The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT delivers a playable but demanding experience in The Medium, a horror title that clearly stresses the GPU at higher resolutions. The measured data reveals a system that excels at 1080p but struggles to maintain smooth framerates at 4K, with the graphics card emerging as the primary bottleneck in this configuration.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is stark and tells a clear story about where the workload lands. At 1080p with Medium settings, the combo produces an average of 69 FPS, but that figure falls to 58 FPS at 1440p and then plummets to 45 FPS at 4K. That represents a 34.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings, and the trend holds across other presets.

The Low preset shows the most dramatic scaling difference. At 1080p, the system achieves 110 FPS, which drops to 92 FPS at 1440p and 73 FPS at 4K. While the 4K figure remains technically playable, the 33.6% loss from 1080p indicates that the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth are being saturated as pixel count rises. The RX 6700 XT's 12 GB of VRAM and 384.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game's assets, but the raw compute demand of 4K overwhelms the card's 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

Ultra settings expose the weakest scaling behavior. The 1080p Ultra average of 39 FPS drops to 33 FPS at 1440p and 26 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is below the 30 FPS threshold typically considered minimum for playability, and the 33.3% drop from 1080p suggests that the game's most demanding effects scale almost linearly with resolution. This is a strong indicator that the GPU is the limiting component, as the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads would not show such consistent resolution-based degradation.

The data implies that 1440p is the practical ceiling for this combination in The Medium. The jump from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 16-18% performance across presets, while the jump to 4K costs an additional 22-24%. The card's 192-bit memory bus and 40 RT cores, while capable, are simply not enough to maintain high framerates at 4K with this title's rendering complexity.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. At 1080p, Medium produces 69 FPS average with a minimum of 58 FPS and maximum of 79 FPS, which is a smooth experience for a horror game where consistent framerates matter for atmosphere. The High preset at 1080p drops to 49 FPS, a 29% reduction that may introduce noticeable stutter in tense scenes.

At 1440p, Medium is the only preset that maintains a playable framerate. The 58 FPS average with a 49 FPS minimum is acceptable, though the minimum dips below 60 FPS. High at 1440p produces 41 FPS, which is borderline, and Ultra at 33 FPS is not recommended for action sequences. The Low preset at 1440p reaches 92 FPS, but the visual sacrifices are substantial given that even Medium shows a 37% performance hit from Low.

For 4K, the choice is more constrained. Medium delivers 45 FPS with a 39 FPS minimum, which is the only preset that stays above 30 FPS. Low at 4K hits 73 FPS, but this likely involves disabling many of the game's visual effects that contribute to its horror atmosphere. High at 32 FPS and Ultra at 26 FPS are both below the playability threshold, making Medium the clear recommendation for 4K users.

The measured data suggests that Medium settings represent the sweet spot for this hardware. The gap between Medium and High is consistent across resolutions — roughly 29-30% — while the jump from Low to Medium costs only 21-26% performance depending on resolution. This indicates that Medium captures most of the game's visual improvements without the disproportionate cost of High and Ultra presets.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5700 and RX 6700 XT ranks 1941 out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 47.9th percentile of all configurations. This is a mid-pack result, which aligns with the GPU's overall percentile of 72 against all GPUs and the CPU's percentile of 78 against all CPUs.

The combo's ranking suggests that while both components are individually strong, their pairing in this specific title does not boost them above the median. The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, which scores only 0.5% higher in average benchmark score, yet the RX 6700 XT's performance in The Medium suggests the game may favor NVIDIA's architecture or have specific AMD driver overhead.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the AMD Ryzen 5 7640U (0.1% higher) and AMD Ryzen 7 5825U (0.3% higher), both mobile chips. This indicates that the desktop Ryzen 7 5700 is performing at a level comparable to high-end mobile processors, which is relevant because The Medium may be more sensitive to memory latency than raw core count.

The 1941st rank out of 3724 combos means that roughly 52% of tested configurations perform better in this game. This is not a poor result, but it does indicate that other CPU-GPU pairings can extract more performance from The Medium's engine, likely due to the game's reliance on GPU compute and the specific driver optimizations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full spectrum of settings shows a wide range of performance. Low settings produce 110 FPS average, Medium hits 69 FPS (58 min, 79 max), High reaches 49 FPS, and Ultra drops to 39 FPS. The 2.8x difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p highlights how dramatically the game's settings scale.

The 2560x1440 results follow a similar pattern with lower absolute numbers. Low achieves 92 FPS, Medium 58 FPS (49 min, 66 max), High 41 FPS, and Ultra 33 FPS. The minimum framerate at Medium (49 FPS) is notable because it indicates the game can dip below 60 FPS even on the recommended preset, which could cause perceptible hitches during loading or camera transitions.

At 3840x2160, the numbers become more constrained. Low produces 73 FPS, Medium 45 FPS (39 min, 52 max), High 32 FPS, and Ultra 26 FPS. The Medium preset's maximum of 52 FPS means the system never reaches 60 FPS at 4K, even in the best-case scenarios. The Low preset at 73 FPS is the only 4K configuration that maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS.

Comparing across resolutions, the Low preset shows the least degradation from 1080p to 4K (from 110 to 73 FPS, a 33.6% drop), while Ultra shows the most (from 39 to 26 FPS, a 33.3% drop). This consistency suggests that the game's rendering pipeline is well-balanced across settings, with no single setting causing disproportionate resolution scaling issues.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is clearly the dominant factor in this game's performance. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for The Medium's textures at all tested resolutions. The card's 2560 shading units and 160 TMUs handle the game's pixel and texture work, but the 40 RT cores are likely underutilized given the title's 2021 release date.

The GPU's clock behavior is interesting: the base clock of 2321 MHz, game clock of 2424 MHz, and boost clock of 2581 MHz suggest that the card can maintain high frequencies under load. The measured FPS data indicates that the card is running at or near its boost clock during gameplay, as the performance scaling closely tracks the resolution increase.

The RDNA 2.0 architecture's 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the primary constraint at 4K. The 4K Medium result of 45 FPS suggests that the game requires roughly 0.29 TFLOPS per FPS at this resolution, which aligns with the card's capabilities but leaves no headroom. The 4K Ultra result of 26 FPS indicates that the most demanding settings push the card beyond its compute limits.

The GPU's 72nd percentile ranking against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27425, places it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (27565, 0.5% higher) and RTX 4070 Mobile (27435, 0% difference). This suggests the card is competitive with high-end options in synthetic tests, yet the The Medium results show it falling short of what those scores might predict, possibly due to driver maturity or the game's specific shader complexity.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700's role in this configuration is supportive rather than limiting. Its 8 cores and 16 threads based on Zen 3 architecture provide ample processing power for The Medium's game logic and streaming systems. The CPU's 3.70 GHz base clock and 4.60 GHz boost clock ensure that single-threaded performance is strong, which is important for a horror title that may have serialized rendering dependencies.

The CPU's 16 MB of L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth are sufficient for the game's data requirements. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU bottlenecking: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 110 FPS, which is well above what a CPU-limited scenario would produce. The consistent performance drops with increasing resolution confirm that the GPU is the limiting factor.

The CPU's synthetic benchmarks reinforce its capability. Cinebench R23 multicore score of 20655 and single-core score of 2916 indicate strong all-around performance. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 6628 and single-thread score of 901 suggest that the CPU can feed the GPU efficiently without becoming a bottleneck.

The CPU's 78th percentile ranking against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25517, places it near the Intel Xeon D-2752TER (25530, -0.1% difference) and AMD Ryzen 5 6600H (25550, -0.1% difference). The 65W TDP and 7nm process node make it an efficient choice, but in The Medium, the CPU's ample headroom means that upgrading the GPU would yield more performance than upgrading the CPU.

FAQ

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

A: 1920x1080 provides the most comfortable experience, with Medium settings achieving 69 FPS average and Low reaching 110 FPS. 2560x1440 is playable at Medium (58 FPS) but requires compromises, while 3840x2160 is only viable at Low (73 FPS) or Medium (45 FPS).

Q: Why does 4K Ultra run at only 26 FPS?

A: The RX 6700 XT's 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is insufficient for the game's most demanding settings at 4K. The 33% performance drop from 1080p Ultra (39 FPS) to 4K Ultra (26 FPS) shows linear scaling with pixel count, indicating the GPU is fully saturated.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 5700 bottlenecking the RX 6700 XT?

A: No. The data shows consistent FPS drops as resolution increases (e.g., Medium goes from 69 FPS at 1080p to 45 FPS at 4K), which is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios. The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads provide ample headroom, with Cinebench R23 multicore score of 20655 confirming its capability.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: It ranks 1941 out of 3724 combos, placing it in the 47.9th percentile. This is mid-pack, despite the GPU's 72nd percentile and CPU's 78th percentile individually, suggesting the game's engine may not fully leverage this specific pairing's strengths.

Q: What is the minimum framerate at 1440p Medium?

A: The measured minimum is 49 FPS, with an average of 58 FPS and maximum of 66 FPS. This means the system can dip below 60 FPS during demanding scenes, which may be noticeable in a horror game where smooth motion is important for atmosphere.

Q: Should I use the Low preset for the highest framerates?

A: If maximum FPS is the priority, Low settings deliver 110 FPS at 1080p, 92 FPS at 1440p, and 73 FPS at 4K. However, the Medium preset offers a better balance, with only a 26-29% performance penalty across resolutions while substantially improving visual quality.