The Medium

The Medium is a demanding horror title, and this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 produces a specific set of performance characteristics. The benchmark data shows a combo that ranks 1348 out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the lower half of the database. This is a configuration where the GPU is the clear limiting factor at higher settings, while the CPU's strength becomes more apparent at lower resolutions and quality presets. The following analysis breaks down the measured FPS data, component roles, and scaling behavior to give a clear picture of what this system can deliver.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for playing The Medium at 1920x1080?

A: Based on measured average FPS, the Low preset delivers 80.9 FPS, making it the only preset at 1080p that clears a 60 FPS threshold comfortably. The Medium preset hits 51.6 FPS, while High drops to 39.6 FPS and Ultra falls to 29.7 FPS.

Q: How does the combo rank against other tested systems in this game?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 combination ranks 1348 out of 1689 tested combos. This places it in the bottom 20% of all systems tested for The Medium, indicating that while playable at lower settings, it is not a high-performance configuration for this title.

Q: Is the RTX 2060's 6 GB of VRAM sufficient for this game at 4K?

A: The data shows that at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 23, which is not playable. Even at Low settings at 4K, the average FPS is 55.8. The 6 GB VRAM and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth are present, but the frame rates indicate the GPU is overburdened at this resolution.

Q: Which component is the primary bottleneck in this setup?

A: At higher resolutions and quality settings, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is the bottleneck. This is evidenced by the FPS scaling: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 80.9 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, it drops to 23 FPS. The CPU's high L3 cache and 8 cores are not the limiting factor in these scenarios.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 5800X3D compare to its nearest rivals in overall CPU benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 7 5800X3D has an average benchmark score of 26574. It is statistically tied with the AMD EPYC 8024P and Intel Core i9-11900K, both showing a deltaPct of 0.1%. It is also within 0.4% of the Intel Core i9-12900HK.

Q: What is the expected performance difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 2560x1440?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset yields an average of 69.8 FPS, while the Ultra preset yields 27.6 FPS. This represents a significant 42.2 FPS drop, showing how heavily the Ultra settings impact the GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame places this system at 1348 out of 1689 tested combinations. This is a low ranking, indicating that this hardware pairing struggles with the demands of The Medium relative to other systems in the database. The data shows this is not a top-tier configuration for this game, and users should expect to make compromises on visual fidelity to achieve smooth gameplay.

The ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU's performance ceiling. The RTX 2060's benchmark percentile is 58, meaning it performs better than 58% of all GPUs in the database. However, the game's requirements are high enough that this still results in a sub-60 FPS experience at most settings above Low. The CPU's percentile is 83, showing it is a stronger component relative to its peers, but it cannot compensate for the GPU's limitations in this GPU-bound title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is the defining component in this pairing for The Medium. It features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. The GPU has base and boost clocks of 1365 MHz and 1680 MHz, respectively. Its 1920 shading units and 48 ROPs handle the rendering workload, but the measured FPS data shows that this configuration is often insufficient for high-quality settings.

The GPU's performance percentile is 58, indicating it is a mid-range part. Its average benchmark score is 16074, which is very close to its nearest rivals: the AMD Radeon RX 7600S is only 0.5% faster, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 is 1.8% slower. In The Medium, this translates to a GPU that can handle 1080p Low at 80.9 FPS and 1440p Low at 69.8 FPS, but it cannot maintain playable frame rates at higher presets. At 4K, even the Low preset only achieves 55.8 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to an unplayable 23 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the performance ranges from 80.9 FPS on Low to 29.7 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset provides 51.6 FPS, and High provides 39.6 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 29.3 FPS drop, which is substantial, while the drop from Medium to High is 12 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 9.9 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves 69.8 FPS, which is the only playable option at this resolution. Medium drops to 47 FPS, High falls to 29.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 27.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 22.8 FPS, showing that the Medium preset imposes a heavy load on the GPU.

At 3840x2160, no settings preset provides a consistently smooth experience. Low is the only option above 30 FPS, hitting 55.8 FPS. Medium drops to 34.6 FPS, High falls to 27.6 FPS, and Ultra is at 23 FPS. The data indicates that 4K gaming with this GPU requires the absolute lowest settings to be remotely playable.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly demonstrates that the RTX 2060 is the limiting component. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 80.9 at 1080p to 69.8 at 1440p and then to 55.8 at 4K. This is a 31% drop from 1080p to 4K, which is expected for a GPU-bound scenario where the rendering resolution increases significantly.

At Ultra settings, the drop is steeper in relative terms but smaller in absolute numbers. The FPS goes from 29.7 at 1080p to 27.6 at 1440p and finally to 23 at 4K. The small absolute differences (2.1 FPS from 1080p to 1440p) suggest that even at 1080p Ultra, the GPU is already near its limits, and the resolution increase has a diminishing impact because the GPU is already saturated.

The data suggests that the CPU is not a significant bottleneck at any resolution. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see a smaller FPS drop when moving from 1440p to 4K, as the GPU would be waiting for the CPU at lower resolutions. Instead, the consistent performance degradation across all resolutions points to the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth as the primary constraints.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D provides the processing power for this configuration. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.50 GHz. The CPU is built on the Zen 3 architecture and features a massive 96 MB of shared L3 cache, which is a key differentiator for this part. Its benchmark scores are strong, with a multi-core score of 24063 in Cinebench R23 and a single-core score of 3397.

The CPU's percentileVsAllCpus is 83, and its average benchmark score is 26574. This places it in a statistical tie with the AMD EPYC 8024P and Intel Core i9-11900K, both with a deltaPct of 0.1%. It is also only 0.4% slower than the Intel Core i9-12900HK. In the context of The Medium, this CPU is more than capable of feeding the RTX 2060.

The data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this pairing. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 80.9 FPS, which is a high frame rate that requires a capable CPU to maintain. The fact that the FPS drops consistently as resolution increases confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor. The 5800X3D's high L3 cache and 8-core/16-thread configuration ensure that it can handle the game's logic and draw calls without holding back the GPU, even at the lowest settings where the CPU load is typically highest.