The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER produces a clear performance hierarchy in The Medium, with the data showing that frame pacing is heavily dependent on both resolution and the graphics preset. The benchmark results indicate a system that is capable of smooth play at lower resolutions but becomes increasingly strained as the workload scales toward 4K. The measured FPS data provides a definitive guide for optimizing the experience across different display targets.

Settings Recommendations

The data reveals a significant performance gap between the Low and Ultra presets, with the Medium preset offering the most balanced experience for this specific hardware combination. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers an average of 61 FPS, which is a substantial improvement over the High preset's 44.1 FPS and the Ultra preset's 35.6 FPS. While the Low preset achieves a perfect 100 FPS average, it does so by sacrificing visual fidelity that the Medium preset retains.

For 2560x1440 displays, the Medium preset is the recommended choice, producing an average of 56.1 FPS. This is notably smoother than High's 36.8 FPS and Ultra's 30.2 FPS, while remaining ahead of the 4K Medium result. The data shows that at 1440p, the Medium preset is the only setting that consistently keeps the game above the 50 FPS threshold, making it the practical ceiling for playable performance with this GPU.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more challenging. The Medium preset yields only 41.8 FPS, while High drops to 28.1 FPS and Ultra falls to 22.5 FPS. Interestingly, the Low preset at 4K achieves 68.2 FPS, which is higher than the High preset at 1440p. This suggests that for 4K users, dropping to Low settings is the only viable path to a smooth experience, as even Medium struggles to maintain a consistent frame rate. The measured data indicates that the Medium preset provides the best compromise between visual quality and performance across all resolutions, with the caveat that 4K users may need to consider Low.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the primary bottleneck in this configuration when the resolution and settings are increased. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. Its 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs are supported by a boost clock of 1770 MHz. The data shows that the transition from 1080p to 4K at the same settings causes a dramatic drop in average FPS, indicating that the GPU's compute and memory resources are being saturated.

The GPU's performance percentile of 65 versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 22206, places it in a mid-range tier. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z, scores 22006 with a deltaPct of 0.9, showing that the RTX 2070 SUPER is marginally ahead. However, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile scores 22729 with a deltaPct of -2.3, indicating that the desktop card trails a modern mobile part by a small margin. In The Medium, the GPU's role is clear: it handles the rendering load effectively at 1080p and 1440p with Medium settings, but the 4K Ultra results of 22.5 FPS show that the card's 8 GB frame buffer and 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are insufficient for the game's highest demands.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this system in The Medium?*

A: The highest average FPS is 100, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This is the only measured result that hits triple digits, and it drops to 86.2 at 1440p Low and 68.2 at 4K Low.

Q: How does the Ultra preset scale across resolutions?

A: The Ultra preset yields 35.6 FPS at 1080p, 30.2 FPS at 1440p, and 22.5 FPS at 4K. The data shows a consistent decline, with the 4K result being 37% lower than the 1080p result, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor.

Q: Is there a resolution where the High preset is preferable to Medium?

A: No. At every resolution, the Medium preset outperforms High by a significant margin: 61 FPS versus 44.1 FPS at 1080p, 56.1 FPS versus 36.8 FPS at 1440p, and 41.8 FPS versus 28.1 FPS at 4K. The data consistently favors Medium over High.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves 86.2 FPS, while Ultra drops to 30.2 FPS. This represents a 56 FPS gap, or a 185% improvement for Low, showing the extreme range of performance available.

Q: How does the system rank among all tested combos for this game?

A: The combo ranks 1044 out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. This rank reflects the GPU's mid-tier status, as the CPU is a high performer.

Q: Does the 4K Low preset outperform the 1440p High preset?

A: Yes. The 4K Low preset averages 68.2 FPS, which is significantly higher than the 1440p High preset's 36.8 FPS. This suggests that at higher resolutions, reducing settings is more effective than lowering resolution while keeping quality high.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear progression across presets. Low averages 100 FPS, Medium drops to 61 FPS, High falls to 44.1 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 35.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 39 FPS, while the gap between Medium and Ultra is 25.4 FPS. This indicates that the Medium preset is the point of diminishing returns, as the jump from Medium to High costs 16.9 FPS for what is likely a moderate visual improvement.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but with lower absolute values. Low averages 86.2 FPS, Medium 56.1 FPS, High 36.8 FPS, and Ultra 30.2 FPS. The delta between Low and Medium is 30.1 FPS, and between Medium and Ultra is 25.9 FPS. The 1440p results show that the GPU is starting to struggle, as the High preset falls below 40 FPS, making it less viable for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the data reveals a stark contrast. Low averages 68.2 FPS, which is surprisingly high, but Medium drops to 41.8 FPS, High to 28.1 FPS, and Ultra to 22.5 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium is 26.4 FPS, while the difference between High and Ultra is only 5.6 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset offers minimal performance gain over High at 4K, while the jump from Low to Medium is substantial. The 4K results indicate that the GPU is heavily taxed, with only the Low preset providing a comfortable frame rate.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows that resolution scaling has a profound effect on performance, but the magnitude depends on the preset. For the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 100 at 1080p to 86.2 at 1440p, a 13.8% reduction, and then to 68.2 at 4K, a 31.8% reduction from the 1080p baseline. This relatively gentle decline suggests that at Low settings, the CPU can keep up, and the GPU is not fully saturated until 4K.

For the Medium preset, the drop is steeper: 61 FPS at 1080p to 56.1 FPS at 1440p (8% reduction) and then to 41.8 FPS at 4K (31.5% reduction from 1080p). The High preset shows a more aggressive scaling: 44.1 FPS at 1080p to 36.8 FPS at 1440p (16.6% reduction) and then to 28.1 FPS at 4K (36.3% reduction from 1080p). The Ultra preset exhibits the worst scaling: 35.6 FPS at 1080p to 30.2 FPS at 1440p (15.2% reduction) and then to 22.5 FPS at 4K (36.8% reduction from 1080p).

The pattern indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting component. As settings increase, the GPU's workload grows, and the resolution scaling becomes more punishing. The 4K results across all presets are consistently lower than the 1080p results, with the gap widening from 31.8% for Low to 36.8% for Ultra. This suggests that the RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the game's high-resolution textures and effects, causing the frame rate to collapse at 4K.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a high-end desktop processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 3 architecture. It operates with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.50 GHz, and it features a large 96 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU's benchmark results are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 24063 and a single-core score of 3397. Its average benchmark score of 26574 places it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i9-11900K, which scores 26546 with a deltaPct of 0.1, and the AMD Ryzen 5 7600, which scores 26617 with a deltaPct of -0.2. This shows that the 5800X3D is competitively positioned, trading blows with modern mid-range and older high-end parts. In The Medium, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with data, and the benchmark results indicate that it is not a bottleneck.

Evidence for this comes from the resolution scaling data. At Low settings, the frame rate stays relatively high across resolutions, with 100 FPS at 1080p and 68.2 FPS at 4K. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect the frame rate to remain constant regardless of resolution, but instead, it drops significantly as the GPU workload increases. The 4K Low result of 68.2 FPS is still well above the 4K Ultra result of 22.5 FPS, demonstrating that the CPU can maintain high frame rates when the GPU is not constrained. The data suggests that the 5800X3D's 16 threads and high cache capacity provide ample headroom for The Medium, and any performance issues are attributable to the RTX 2070 SUPER.