The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER delivers a robust 1080p and 1440p experience in The Medium, but 4K Ultra settings push the combo to its limits. Measured data shows this pairing ranks 437th out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the upper quartile of all systems tested. The RTX 4070 SUPER, with its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth, handles the game’s fixed-camera horror scenes with consistent frame pacing, while the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 3700X provides sufficient headroom to avoid CPU bottlenecks at most settings.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Medium?*

A: The data shows 2560x1440 Medium is the sweet spot, delivering 86.5 FPS average. At 1920x1080, all settings except Ultra exceed 73 FPS, while 3840x2160 only reaches playable levels at Medium (70.1 FPS) or below.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p at High settings?

A: The average FPS drops from 73.8 at 1920x1080 to 65.9 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 7.9 FPS. This is a modest 10.7% penalty, suggesting the GPU remains the dominant factor at both resolutions.

Q: Is Ultra settings viable at 4K?

A: No. The measured average at 3840x2160 Ultra is 37.8 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Even High at 4K only achieves 51.8 FPS, making Medium the highest playable preset at this resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 SUPER compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GPU’s average benchmark score is 42576, placing it 0.2% behind the NVIDIA RTX A6000 (42653) and 0.3% behind the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE (42723). It leads the AMD Radeon Pro 580X by 1.4% and the NVIDIA Tesla M40 by 1.6%.

Q: Does the CPU limit performance at any resolution?

A: The Ryzen 7 3700X has an average benchmark score of 28631, which is statistically tied with its closest rivals (Intel Core i5-12600 at 28654, -0.1%). The CPU’s 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it is not the primary bottleneck, as frame rates scale consistently with GPU load across resolutions.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low averages 104 FPS, Medium 86.5 FPS, High 65.9 FPS, and Ultra 50 FPS. The gap from Low to Ultra is 54 FPS, indicating that Ultra settings impose a significant rendering cost.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process node from TSMC, featuring 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory runs at 1313 MHz with a 21 Gbps effective data rate, delivering 504.2 GB/s across a 192-bit bus. This memory configuration is critical for The Medium, which uses high-resolution textures and dual-reality rendering that can stress VRAM capacity. The GPU’s 7168 shading units and 224 texture mapping units provide substantial fill rate (554.4 GTexel/s), while the 56 RT cores and 224 tensor cores support the game’s ray-traced reflections and DLSS features.

The boost clock of 2475 MHz (base 1980 MHz) allows the GPU to maintain high frequency during sustained loads, as evidenced by the measured FPS scaling. At 1920x1080, the GPU delivers 112 FPS on Low settings, but this drops to 60.3 FPS on Ultra—a 46% reduction. The pattern repeats at 2560x1440 (104 FPS Low to 50 FPS Ultra) and 3840x2160 (98.5 FPS Low to 37.8 FPS Ultra). This consistent scaling indicates that the RTX 4070 SUPER’s compute and memory subsystems are fully utilized, with the 12 GB VRAM proving sufficient even at 4K Ultra, where the frame rate drops due to compute load rather than memory capacity.

The GPU’s 84th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 42576, places it slightly below the RTX A6000 in synthetic tests but ahead of most consumer cards. In The Medium, the measured performance shows that the RTX 4070 SUPER excels at 1080p and 1440p, where it maintains playable frame rates even at High settings. The 220 W TDP and 550 W suggested PSU indicate a power-efficient design that sustains boost clocks without thermal throttling, contributing to the stable FPS numbers observed across all resolution and settings combinations.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data suggests that Medium settings at 2560x1440 provides the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, with an average of 86.5 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS target and leaves headroom for demanding scenes. At 1920x1080, Medium (93.7 FPS) is also strong, but High (73.8 FPS) remains playable and offers better visual quality for users with 1080p displays. For 4K, Medium at 3840x2160 (70.1 FPS) is the only preset that stays above 60 FPS, making it the highest viable option at that resolution.

Ultra settings are only recommended for 1080p, where the 60.3 FPS average is borderline but acceptable for a horror game with slower pacing. At 1440p, Ultra falls to 50 FPS, which introduces noticeable stutter during camera transitions. At 4K, Ultra’s 37.8 FPS is below the playable threshold and should be avoided. High settings at 4K (51.8 FPS) also fall short of 60 FPS, so users prioritizing smoothness should stick with Medium.

The data indicates that the RTX 4070 SUPER has enough headroom for Medium at all resolutions, but the jump from Medium to High costs roughly 15-20 FPS at each resolution. Specifically, at 1080p, Medium (93.7 FPS) to High (73.8 FPS) is a 19.9 FPS drop; at 1440p, it’s 20.6 FPS (86.5 to 65.9); at 4K, it’s 18.3 FPS (70.1 to 51.8). This consistent penalty suggests that High enables additional post-processing or shadow effects that tax the GPU uniformly across resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 112 FPS on Low, 93.7 FPS on Medium, 73.8 FPS on High, and 60.3 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 51.7 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Medium and High (19.9 FPS). This resolution shows the GPU’s peak capability, as even Ultra stays above 60 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are 104 FPS (Low), 86.5 FPS (Medium), 65.9 FPS (High), and 50 FPS (Ultra). The resolution penalty from 1080p is approximately 8-10 FPS at each preset, except for Ultra where the drop is 10.3 FPS. The 1440p data shows a clearer distinction between Medium and High, with the latter falling below 70 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results are 98.5 FPS (Low), 70.1 FPS (Medium), 51.8 FPS (High), and 37.8 FPS (Ultra). The 4K resolution imposes a significant load, with Low being the only preset above 90 FPS. The drop from Medium to High at 4K is 18.3 FPS, and High to Ultra is 14 FPS, indicating diminishing returns at higher settings.

The overall pattern shows that the RTX 4070 SUPER scales efficiently with resolution, maintaining roughly 70% of 1080p performance at 4K for each preset. For example, Medium goes from 93.7 FPS at 1080p to 70.1 FPS at 4K (74.8% retention), while High retains 70.2% (73.8 to 51.8 FPS). The CPU’s role is minimal, as the Ryzen 7 3700X’s 16 threads provide ample bandwidth for the game’s fixed-camera scenes, even at lower resolutions where GPU load is reduced.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination ranks 437th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 25.9% of all systems. This rank reflects the GPU’s strong performance, as the RTX 4070 SUPER’s 84th percentile standing among GPUs is higher than the CPU’s 85th percentile, but the combo’s overall position is slightly lower due to the pairing’s balanced nature.

Relative to the GPU’s nearest rivals, the RTX 4070 SUPER outperforms the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE by 0.3% in synthetic benchmarks, yet the measured game performance shows the RTX 4070 SUPER delivering 60+ FPS at 1440p High, which is a typical target for this class. The CPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12600, has a virtually identical average score (28654 vs. 28631, -0.1%), meaning the Ryzen 7 3700X does not materially affect the combo’s ranking.

The 437th rank indicates that this combo is well-positioned for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but not exceptional for 4K Ultra. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (37.8) is below the 60 FPS threshold, which likely pushes the combo below many higher-tier systems with stronger GPUs. However, the data shows that for the vast majority of users playing at 1080p or 1440p, this combo delivers a smooth experience at Medium or High settings, justifying its upper-quartile ranking. The gap to the top combos is primarily driven by GPU compute power, as the RTX 4070 SUPER’s 35.48 TFLOPS FP32 performance is strong but not class-leading, and the 12 GB VRAM, while sufficient, is not excessive for future titles.