The Medium

# FAQ

Q: How does the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 compare to its closest rivals in overall benchmark performance?

A: The Ryzen 7 7700 sits in the 91st percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 40468. It is effectively tied with the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H (40431, 0.1% ahead), and slightly ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 (40262, 0.5% ahead). Against Intel competition, it trails the Intel Core i9-13905H by 0.6% (40712) but leads the Intel Core Ultra 5 235T by 1.2% (39995). These are all within a narrow performance band, indicating the 7700 is competitively positioned among modern processors.

Q: Where does the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER stand against its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 2070 SUPER falls in the 65th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 22206. It sits just 0.5% behind the NVIDIA RTX A400 (22307) and 0.9% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (22006). The gap widens to 2.3% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile (22729), while it leads the AMD Radeon RX 5700 (21670) by 2.5%. The performance clustering suggests this GPU remains competitive with mid-range offerings from multiple generations.

Q: What is the best 1080p setting for playable performance in The Medium?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers the highest average of 100.1 FPS, while Medium drops to 62.5 FPS and High to 45.9 FPS. The Ultra preset yields 35.9 FPS. For smooth gameplay, the Medium preset at 62.5 FPS offers a solid balance, though Low provides a substantial headroom above 100 FPS for high-refresh-rate displays.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER's memory configuration affect The Medium at higher resolutions?

A: The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. At 3840x2160, the High preset only manages 29 FPS, while Low reaches 67.2 FPS. The steep drop between Low and Medium (45.1 FPS) at 4K suggests that memory capacity or bandwidth becomes a limiting factor as texture detail increases, given the game's fixed camera angles and detailed environments.

Q: What is the Ryzen 7 7700's multi-threaded performance profile?

A: The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads achieve a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29302 and a single-core score of 4136. In 3DMark, the max-threads score of 8479 nearly matches the 16-thread score of 8484, showing strong scaling. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1049 indicates that single-thread performance is adequate for gaming workloads, which typically rely on fewer cores.

Q: How does the combo rank in The Medium?

A: The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks 1041 out of 1689 tested combinations. This places it in the lower-middle tier of tested hardware pairs, which aligns with the GPU's mid-range percentile standing (65th) and the game's demanding rendering requirements.

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Settings Recommendations

The measured data for The Medium reveals a clear hierarchy across presets, with Low providing the only consistently high frame rates. At 1920x1080, Low delivers 100.1 FPS, which is more than sufficient for smooth gameplay. Medium at 62.5 FPS is the most balanced option for 1080p, offering a 37.6% reduction in FPS from Low but presumably substantial visual improvements. High at 45.9 FPS remains playable but approaches the lower bound of smooth motion, while Ultra at 35.9 FPS is borderline for a horror title where timing matters.

At 2560x1440, the situation tightens. Low produces 87.1 FPS, which is excellent for the resolution. Medium drops to 52.3 FPS, still acceptable for most players, while High (36.3 FPS) and Ultra (27.8 FPS) fall below comfortable thresholds. For 1440p, the Medium preset is the recommended choice, as it preserves reasonable frame pacing while maintaining visual fidelity above Low.

At 3840x2160, only Low (67.2 FPS) achieves playable performance. Medium (45.1 FPS) is marginal, High (29 FPS) is stuttery, and Ultra (23 FPS) is effectively unplayable. For 4K, the data indicates that Low is the only viable preset, and even then, the frame rate may dip in demanding scenes given the 29 FPS result at High.

The optimal experience across all resolutions is the Low preset at 1080p, delivering 100.1 FPS. However, for players prioritizing visual quality over raw frame rate, Medium at 1080p or 1440p provides the best compromise, with 62.5 FPS and 52.3 FPS respectively. The data does not support Ultra at any resolution for a consistently smooth experience, given the single-digit improvements over High at 1080p (35.9 vs 45.9 FPS).

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Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a GPU-bound workload with significant scaling demands. At Medium settings, the frame rate drops from 62.5 FPS at 1080p to 52.3 FPS at 1440p (a 16.3% reduction), then to 45.1 FPS at 4K (a 27.8% reduction from 1080p). The pixel count increases by 78% from 1080p to 1440p and by 300% from 1080p to 4K, but the FPS penalties are not proportional, suggesting that other factors such as memory bandwidth and fill rate are also at play.

The Low preset shows a different pattern: 100.1 FPS at 1080p, 87.1 FPS at 1440p (12.9% drop), and 67.2 FPS at 4K (32.9% drop). The relatively smaller drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low compared to Medium indicates that the GPU has enough headroom at lower settings to absorb the pixel increase. However, the 4K penalty is substantial even at Low, confirming that the RTX 2070 SUPER's 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 113.3 GPixel/s pixel rate are strained by 4K output.

The High preset exhibits the most severe scaling: 45.9 FPS at 1080p, 36.3 FPS at 1440p (20.9% drop), and 29 FPS at 4K (36.8% drop). The Ultra preset follows a similar trajectory: 35.9 FPS at 1080p, 27.8 FPS at 1440p (22.6% drop), and 23 FPS at 4K (35.9% drop). These consistent 20-37% drops across higher settings indicate that the GPU's compute resources — 2560 shading units and 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 performance — are the primary limiter, rather than the CPU.

The Ryzen 7 7700, with its 29302 Cinebench R23 multi-core score and 16 threads, is unlikely to bottleneck at these frame rates. The data suggests that The Medium is heavily GPU-limited, and the resolution scaling behavior is typical of a mid-range GPU being asked to drive increasingly dense pixel workloads. Players targeting 4K should expect to use Low settings, while 1440p users can manage Medium with playable results.

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Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full preset range yields the following averages: Low 100.1 FPS, Medium 62.5 FPS, High 45.9 FPS, and Ultra 35.9 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium is a 37.6% reduction, while the Medium-to-High drop is 26.6%, and High-to-Ultra is 21.8%. This diminishing-return pattern suggests that each preset tier adds progressively less visual impact relative to its performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the averages are Low 87.1 FPS, Medium 52.3 FPS, High 36.3 FPS, and Ultra 27.8 FPS. The Low-to-Medium drop is 40.0%, larger than at 1080p, indicating that the resolution increase amplifies the cost of higher settings. The Medium-to-High drop is 30.6%, and High-to-Ultra is 23.4%. All settings except Low fall below 60 FPS at 1440p, making this resolution more demanding than the GPU can comfortably handle for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the averages are Low 67.2 FPS, Medium 45.1 FPS, High 29 FPS, and Ultra 23 FPS. The Low-to-Medium reduction is 32.9%, Medium-to-High is 35.7%, and High-to-Ultra is 20.7%. Only Low reaches above 60 FPS, and even that is marginal. The 4K results confirm that this GPU is not designed for high-fidelity 4K gaming in The Medium, with Ultra delivering less than a quarter of the 1080p Low frame rate.

Across all resolutions, the Low preset remains the only setting that consistently exceeds 60 FPS, with 100.1 FPS at 1080p, 87.1 FPS at 1440p, and 67.2 FPS at 4K. Medium falls below 60 FPS at 1440p (52.3) and 4K (45.1), while High and Ultra never reach 60 FPS at any resolution. The data indicates that players seeking 60 FPS must accept Low settings, or drop to 1080p and use Medium for a 62.5 FPS average.

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GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER's specifications explain its measured performance in The Medium. The GPU is built on the TU104 chip with a 12 nm process, housing 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. Its base clock of 1605 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz drive 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, which is the primary engine for the game's rendering workloads. The 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present, but the measured FPS data does not isolate ray-traced effects, so their impact is implicit rather than explicit.

Memory configuration plays a critical role in the observed resolution scaling. The 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p but strained at 4K. The 113.3 GPixel/s pixel rate and 283.2 GTexel/s texture rate are moderate by modern standards, and the 4K FPS drops (67.2 FPS at Low, 45.1 FPS at Medium) suggest that fill rate limits become binding at higher pixel counts.

The GPU's transistor count of 13,600 million on a 545 mm² die with a 215 W TDP places it in the power-hungry mid-range of Turing-generation parts. Its 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 22206, aligns with the measured performance in The Medium: competent at 1080p, acceptable at 1440p with lowered settings, and struggling at 4K. The nearest rivals — RTX A400 (22307), GTX TITAN Z (22006), RTX 4060 Mobile (22729), and RX 5700 (21670) — all fall within a tight performance band, confirming that the 2070 SUPER occupies a well-defined performance tier.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for The Medium at all tested settings, as the game does not appear to exceed this limit based on the measured FPS data. However, the steep drop from Low to Medium at 4K (67.2 to 45.1 FPS) hints that memory bandwidth, rather than capacity, is the limiting factor. The 14 Gbps effective memory speed and 256-bit bus provide substantial bandwidth, but 4K textures and effects demand more than this GPU can efficiently deliver. For players using this GPU, 1080p Medium or 1440p Low are the practical limits for smooth performance in The Medium, with the understanding that 4K requires the Low preset and still falls below 70 FPS.