The Medium

# The Medium with AMD Ryzen 7 5700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER delivers a mid-tier experience in The Medium, landing at rank 1015 out of 1689 tested combinations. This places the combo in the lower-middle portion of the performance distribution, with measured frame rates that vary dramatically depending on resolution and quality settings. The data shows a system capable of smooth play at lower presets, but one that struggles to maintain playable frame rates at higher settings and resolutions, revealing a clear performance ceiling that is defined primarily by the graphics card.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo's overall ranking in The Medium?

A: This combination of AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks 1015 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 60th percentile of all tested systems.

Q: What is the best frame rate this combo achieves at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 101.9 FPS, which is the highest measured frame rate across all tested configurations.

Q: Is the combo capable of 60 FPS at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440 with Low settings, the average FPS is 86.7, but with Medium settings it drops to 53.8 FPS. Therefore, 60 FPS at 1440p is only achievable on Low settings, not at Medium or higher presets.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER compare to its nearest rival in raw GPU benchmarks?

A: The RTX 2070 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 22206, which is 0.9% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (22006) and 2.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 5700 (21670).

Q: What is the CPU's single-thread performance relative to its multi-thread score?

A: The Ryzen 7 5700X scores 3193 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 22620 in multi-core, indicating a roughly 7x scaling factor from single to multi-threaded workloads across its 8 cores and 16 threads.

Q: What is the lowest average FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The lowest measured average is 25.4 FPS, achieved at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, which is below playable thresholds for most users.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a 12 nm process from TSMC, featuring 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units. The card is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Its base clock runs at 1605 MHz with a boost clock of 1770 MHz, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4 APIs.

In The Medium, the GPU's role is decisive across all tested settings. At 1920x1080, the frame rate drops from 101.9 FPS at Low to 63.3 FPS at Medium, then to 45.8 FPS at High, and finally 36.5 FPS at Ultra. This scaling pattern shows that each increase in quality level costs roughly 20-30% of the previous frame rate, a signature of a GPU-bound scenario where the graphics card's compute and memory resources are the limiting factor. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the game at these settings, but the card's raw throughput, measured at 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 and 283.2 GTexel/s texture rate, becomes the bottleneck as settings rise.

The GPU's benchmark scores further contextualize its position. With a Passmark G3D score of 18169 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1651, the card sits at the 65th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A400, scores 22307 (0.5% higher), while the GTX TITAN Z scores 22006 (0.9% lower). This places the RTX 2070 SUPER in a tight competitive cluster, but the measured game performance shows that The Medium's demands push this card to its limits at higher presets, particularly at 1440p and 4K resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X is a Zen 3 architecture processor built on TSMC's 7 nm process, featuring 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. It has a 32 MB shared L3 cache, 512 KB L2 per core, and 64 KB L1 per core, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU supports DDR4 memory with dual-channel configuration and a 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth, and it connects via PCIe Gen 4 with 20 lanes.

In The Medium, the CPU's contribution is evident when examining the frame rate scaling across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 101.9 FPS, which is the highest measured value. The Ryzen 7 5700X's multi-threaded capabilities, reflected in its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22620 and 3DMark max-threads score of 6850, provide ample headroom for the game's logic and AI workloads. However, the CPU's single-thread performance, scoring 3193 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 921 in 3DMark single-thread, is adequate but not exceptional, which may explain why frame rates do not scale higher at 1080p Low settings.

The CPU's benchmark position shows it at the 83rd percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 26214. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-11900KF, scores 26196 (0.1% lower), while the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X scores 26272 (0.2% higher). This indicates that the Ryzen 7 5700X is competitive with modern mid-range and higher-end processors, and in The Medium, it is unlikely to be the primary bottleneck at any resolution tested. The data suggests that as resolution increases, the CPU's role diminishes further, with the GPU taking over as the sole limiting factor.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks 1015 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 60th percentile of all systems tested. This rank reflects a mid-tier position, indicating that while the combo is capable of running the game, it does not deliver top-tier performance. The rank is likely influenced by the GPU's constraints, as the RTX 2070 SUPER's 65th percentile GPU rank is lower than the CPU's 83rd percentile CPU rank, suggesting the graphics card is the weaker link in this pairing.

Comparing the combo's rank to its components' individual percentiles reveals an interesting dynamic. The CPU's high percentile (83) suggests it is a strong performer relative to other processors, while the GPU's lower percentile (65) indicates it is more average. In The Medium, this translates to a system where the GPU is the primary limiter, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling patterns. At 1080p, the combo achieves reasonable performance, but at 4K Ultra, it falls to 25.4 FPS, which is well below the 34.7 FPS average that would be needed to maintain a 30 FPS minimum. This rank of 1015 out of 1689 suggests that users with higher-performing GPUs would see significant improvements, while upgrading the CPU alone would yield minimal gains in this game.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a clear and consistent scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 101.9 at 1920x1080 to 86.7 at 2560x1440 (a 15% decrease), and then to 68.9 at 3840x2160 (a 21% decrease from 1440p). This scaling indicates that at Low settings, the system is partially CPU-bound at 1080p, but becomes increasingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions. The relatively modest FPS drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings (32.4% total decrease) suggests that the CPU is still contributing significantly at lower graphical loads.

At Medium settings, the scaling is more pronounced: 63.3 FPS at 1080p drops to 53.8 FPS at 1440p (15% decrease) and then to 44.2 FPS at 4K (18% decrease from 1440p). This pattern intensifies at High settings, where frame rates go from 45.8 FPS at 1080p to 40.6 FPS at 1440p (11% decrease) and then to 27.8 FPS at 4K (32% decrease from 1440p). The Ultra settings show the most dramatic drop: 36.5 FPS at 1080p falls to 27.9 FPS at 1440p (24% decrease) and then to 25.4 FPS at 4K (9% decrease from 1440p).

This scaling analysis reveals that the limiting component shifts with resolution and settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 101.9 FPS, suggesting the CPU is the primary limiter at this configuration. However, as resolution and settings increase, the GPU becomes the dominant bottleneck. The fact that at 4K Ultra the frame rate drops to 25.4 FPS, while at 4K Low it remains at 68.9 FPS, underscores the GPU's critical role. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 performance are insufficient for the demands of The Medium at higher quality presets, particularly at 4K where pixel throughput requirements exceed the card's capabilities. This combo is best suited for 1080p gaming at Medium to High settings, with 1440p playable only at Low settings, and 4K requiring significant compromises in visual quality to achieve acceptable frame rates.