The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 in The Medium delivers a strong 1080p and 1440p experience, but the data reveals a clear CPU limitation at higher resolutions and settings. The combo ranks 295th out of 1689 tested configurations, placing it in the top 17.5% of all combos, yet the benchmark results show that the aging 8-core processor holds back the flagship GPU from achieving its full potential, particularly at 4K Ultra where average FPS drops to 53.3.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU combo in The Medium?

A: The data shows 2560x1440 as the sweet spot. At Medium settings, the combo achieves 85.8 FPS, which is only 6% lower than the 1080p Medium result of 91.8 FPS, while providing substantially more visual detail than 1080p. The 1440p High preset at 74.4 FPS also remains comfortably playable.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 3700X compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 7 3700X scores 28,631 average benchmark points, placing it within 0.1% of the Intel Core i5-12600 (28,654) and Intel Core i5-12600H (28,666). It is also 0.1% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT and 0.2% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7203P, making it statistically tied with all four rivals.

Q: Is the RTX 5090's performance consistent across different benchmark tests?

A: The GPU shows strong but variable results. It scores 14411 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 380114 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 379571 in Geekbench Vulkan. However, DirectX-specific Passmark tests show much lower scores (226 for DX10, 341 for DX11, 185 for DX12), indicating the synthetic suite may not fully capture the card's gaming capabilities.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at 4K?

A: The gap is substantial. At 3840x2160, Low settings yield 98.6 FPS, while Ultra drops to 53.3 FPS. This represents a 45.3 FPS difference (roughly 46% lower performance), showing that Ultra settings at 4K push the system to its limits.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 295th out of 1,689 total tested combinations. This places it in the top 17.5% of all configurations, which is respectable but not elite, suggesting the CPU is the limiting factor preventing a higher ranking.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in The Medium?

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K Medium, the combo achieves 79.3 FPS, and at High it reaches 63.4 FPS. Both are playable, but Ultra at 53.3 FPS is marginal for smooth gameplay. Low settings at 4K produce 98.6 FPS, showing the GPU has headroom when CPU demands are reduced.

Settings Recommendations

The data strongly suggests Medium settings as the optimal preset across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 91.8 FPS, which is only 11.9 FPS less than Low (110.9 FPS) but provides significantly better visual quality. At 1440p, Medium achieves 85.8 FPS, which remains above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Even at 4K, Medium produces 79.3 FPS, making it the only preset besides Low that exceeds 60 FPS at that resolution.

High settings are viable at 1080p (80.1 FPS) and 1440p (74.4 FPS), but at 4K High drops to 63.4 FPS, which is borderline for high-refresh-rate displays. Ultra settings should be avoided except at 1080p, where 72.6 FPS is playable. At 1440p Ultra (66.4 FPS) and 4K Ultra (53.3 FPS), the frame rates become increasingly problematic.

For the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, Medium at 1440p represents the ideal configuration. It provides 85.8 FPS, which is 6% higher than the 4K Medium result and only 6 FPS below the 1080p Medium score. This suggests the CPU is not severely bottlenecked at 1440p Medium, allowing the RTX 5090 to stretch its legs without compromising smoothness.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor from the 3000 series, built on the Zen 2 architecture (Matisse codename) using a 7 nm process. Its base clock is 3.60 GHz with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, and it features 32 MB of L3 cache with 512 KB L2 per core. The CPU's 85th percentile ranking among all processors indicates it remains competitive, but its age relative to the RTX 5090 is evident in the benchmark results.

The data reveals that the CPU becomes a bottleneck at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low (110.9 FPS) and Medium (91.8 FPS) is 19.1 FPS, while at 4K the same settings gap is 19.3 FPS. However, the absolute frame rates at 4K (98.6 FPS Low, 79.3 FPS Medium) are only slightly lower than 1080p, which suggests the GPU is not fully saturated at 1080p. The CPU's single-thread performance (2694 in Cinebench R23) and multi-thread score (19087) are adequate for The Medium, but they limit the RTX 5090 from achieving its maximum output.

The 65W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support (51.2 GB/s bandwidth) further indicate this is a mid-range processor that was never designed to pair with a flagship GPU. The 16 threads provide sufficient parallelism for the game's horror-focused workloads, but the Zen 2 architecture's older IPC means higher clock speeds from newer CPUs would yield better frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 295th out of 1,689 tested combinations, placing it in the top 17.5% of all configurations. This ranking is surprisingly strong given the CPU's age, but it reflects the RTX 5090's raw power. The GPU alone ranks in the 94th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU sits in the 85th percentile, indicating a mismatch that the benchmark data confirms.

The fact that this combo outperforms 1,394 other configurations despite the CPU bottleneck speaks to the RTX 5090's dominance. However, the ranking also shows that many combos with newer CPUs and similar or weaker GPUs achieve better results. The measured FPS data shows the CPU limiting factor most clearly at 1080p Low, where the RTX 5090 should produce much higher frame rates than 110.9 FPS given its 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 32 GB of GDDR7 memory.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a flagship GPU based on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture (GB202 chip) manufactured on a 5 nm process. It features 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster output pipelines, along with 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores. The GPU's base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and it has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus delivering 1.79 TB/s bandwidth.

The GPU's benchmark scores demonstrate its immense compute capability: 104.8 TFLOPS FP32, 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate, and 1,636.8 GTexel/s texture rate. In the Passmark G3D test, it scores 39,650, and its Geekbench OpenCL score of 380,114 shows strong compute performance. The GPU's 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms its top-tier status.

However, the measured FPS results show that the GPU is not being fully utilized. At 1080p Low, the system produces 110.9 FPS, but at 4K Low it achieves 98.6 FPS, a difference of only 12.3 FPS (11% reduction) despite a 400% increase in pixel count. This indicates the CPU is the primary limiter, as the RTX 5090 should show much larger performance drops at higher resolutions when properly fed.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 110.9 FPS on Low, 91.8 FPS on Medium, 80.1 FPS on High, and 72.6 FPS on Ultra. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 34.5% performance reduction, with each settings tier costing roughly 10-15 FPS. The 1080p results are playable across all presets, making this resolution the safest choice for maximum visual quality.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates drop to 107.9 FPS on Low, 85.8 FPS on Medium, 74.4 FPS on High, and 66.4 FPS on Ultra. The difference between 1080p and 1440p is minimal at Low settings (3 FPS difference), but grows to 8.6 FPS at Ultra, indicating the GPU becomes more involved at higher settings. The 1440p results remain playable at all presets, with Ultra still exceeding 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results are 98.6 FPS on Low, 79.3 FPS on Medium, 63.4 FPS on High, and 53.3 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low result is remarkably close to the 1080p Low score, confirming the CPU bottleneck. However, the gap between Low and Ultra widens to 45.3 FPS (54% reduction), showing the GPU is doing more work at 4K Ultra. The 4K Ultra result of 53.3 FPS is the only preset that fails to reach 60 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the system's bottleneck characteristics. At Low settings, the transition from 1080p (110.9 FPS) to 1440p (107.9 FPS) costs only 2.7% performance, and to 4K (98.6 FPS) costs 11.1% total. This minimal scaling indicates the CPU is severely limiting the GPU at lower resolutions, as a GPU-bound system would show much larger drops.

At Medium settings, 1080p (91.8 FPS) to 1440p (85.8 FPS) is a 6.5% drop, and to 4K (79.3 FPS) is a 13.6% total drop. The scaling improves slightly, but remains modest. At High settings, the drops are 7.1% (1080p to 1440p) and 20.8% (1080p to 4K), showing the GPU becoming more active. At Ultra, the drops are 8.5% (1080p to 1440p) and 26.6% (1080p to 4K), representing the most GPU-bound scenario.

The data shows that at Low and Medium settings, the Ryzen 7 3700X is the limiting component, as the RTX 5090 cannot demonstrate its full scaling potential. At High and Ultra settings, the GPU becomes more engaged, but the CPU still prevents the system from achieving the frame rates that the GPU alone could produce at 1080p. This hybrid bottleneck means the combo performs best at 1440p Medium, where neither component is fully saturated and the game remains fluid at 85.8 FPS.