The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and AMD Radeon RX 7600 combination delivers a playable but demanding experience in The Medium, with performance heavily contingent on resolution and settings. The data shows that this pairing struggles to maintain high framerates at 4K, yet provides a solid 1080p experience. The CPU’s 8-core, 16-thread configuration and the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM are both significant factors in how the game performs across the measured spectrum.

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

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is a Zen 2 (Matisse) architecture processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, running at a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This 65W TDP chip is built on a 7 nm process and sits on the AM4 socket. In the context of The Medium, a horror title that typically relies on sustained multi-threaded performance for streaming and physics, the 3700X's core count is a solid foundation. It never appears to be the primary bottleneck in the measured data; even at the lowest settings and 1080p, the framerate scales consistently with GPU load, suggesting the CPU has headroom.

The processor’s benchmarks support this. In Cinebench R23, it scores 19087 multi-core and 2694 single-core. Its passmark multithread score is 22458, and the single-thread score is 2656. These scores place it in the 85th percentile against all CPUs, with a benchmark average of 28631. It sits within 0.2% of rivals like the Intel Core i5-12600 and AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT, indicating that while it is not a top-tier gaming chip, it is more than adequate for this title. For The Medium, the CPU’s job is to feed the GPU with draw calls and manage the game’s fixed-camera scenes; the 3700X does so without causing framerate dips that would be visible in the average FPS numbers.

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

The measured data provides clear guidance on which preset to use. At 1080p, the High preset yields an average of 42.2 FPS, while the Medium preset gives 56.6 FPS, and Low gives 94.7 FPS. The Ultra preset is the outlier, producing only 31.3 FPS at 1080p. The sweet spot for a smooth experience is the Medium preset at 1080p, which nearly doubles the Ultra framerate while maintaining visual fidelity significantly above Low.

Moving to 1440p, the pattern shifts. High delivers 35.5 FPS, Medium 48 FPS, and Low 78.6 FPS. At this resolution, Medium is again the most balanced choice, offering a 48 FPS average that is close to a 60 FPS target. For 4K, the situation is more constrained. High and Ultra both produce 25.1 FPS, which is not playable. Medium at 4K yields 39.8 FPS, and Low jumps to 60.6 FPS. The data indicates that for a consistent experience, users should start at Medium settings for 1080p and 1440p, and only consider Low settings for 4K to maintain a playable framerate.

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

The framerate scaling across resolutions is a clear indicator of GPU-bound performance. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 56.6 at 1080p to 48 at 1440p, a 15% reduction, and then to 39.8 at 4K, a further 17% reduction. At High settings, the drop is more severe: 42.2 FPS at 1080p falls to 35.5 at 1440p (16% drop) and then to 25.1 at 4K (29% drop). This accelerating decline as resolution increases points directly to the GPU as the limiting factor. The RX 7600’s 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus are simply insufficient for the higher resolution textures and pixel counts demanded by The Medium at higher presets.

The CPU, by contrast, does not show signs of saturation. At Low settings, the framerate scales almost linearly with resolution: 94.7 FPS at 1080p, 78.6 FPS at 1440p, and 60.6 FPS at 4K. This suggests that even at 4K Low, the Ryzen 7 3700X is capable of feeding the GPU without bottlenecking, as the GPU is still producing a playable 60 FPS. The data strongly implies that the RX 7600 is the component that will dictate how well this system handles The Medium at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of the Ryzen 7 3700X and RX 7600 ranks 1132 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the lower third of all tested systems, which is a sobering stat for a modern GPU. The rank suggests that while the CPU is capable, the GPU holds the combo back significantly. The combo’s performance is likely pulled down by the 4K results, where it fails to reach 60 FPS on any preset.

Looking at the GPU’s rivals, the RX 7600 has an average benchmark score of 20258, which is only 0.6% behind the RX 7600 XT and 1.3% behind the RTX 3070 Mobile. However, in this specific game, the combo’s rank indicates that the RX 7600’s performance is limited by its memory configuration and bandwidth. The CPU’s percentile rank of 85th is much higher than the GPU’s 63rd percentile, confirming that the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing. For a builder looking at this data, the takeaway is that this CPU is not the problem; upgrading the GPU would yield the largest performance gains in this title.

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

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 33 chip. It has a base clock of 1720 MHz, a game clock of 2250 MHz, and a boost clock of 2655 MHz. The GPU comes with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is the primary constraint in The Medium. The game’s high-resolution textures and effects at Ultra settings appear to exceed the 8 GB VRAM capacity, causing the severe framerate drops observed at 4K Ultra (25.1 FPS) and 1440p Ultra (30.4 FPS).

The GPU’s compute capabilities are substantial, with 2048 shading units, 32 ray accelerators, and an FP32 throughput of 21.75 TFLOPS. However, the measured FPS data shows that this raw compute power is bottlenecked by memory. At 1080p High, the GPU produces 42.2 FPS, but at 4K High, it drops to 25.1 FPS. This indicates that the GPU is not able to keep up with the increased memory pressure at higher resolutions. The 63rd percentile ranking for the GPU, with a Passmark G3D score of 16634, reinforces that it is a mid-range part that struggles with the most demanding settings in this title.

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

The measured FPS data offers a comprehensive view of the combo’s performance. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low settings achieve 94.7 FPS average, Medium 56.6 FPS, High 42.2 FPS, and Ultra 31.3 FPS. This is the only resolution where the combo can achieve a consistently smooth 60 FPS, and only on Low settings. The jump from Low to Medium is a 40% drop in performance, highlighting the significant cost of enabling higher quality effects at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 78.6 FPS, Medium 48 FPS, High 35.5 FPS, and Ultra 30.4 FPS. Here, the Medium preset is the highest playable option, and even then, it is below the 60 FPS threshold. The gap between Medium and High at 1440p is a 26% reduction, showing that the GPU is already hitting a memory bandwidth wall. At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 60.6 FPS, Medium 39.8 FPS, High 25.1 FPS, and Ultra 25.1 FPS. The identical scores for High and Ultra at 4K are telling; they suggest that the GPU is completely VRAM-limited and additional settings changes do not affect performance. Only Low settings at 4K provide a borderline playable 60.6 FPS average.