The Medium

The Medium pairs an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT with Intel’s integrated Arc B390 graphics, a combination that lands near the very bottom of the benchmark database for this title. With a combo rank of 2581 out of 2911 tested pairings, this system is positioned for playability only at the lowest settings and resolutions, and even then it struggles to maintain smooth frame rates. The data shows a configuration where the CPU is vastly more capable than the GPU, creating a severe bottleneck that defines every performance figure in this analysis.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS numbers reveal a dramatic collapse as resolution increases, but the pattern is different from what you would expect with a dedicated graphics card. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 51 FPS average. Dropping to 2560x1440 Low reduces that to 43 FPS, a 15.7% decrease. Moving to 3840x2160 Low yields 34 FPS, which is 33.3% below the 1080p result. This scaling is relatively gentle compared to the settings-based drops, suggesting that the integrated GPU’s memory bandwidth and fill rate are being stressed more by pixel count than by shader complexity.

The Medium preset tells a similar story. At 1080p Medium, the average is 32 FPS, with minimums at 27 and maximums at 37. At 1440p Medium, it drops to 27 FPS, and at 4K Medium, it falls to 21 FPS. The gap between 1080p and 4K at Medium settings is 34.4%, which is consistent with the Low preset’s scaling. However, the High and Ultra presets show even steeper declines. High settings produce 23 FPS at 1080p, 19 FPS at 1440p, and 15 FPS at 4K — a 34.8% drop from 1080p to 4K. Ultra settings start at 18 FPS at 1080p, fall to 15 FPS at 1440p, and bottom out at 12 FPS at 4K, representing a 33.3% reduction.

What this scaling indicates is that the limiting component is the GPU itself, not the CPU or memory subsystem. If the Ryzen 7 5800XT were the bottleneck, you would expect FPS to remain relatively flat across resolutions because the CPU workload stays constant. Instead, every resolution increase brings a proportional FPS decrease, which is the classic signature of a graphics-bound scenario. The fact that the 4K-to-1080p ratio hovers around 0.66 to 0.67 across all settings suggests the Arc B390’s render output units and texture units are saturated at even 1080p, and higher resolutions simply compound the issue.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel’s 3 nm process. Its clock speeds are listed as a 300 MHz base and a 2500 MHz boost, which is a wide dynamic range that allows the chip to idle efficiently and ramp up under load. The memory configuration is System Shared, meaning it uses the host system’s DDR4 memory rather than dedicated VRAM. The memory bus width and bandwidth are also System Shared and System Dependent, respectively, which means performance in The Medium will vary based on the system RAM configuration.

In terms of raw specs, the Arc B390 has 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output pipelines. It also includes 12 ray tracing cores, though The Medium is not known for heavy RT workloads. The pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 7.680 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 15.36 TFLOPS (2:1). These numbers place the GPU in the 9th percentile of all graphics cards, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 puts it in direct competition with very old discrete GPUs. The nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463 score, 1.3% slower), the GeForce 800M (1460, 1.5% slower), the GeForce GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5% slower), and the GeForce GT 710 (1443, 2.7% slower).

This context is crucial for interpreting the game’s FPS. The Arc B390 is essentially competing with entry-level GPUs from over a decade ago. The Medium is a horror game with a fixed-camera perspective and heavy use of split-screen rendering for its dual-world mechanic, which requires substantial fill rate and memory bandwidth. The 24 ROPs are simply insufficient for 4K output, and even 1080p at High settings proves too demanding. The measured data shows that the GPU’s 7.680 TFLOPS of compute power is not the limiting factor — the memory bandwidth and ROP throughput are. This is why dropping from Ultra to Low at 1080p nearly triples the frame rate from 18 to 51 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank in game is 2581 out of 2911 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 11.3% of all systems. This is a very poor result for a game that launched in 2021, as The Medium is not considered a particularly demanding title by modern standards. The rank reflects the fact that the Intel Arc B390 is an integrated GPU with a 9th percentile standing among all graphics cards. When paired with a high-end CPU like the Ryzen 7 5800XT, the combination is heavily imbalanced, and the GPU drags the entire system down.

To put this in perspective, the CPU alone is in the 81st percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 29879. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H (29868, 0% difference), the Ryzen 7 8845HS (29955, -0.3%), the Ryzen 7 7840HS (29955, -0.3%), and the Ryzen 5 9600X (29713, 0.6%). This means the 5800XT is a mid-to-high-tier desktop processor that can handle any modern game’s CPU requirements. However, the GPU’s average benchmark score is just 1482, which is 95% lower than the CPU’s average. This massive disparity means the system’s gaming performance is almost entirely determined by the GPU, and the CPU’s potential is wasted in this configuration.

The data shows that the combo ranks better than 330 other tested systems, but this is cold comfort. In practical terms, this pairing would only be used in a laptop or a compact desktop where discrete graphics are not an option. For The Medium specifically, the combo delivers playable frame rates only at 1080p Low, and even then the 51 FPS average is close to the edge of what most players would consider acceptable. At any higher setting or resolution, the frame rates fall below 43 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, the system manages just 12 FPS, which is effectively a slideshow.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the only viable configuration for this combo is 1920x1080 with Low settings. This produces an average of 51 FPS, which is the only result above the 50 FPS threshold in the entire dataset. The next closest is 1440p Low at 43 FPS, but that is a 15.7% drop and may introduce noticeable stuttering during the game’s more intense scenes. The Medium preset at 1080p yields 32 FPS, which is playable but not smooth, and the minimum of 27 FPS indicates that frame times will be inconsistent.

If you insist on higher visual fidelity, the data suggests that 1080p High at 23 FPS is not worth the trade-off, as the visual improvements from Low to High are not dramatic in this game, but the performance hit is 54.9%. The Ultra preset at any resolution is essentially unplayable, with the best case being 18 FPS at 1080p. The game’s horror atmosphere relies heavily on lighting and shadow effects, and these are the first things to be reduced when lowering settings. At Low, you will lose some of the ambient occlusion and shadow quality, but the game’s core mechanics and story remain intact.

The recommendation is clear: stick to 1080p Low. If you have the option to lower the resolution below 1080p, that would be the only way to gain additional headroom, but the data does not include such measurements. The 51 FPS average at 1080p Low leaves little margin for the game’s heavier areas, so expect occasional dips into the 40s. Do not attempt to use the Medium preset at 4K, as the 21 FPS average will ruin the experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full dataset for this combo in The Medium is as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 51 FPS average
• Medium: 32 FPS average, 27 FPS minimum, 37 FPS maximum
• High: 23 FPS average
• Ultra: 18 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 43 FPS average
• Medium: 27 FPS average, 23 FPS minimum, 31 FPS maximum
• High: 19 FPS average
• Ultra: 15 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 34 FPS average
• Medium: 21 FPS average, 18 FPS minimum, 24 FPS maximum
• High: 15 FPS average
• Ultra: 12 FPS average

The Medium preset is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum values, which indicates that the testing process captured frame time variance for that specific configuration. The gap between the 1080p Medium minimum of 27 FPS and maximum of 37 FPS shows a 37% variance, which is significant and will be noticeable during gameplay. This variance likely stems from the dual-world rendering that The Medium uses, where the game renders two simultaneous perspectives. When the game switches between worlds or shows both at once, the GPU workload spikes, causing frame drops.

The scaling from Low to Ultra at each resolution is severe. At 1080p, the drop from Low to Ultra is from 51 to 18 FPS, a 64.7% reduction. At 1440p, it is from 43 to 15 FPS, a 65.1% reduction. At 4K, it is from 34 to 12 FPS, a 64.7% reduction. This consistency across resolutions indicates that the settings-based performance hit is independent of pixel count, which further confirms that the GPU’s shading and texture units are the bottleneck, not its memory bandwidth. The settings presets in The Medium likely control shadow resolution, texture quality, and post-processing effects, all of which scale with shader workload.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT is a Zen 3 architecture processor codenamed Vermeer, manufactured on TSMC’s 7 nm process. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz. The L3 cache is 32 MB shared, with 512 KB L2 and 64 KB L1 per core. The CPU supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus and 51.2 GB/s bandwidth. It uses the AMD Socket AM4 interface with PCIe Gen 4 and 20 lanes.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 5800XT scores 23794 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 3359 in single-core. Its PassMark multithread score is 28053, and single-thread is 3535. The 3DMark 16-thread score is 7683, while single-thread is 959. These scores place the CPU in the 81st percentile of all processors, meaning it is more powerful than 81% of CPUs tested. For The Medium, which is a game that can utilize multiple cores for its rendering and AI systems, this CPU is more than sufficient.

The data indicates that the CPU is never the limiting factor in this combo. At 1080p Low, the game produces 51 FPS, which is a frame rate that the 5800XT can easily feed. Even at the lowest settings, the CPU’s 16 threads are unlikely to be fully saturated. The game’s minimum FPS values are more indicative of GPU stalls than CPU bottlenecks. The fact that the FPS scales uniformly with resolution and settings shows that the CPU has headroom to spare. If the CPU were the constraint, you would see the same FPS regardless of resolution, which is not the case here.

The 5800XT’s boost clock of 4.80 GHz is important for games like The Medium that have single-threaded sections. The single-core Cinebench R23 score of 3359 is strong, and the 3DMark single-thread score of 959 confirms that the CPU’s per-core performance is not holding back the game. In this specific pairing, the CPU is wasted potential — a high-end processor paired with a low-end integrated GPU. If you were to swap the Arc B390 for a discrete graphics card, the 5800XT could easily push well over 100 FPS in this title, but with the current GPU, the system is firmly capped by graphics performance.