The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers a decisively playable experience in The Medium, but the optimal settings depend heavily on your display's native resolution. Benchmark data shows that the "Medium" preset offers the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate, providing a comfortable 118.2 FPS at 1080p and 85.3 FPS at 4K. While the "High" preset is playable, it introduces a significant performance cost for marginal visual gains, making "Medium" the recommended starting point for most users.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates across all four presets and three resolutions reveal a clear pattern: the "Medium" preset is the sweet spot for this combination. At 1920x1080, "Medium" delivers 118.2 FPS, which is a 27.8% improvement over the "High" preset's 92.5 FPS, while still offering substantially better visuals than "Low" (139.4 FPS). This margin widens at higher resolutions; at 2560x1440, "Medium" hits 105.4 FPS compared to "High" at 82.6 FPS, a 27.6% advantage. At 4K, the gap grows to 39.7% with "Medium" at 85.3 FPS versus "High" at 61.5 FPS.

The "Ultra" preset is the least efficient choice. It drops the frame rate to 75.5 FPS at 1080p and a marginal 48.4 FPS at 4K. While 48.4 FPS might be acceptable for slower-paced horror titles, the data shows that "Medium" provides a 76.2% higher average FPS at 4K (85.3 vs 48.4) without the visual extremes of "Ultra". For a game like The Medium, where atmosphere is key, the stability of "Medium" outperforms the theoretical fidelity of "Ultra," which risks dipping into stutter territory on 4K displays.

GPU Role

The RTX 4090's massive memory allocation and clock speeds are the primary drivers of performance here. The GPU features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. This is critical for The Medium, which is known for its dual-reality rendering that can demand substantial memory resources. The data shows that the GPU is the dominant component; even at the demanding 4K resolution, the "Medium" preset achieves 85.3 FPS, indicating the GPU has headroom to spare.

The GPU's clock behavior supports this interpretation. With a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, the RTX 4090 scales its performance to match the load. The measured results show that moving from "Low" to "Ultra" at 4K has a dramatic impact—from 121.2 FPS down to 48.4 FPS—which is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario where the graphics card is the limiting factor. The 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores also contribute to the game's rendering pipeline, though the benchmark scores (Passmark G3D of 38194) confirm the card's overall dominance in this title.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G provides a solid foundation, but it is not the bottleneck in this configuration. With 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, the CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are ample for The Medium. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 20755 and Passmark multithread score of 24419 indicate strong parallel processing power, which is sufficient to feed the RTX 4090's insatiable appetite for data.

The CPU's single-thread performance is also adequate. A 3DMark single-thread score of 899 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2016 show that it can handle the game's primary game logic thread without holding back the GPU. The data confirms this: at 1080p "Low" (139.4 FPS), the frame rate is high but not maxed out, suggesting the CPU is keeping pace. The lack of a significant FPS jump from 1080p "Low" (139.4) to 1440p "Low" (127.5) indicates that the CPU is providing consistent performance, but the GPU is still the primary driver of the overall frame rate, especially at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific pairing of the Ryzen 7 5700G and RTX 4090 ranks 95th out of 1689 tested combinations in The Medium. This places it in the top 5.6% of all tested combos, which is a strong showing, but not the absolute top. The rank reflects the balance between the two components; the CPU is a capable mid-range part, while the GPU is a top-tier flagship.

The CPU's own benchmark average is 25626, which places it at the 83rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (25706, -0.3% delta) and Intel Xeon D-2752TER (25532, +0.4% delta), are extremely close in overall computing power, confirming that the 5700G is a well-rounded processor. The GPU, however, is in a different league. Its average benchmark score of 66473 places it at the 91st percentile, with rivals like the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (66733, -0.4% delta) and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 (67097, -0.9% delta) showing that it is firmly in the high-performance tier. The combination's rank is therefore more a reflection of the CPU's mid-range position than any GPU deficiency.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates where the bottleneck lies. At "Medium" settings, the average FPS drops from 118.2 at 1080p to 105.4 at 1440p and finally to 85.3 at 4K. This represents a 10.8% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 19.1% drop from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is consistent and predictable, which is a hallmark of a GPU-bound scenario.

The "Low" preset shows a similar pattern, going from 139.4 FPS at 1080p to 127.5 at 1440p and 121.2 at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K is only 13.1%, which is remarkably small and suggests that at "Low" settings, the CPU is starting to play a more significant role in limiting performance. In contrast, the "Ultra" preset shows a steep decline from 75.5 FPS at 1080p to 48.4 FPS at 4K, a 35.9% reduction, which confirms that the "Ultra" preset's demands on the GPU's shading and rasterization units are the primary constraint.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080:

• Low: 139.4 FPS
• Medium: 118.2 FPS
• High: 92.5 FPS
• Ultra: 75.5 FPS

2560x1440:

• Low: 127.5 FPS
• Medium: 105.4 FPS
• High: 82.6 FPS
• Ultra: 63.6 FPS

3840x2160:

• Low: 121.2 FPS
• Medium: 85.3 FPS
• High: 61.5 FPS
• Ultra: 48.4 FPS

The data confirms a clear hierarchy. At every resolution, "Low" is the fastest, "Ultra" is the slowest, and "Medium" offers the best compromise. The most notable outlier is the 4K "Ultra" result at 48.4 FPS, which is the only measured average below 60 FPS. This is the only scenario in this dataset where the experience would be considered sub-optimal for a smooth frame rate.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for a 4K display?

A: The "Medium" preset is the best choice for 4K, delivering 85.3 FPS. The "High" preset drops to 61.5 FPS, and "Ultra" falls to 48.4 FPS, making "Medium" the only preset that provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is the primary limiting factor. The frame rate scales consistently with resolution, and the massive difference between "Low" (121.2 FPS at 4K) and "Ultra" (48.4 FPS at 4K) indicates that the GPU's rendering workload is the main constraint, not the CPU.

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

A: This combination ranks 95th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 5.6% overall.

Q: Is the "Ultra" preset worth using?

A: No. At 1080p, "Ultra" (75.5 FPS) is 36.1% slower than "Medium" (118.2 FPS). At 4K, it is the only preset that dips below 60 FPS (48.4 FPS), making it a poor choice for consistent performance.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At "Medium" settings, the average FPS drops from 118.2 at 1080p to 85.3 at 4K, a reduction of 27.8%. The loss is more pronounced at "Ultra" settings, where the drop is 35.9% (75.5 to 48.4 FPS).

Q: Does the RTX 4090's memory capacity matter for this game?

A: The 24 GB of GDDR6X memory with 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth is more than sufficient for The Medium. The benchmark results show no signs of memory-related stuttering, even at 4K "Ultra" settings, confirming that the memory subsystem is not a bottleneck.