The Medium

# FAQ

Q: What is the combo rank of the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 in The Medium?

A: This combination ranks 1801 out of 3724 tested combos, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the tested pool. That rank suggests the pairing delivers playable but not exceptional performance in this horror title.

Q: How does the RTX 5060 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5060's average benchmark score is 26331, which places it 0.3% behind the AMD Radeon 860M (26401) and 0.3% behind the NVIDIA GeForce MX550 (26421). It sits 0.8% behind the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary (26553) and 1.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT (26011).

Q: What is the best average FPS achievable at 1080p with this combo?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 111 avg FPS. Medium settings yield 72 avg FPS, High produces 52 avg FPS, and Ultra drops to 41 avg FPS. The Low preset is the only one exceeding 100 FPS.

Q: Does the RTX 5060 support modern graphics APIs needed for this game?

A: Yes, the RTX 5060 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The Medium, released in 2021, can utilize these APIs, and the card's DirectX 12 benchmark score of 77 indicates functional but not stellar DirectX 12 performance.

Q: What is the VRAM capacity of the RTX 5060, and how does it relate to The Medium?

A: The RTX 5060 has 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth. This capacity is adequate for this game's requirements, though the measured FPS drops at higher settings suggest memory pressure could be a factor at 4K Ultra.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 3700X compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 3700X's average benchmark score is 34260. It sits 0.1% ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (34222) and 0.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 4244P (34220). It trails the Intel Core i5-13450HX (34333) by 0.2% and sits 0.5% behind the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H (34083).

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 brings 8 GB of GDDR7 memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective), which produces 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth across a 128-bit bus. This memory configuration is the foundation for how the card handles The Medium's rendering demands. The GPU's base clock of 2280 MHz and boost clock of 2497 MHz drive its 3840 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output pipelines.

The RTX 5060's Blackwell 2.0 architecture, built on TSMC's 5 nm process with 21,900 million transistors on a 181 mm² die, delivers 19.18 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. This raw compute power translates directly to the measured frame rates in The Medium. The card's 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores provide hardware support for ray tracing and AI features, though the game's fixed camera angles in many horror sequences may not fully stress these specialized units.

Looking at the measured FPS data, the GPU's role becomes clear when examining the scaling across settings at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the RTX 5060 produces 111 avg FPS on Low, 72 on Medium, 52 on High, and 41 on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra is 70 FPS, indicating that the GPU's shading and memory subsystems are taxed heavily by the higher-quality presets. The 8 GB VRAM capacity becomes relevant here — The Medium's texture streaming at Ultra settings may approach this limit, though the measured data does not include VRAM usage figures.

The card's pixel rate of 119.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 299.6 GTexel/s help explain the performance deltas between resolutions. At 4K, the GPU must fill four times the pixels of 1080p, and the measured FPS reflects this workload. The RTX 5060's 72nd percentile ranking among all GPUs indicates it sits above the median, but The Medium's demanding rendering at high resolutions exposes its limits.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 achieves a rank of 1801 out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium. This position places the pairing in the 48th percentile of all tested combinations, meaning roughly half of the tested systems outperform it and half fall behind.

This mid-pack ranking makes sense when examining the individual components. The CPU sits in the 84th percentile among all processors, while the GPU ranks in the 72nd percentile among all graphics cards. The combined rank in this game, however, is lower than either component's individual percentile, suggesting that The Medium's engine does not scale perfectly with this particular CPU-GPU pairing. The game's horror genre often features complex lighting and shadow calculations, which could create bottlenecks not visible in synthetic benchmarks.

The Ryzen 7 3700X's nearest CPU rivals — the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350, AMD EPYC 4244P, Intel Core i5-13450HX, and Intel Core Ultra 7 165H — all have average benchmark scores within 0.5% of each other. This tight clustering indicates that the CPU is not the primary differentiator in this combo's ranking. Instead, the GPU's 72nd percentile standing likely drives the overall position, as The Medium's visual fidelity demands significant graphics processing power.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 5060 produces its strongest results. The Low preset achieves 111 avg FPS, providing a smooth experience for players prioritizing frame rate over visual fidelity. Medium settings deliver 72 avg FPS with a minimum of 61 and maximum of 83, showing consistent frame pacing. High settings drop to 52 avg FPS, while Ultra yields 41 avg FPS — still playable but approaching the lower bounds of smooth motion.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scaling continues predictably. Low settings produce 97 avg FPS, a 13% decrease from 1080p Low. Medium settings deliver 61 avg FPS with a minimum of 52 and maximum of 70. High settings achieve 44 avg FPS, and Ultra drops to 35 avg FPS. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across presets, indicating the GPU is the primary scaling factor.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 5060's limitations become apparent. Low settings produce 76 avg FPS — still playable but a significant drop from 1080p's 111. Medium settings deliver 48 avg FPS with a minimum of 41 and maximum of 55, showing the first signs of frame rate instability. High settings achieve only 34 avg FPS, and Ultra falls to 27 avg FPS, which is below the threshold for comfortable gameplay.

The data shows a clear pattern: the RTX 5060 excels at 1080p across all settings, handles 1440p adequately on Medium and below, and struggles at 4K with High and Ultra presets. The 8 GB VRAM capacity and 128-bit memory bus likely contribute to the 4K performance degradation.

Resolution Scaling

Examining the FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals how the RTX 5060 scales with pixel count. At Low settings, 1080p produces 111 avg FPS while 4K produces 76 avg FPS — a 32% reduction. Medium settings show a similar pattern: 72 avg FPS at 1080p drops to 48 avg FPS at 4K, a 33% reduction. High settings drop from 52 to 34 avg FPS, a 35% reduction. Ultra settings experience the steepest relative decline, from 41 to 27 avg FPS, a 34% reduction.

These consistent scaling percentages across all presets indicate that the GPU's compute and memory resources are being utilized proportionally as resolution increases. The 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth appears sufficient for the workload, as the performance degradation follows a predictable curve rather than showing sudden cliffs that would indicate memory bandwidth saturation.

The resolution scaling also reveals the limiting component. Since the FPS drops are consistent across settings at each resolution, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck. If the CPU were limiting performance, we would expect to see smaller FPS differences at higher resolutions where the GPU workload increases. Instead, the proportional scaling suggests the RTX 5060 is fully utilized at all resolutions, with the Ryzen 7 3700X providing sufficient instruction throughput.

The 4K Ultra result of 27 avg FPS is particularly telling. This represents a 76% reduction from the 1080p Low result of 111 avg FPS. The card's 19.18 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 119.9 GPixel/s pixel rate are simply insufficient for this game's Ultra preset at 4K, making this combination unsuitable for high-fidelity 4K gaming in The Medium.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset at 1920x1080 provides the most balanced experience. With 72 avg FPS and a minimum of 61, this setting ensures smooth gameplay without the visual compromises of Low settings. The 61 FPS minimum means the game rarely drops below 60 FPS, which is important for maintaining immersion in a horror title where frame hitches can break tension.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is also the recommended choice, delivering 61 avg FPS with a minimum of 52. While the minimum FPS is lower than at 1080p, the overall experience remains playable. Players with 1440p monitors should accept the occasional drop below 60 FPS in exchange for the higher resolution's visual clarity. The Low preset at 1440p achieves 97 avg FPS, which is an option for players who prioritize frame rate above all else.

For 3840x2160, the Low preset is the only viable option for smooth gameplay, producing 76 avg FPS. The Medium preset at 4K yields 48 avg FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for comfortable gaming. The High and Ultra presets at 4K produce 34 and 27 avg FPS respectively, making them unsuitable for anything other than screenshot purposes or slow-paced exploration.

The data suggests that the sweet spot for this combo is 1080p Medium or 1440p Medium. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for these settings, and the GPU's compute resources are well-matched to the workload. Players seeking the highest visual quality should stick to 1080p Ultra at 41 avg FPS, which remains playable for a game with The Medium's deliberate pacing.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X provides 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 2 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This processor, built on TSMC's 7 nm process, features 3,800 million transistors on a 74 mm² die. The 32 MB L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth provide the data throughput needed for gaming workloads.

In The Medium, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU based on the measured FPS data. The consistent resolution scaling patterns suggest the Ryzen 7 3700X is not a bottleneck at any tested resolution. The CPU's 84th percentile ranking among all processors indicates strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R15 multi-core score of 2092 and single-core score of 204. The Geekbench scores of 8899 multi-core and 1593 single-core further confirm this processor's capabilities.

The 65 W TDP and 24 PCIe Gen 4 lanes provide sufficient bandwidth for the RTX 5060's PCIe 5.0 x8 interface. The CPU's 16 threads handle the game's background processes, AI calculations, and physics simulations without oversaturating the available compute resources. However, the game's horror genre often features complex scripting and event-driven sequences that can spike CPU usage — the Ryzen 7 3700X's 8-core design is well-suited for such workloads.

The nearest CPU rivals — AMD Ryzen AI 7 350, AMD EPYC 4244P, Intel Core i5-13450HX, and Intel Core Ultra 7 165H — all score within 0.5% of the Ryzen 7 3700X's average benchmark score of 34260. This clustering indicates that CPU performance is not a differentiator among these mid-range processors. The Ryzen 7 3700X's 32 MB L3 cache and 16 threads provide ample headroom for The Medium's requirements, allowing the RTX 5060 to operate as the primary performance determinant.