slot cooler and a 550W power supply.

The GPU's benchmark performance places it at the 72nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average score of 27425. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile, shows a delta of 0 percent, indicating that these two GPUs are statistically tied in aggregate performance. In The Medium, the RX 6700 XT's 12 GB of VRAM is sufficient for all tested settings, as the game does not appear to run out of memory at 4K Ultra.

The GPU's role in this combo is clearly dominant. The measured FPS data shows that as resolution increases, the frame rate drops proportionally, which is the hallmark of a GPU-bound scenario. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 26 is likely due to the GPU's raw pixel throughput limits, not memory capacity or bandwidth. The 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the demand on the memory subsystem grows, and the data suggests the GPU's compute units are saturated. The RDNA 2.0 architecture's ray tracing capabilities are present, but the game's performance at Ultra settings indicates that this GPU is not designed for maximum fidelity at high resolutions in modern horror titles.