The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title built on Unreal Engine 4, presents a unique stress profile that shifts dramatically between resolutions. With the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, the benchmark data reveals a system that is firmly GPU-limited at 4K but begins to show CPU headroom at lower resolutions, making the choice of settings and resolution critical for achieving a playable experience.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frames per second reveal a steep performance cliff as resolution climbs. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers an average of 112.9 FPS, which drops to 94.0 FPS at 1440p and further to 70.7 FPS at 4K. This represents a 37.4% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, indicating that the scaling is not linear and that the GPU is the primary bottleneck even at the lowest quality preset.

The pattern intensifies at higher quality settings. With Medium settings, the average FPS falls from 71.3 at 1080p to 58.3 at 1440p and 46.1 at 4K. At High settings, the drop is from 48.1 at 1080p to 42.3 at 1440p and 34.9 at 4K. The most demanding configuration, Ultra at 4K, manages only 27.0 FPS, which is a 36% decrease from the 42.2 FPS achieved at 1080p Ultra. The data shows that the gap between 1080p and 1440p is consistently smaller than the gap between 1440p and 4K, suggesting that memory bandwidth and fill rate become increasingly critical as pixel count grows.

The scaling behavior indicates that the RX 6700 XT's 192-bit memory bus and 384.0 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for 1080p and 1440p but are overwhelmed at 4K. The transition from High to Ultra at any resolution costs roughly 7-8 FPS, which is a modest increment compared to the 20-30 FPS cost of moving from Low to Medium. This suggests that the game's Ultra preset introduces effects that are disproportionately expensive relative to their visual impact, particularly at higher resolutions where the GPU is already saturated.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 5800X provides substantial compute headroom that becomes apparent when analyzing the frame rate deltas across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 112.9 FPS, but the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Vermeer, are not the limiting factor. The 3.80 GHz base clock and 4.70 GHz boost clock deliver strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by a 3dmark_single_thread score of 943 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3327. These scores place the CPU in the 84th percentile among all processors.

The CPU's multithreaded capabilities are equally robust, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23571 and a 3dmark_max_threads score of 7578. However, The Medium's fixed-camera perspective and relatively static scenes do not appear to scale with thread count beyond a certain point. The data shows that the CPU is never the bottleneck in this configuration, as the FPS differences between resolutions at the same settings are entirely attributable to GPU load. The 5800X's 32 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth provide sufficient data throughput for the game's streaming requirements, but the benchmark results indicate that even the 2-thread 3dmark score of 1846 is more than adequate for this title.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Ryzen 7 5800, which scores 27535 with a delta of 0.3%, and the Intel Core i5-12600KF at 27827 with a delta of -0.8%. These negligible deltas confirm that the 5800X is not a performance outlier in either direction; it sits comfortably in the middle of its performance class. For a horror game that relies on atmosphere rather than complex physics simulations, the CPU's role is to maintain consistent frame pacing, and the data shows no evidence of CPU-induced stuttering or frame drops.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 6700 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the measured frame rates. Built on the Navi 22 chip with RDNA 2.0 architecture and a 7 nm process, the GPU features 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is the key constraint at higher resolutions.

The GPU's clock behavior is notable: a base clock of 2321 MHz, a game clock of 2424 MHz, and a boost clock of 2581 MHz. These high clocks contribute to a pixel rate of 165.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 413.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance of 13.21 TFLOPS is respectable for the 6000 series, but the 40 ray accelerators (RT cores) are underutilized in The Medium, which primarily uses traditional rasterization for its horror visuals.

The benchmark data shows that the GPU's performance degrades predictably with resolution. At 1080p Medium, the 71.3 FPS average indicates that the GPU has ample headroom, but at 4K Medium, the 46.1 FPS average reveals the bandwidth limitation. The GPU's percentile rank of 77 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 33721, places it in the upper mid-range. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6800 with a score of 33493 (delta 0.7%) and the NVIDIA RTX A5000 at 33294 (delta 1.3%), showing that the 6700 XT is competitive within its class.

The 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for The Medium at all tested settings, as the game does not appear to exceed this allocation even at 4K Ultra. However, the 192-bit memory bus is the clear limiting factor. The 34.9 FPS average at 4K High suggests that the GPU is working near its maximum capacity, and any additional resolution scaling would require a GPU with higher memory bandwidth.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal balance between visual fidelity and performance is achieved at Medium settings. At 1080p, Medium delivers 71.3 FPS, which is 19.2 FPS higher than High and 29.1 FPS higher than Ultra. The jump from Medium to High costs 23.2 FPS, which is a significant penalty for what is likely a marginal visual improvement in a game with fixed camera angles.

At 1440p, Medium provides 58.3 FPS, which is playable for a horror title that does not require twitch reflexes. High settings at 1440p drop to 42.3 FPS, which is approaching the lower boundary of acceptable smoothness. Ultra at 1440p is not recommended, as the 34.5 FPS average falls below the 40 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for a consistent experience.

For 4K, the data strongly suggests avoiding Ultra (27.0 FPS) and High (34.9 FPS) presets. Medium at 4K yields 46.1 FPS, which is playable but not ideal. Low at 4K achieves 70.7 FPS, which is smooth but sacrifices visual quality. The most reasonable 4K recommendation is Medium, as it retains enough detail for a horror game's atmospheric lighting while maintaining a frame rate above 45 FPS. The Low preset at any resolution is not recommended for the intended experience, as the horror genre relies heavily on shadow quality and texture detail to create tension.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X with AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT combination ranks 892nd out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the 52.8th percentile, meaning it outperforms slightly more than half of all tested configurations but lags behind the top tier. The ranking reflects the GPU's mid-range status rather than any CPU deficiency, as the 5800X is a high-end processor.

This rank is consistent with the GPU's 77th percentile among all GPUs and the CPU's 84th percentile among all processors. The combination is balanced, but the GPU's 12 GB VRAM and 192-bit bus prevent it from achieving higher frame rates at 4K. The data shows that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can deliver smooth performance at Medium to High settings.

Compared to other combos in the database, this pairing sits in the middle of the pack. The rank of 892 out of 1689 indicates that there are 797 better-performing combinations, likely featuring higher-tier GPUs like the RX 6800 or RTX A5000, which are the nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks. However, the combo's performance in The Medium is not an outlier; it aligns with expectations for a mid-range GPU paired with a high-end CPU. The benchmark results indicate that for players targeting 1440p, this combo offers a solid experience, but for 4K enthusiasts, it requires careful settings management to achieve playable frame rates.