The Medium

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 combination ranks 1386th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. That places this pairing in the bottom 18% of all configurations, a position that reflects the GPU's age more than the CPU's capability. The processor is a clear strength here — it sits at the 91st percentile among all CPUs, while the graphics card languishes at the 58th percentile among all GPUs. This asymmetry defines the entire experience: the Ryzen 7 7700 is never the bottleneck, but the RTX 2060 frequently is.

The benchmark data confirms this split. In synthetic testing, the Ryzen 7 7700 posts an average score of 40468, placing it within 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H and 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365. It edges out the Intel Core i9-13905H by 0.6% and leads the Intel Core Ultra 5 235T by 1.2%. That is a tightly clustered group of mobile and desktop chips, with the 7700 holding its own at the top. The GPU, meanwhile, averages 16074 in its own benchmarks, sitting just 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7600S and 1.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5500, while trailing the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M and AMD Radeon Pro 5700 by 1.7%.

What does this mean for The Medium specifically? The game's fixed-camera horror presentation and pre-rendered backgrounds are demanding, but the RTX 2060's mid-range Turing architecture is the limiting factor across every resolution tested. The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than adequate for this title's threading demands, and its 29302 Cinebench R23 multi-core score indicates headroom that the game never fully exploits. The result is a combo that underperforms its CPU's potential, delivering playable but rarely impressive frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 brings 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. That memory configuration proves to be a critical weakness in The Medium, which is a texture-heavy game with large, detailed environments. The GPU's base clock runs at 1365 MHz and boosts to 1680 MHz, while memory operates at 1750 MHz (or 14 Gbps effective). These clocks are modest by modern standards, and the 1920 shading units working at those speeds produce 6.451 TFLOPS of FP32 compute.

The VRAM capacity is the standout concern. At 4K Ultra settings, the game averages just 19.7 FPS, and at 4K High it manages 23 FPS — both figures suggesting the 6 GB frame buffer is being saturated. Dropping to 4K Medium yields 31.3 FPS, and only at 4K Low does the card approach playability with 56.7 FPS. The pattern across resolutions is consistent: the GPU's memory bandwidth and capacity dictate performance, not the CPU.

The RTX 2060's Turing architecture includes 30 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores, but The Medium's implementation of these features appears to be heavy, and the card lacks the raw throughput to maintain smooth frame rates with them enabled at higher settings. The 12 nm process node and 160 W TDP place it as a mid-range part from the GeForce 20-series generation, and its end-of-life production status reflects its age. The card's 14,111 PassMark G3D score and 1242 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score put it in the lower half of the GPU hierarchy, which aligns with the in-game results observed here.

FAQ

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 holding back the RTX 2060 in The Medium?

A: No. The CPU ranks at the 91st percentile among all processors, and its performance is within 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H and 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365. The GPU's 58th percentile ranking indicates it is the limiting component.

Q: What is the best settings preset for this combo at 1080p?

A: Low settings at 1080p deliver 82.8 FPS average, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this pairing. Medium settings yield 54.5 FPS, High drops to 36.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 30.9 FPS.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K in The Medium?

A: Only at Low settings, where it averages 56.7 FPS. At Medium it drops to 31.3 FPS, High produces 23 FPS, and Ultra falls to 19.7 FPS — all below the threshold for smooth play.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 2060 averages 16074 in benchmarks, sitting 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7600S and 1.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5500. It trails the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M and AMD Radeon Pro 5700 by 1.7%.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 7700's multi-threaded performance relevant to this game?

A: The CPU scores 29302 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 12306 in R20, but The Medium's performance scales primarily with GPU capability. The processor's 16 threads provide ample headroom that the game does not fully utilize.

Q: What does the 1080p to 4K performance delta indicate about system balance?

A: The frame rate drops by roughly 76% from 1080p Low (82.8 FPS) to 4K Low (56.7 FPS), while the CPU's synthetic scores remain constant. This confirms the GPU is the bottleneck, as resolution scaling affects only the graphics card's workload.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. Low settings produce 82.8 FPS average, which is the only configuration to exceed the 60 FPS threshold. Medium settings yield 54.5 FPS, High drops to 36.1 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 30.9 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs 28.3 FPS — a 34% reduction — while the jump from Medium to High costs another 18.4 FPS, a further 34% loss. High to Ultra is comparatively gentler, dropping 5.2 FPS or 14%.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance degrades predictably. Low settings average 72.3 FPS, still playable but down 10.5 FPS from 1080p. Medium produces 43.1 FPS, High manages 32.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 24.4 FPS. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings costs 12.7% of the frame rate, while at Ultra the loss is 21%. This growing penalty at higher settings underscores the GPU's memory bandwidth constraints.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 2060 struggles. Low settings average 56.7 FPS, which is technically playable but represents a 21.6 FPS drop from 1080p Low. Medium falls to 31.3 FPS, High to 23 FPS, and Ultra to 19.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 4K is 25.4 FPS — a 45% reduction — showing how quickly the GPU's resources are exhausted as texture and shading quality increase.

Resolution Scaling

The performance curve from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that is firmly GPU-limited. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 82.8 FPS at 1080p to 72.3 FPS at 1440p, then to 56.7 FPS at 4K. That is a 31.5% total reduction from the lowest to highest resolution, which is substantial but not catastrophic. The RTX 2060's 336.0 GB/s bandwidth and 6 GB VRAM are sufficient for Low presets even at 4K, where the game's reduced texture loads fit within the frame buffer.

At Medium settings, the scaling steepens: 54.5 FPS at 1080p, 43.1 FPS at 1440p, and 31.3 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-4K loss here is 42.6%, indicating that the GPU is starting to hit memory capacity limits. High settings show an even steeper decline: 36.1 FPS to 32.2 FPS to 23 FPS — a 36.3% drop from 1080p to 4K. Ultra settings are the harshest: 30.9 FPS at 1080p, 24.4 FPS at 1440p, and 19.7 FPS at 4K, a 36.2% reduction.

The pattern is telling. The CPU's performance is resolution-independent; its 91st percentile ranking and scores like 29302 in Cinebench R23 multi-core are identical regardless of display resolution. The GPU, by contrast, scales poorly with resolution because its 6 GB memory and 192-bit bus are simply not enough for The Medium's high-resolution textures. The data indicates that users targeting 1080p should stick to Low or Medium settings, while 1440p users should accept Low as the only consistently playable option. 4K is only viable at Low, and even then the 56.7 FPS average leaves little headroom for demanding scenes.