The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title from 2021, presents a unique blend of dual-reality rendering and cinematic pacing. When paired with the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, the benchmark data reveals a system that is heavily dependent on graphical settings and resolution to deliver a smooth experience. The measured frame rates show a wide performance envelope, from highly playable at lower presets to nearly unplayable at 4K Ultra, making settings selection critical for this specific combination.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU and GPU combo in The Medium?

A: At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 123.3 FPS on Low and 74.3 FPS on Medium, making it the only resolution where all settings remain above the 60 FPS threshold except for Ultra (42.4 FPS). At 2560x1440, only Low (106.5 FPS) and Medium (67.7 FPS) are playable, while 3840x2160 is only viable on Low (83.4 FPS).

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High in terms of performance cost?

A: The data shows a significant performance drop when moving from High to Ultra across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the average FPS falls from 56.0 on High to 42.4 on Ultra, a reduction of 13.6 FPS. At 2560x1440, the drop is from 45.6 to 39.5 FPS, and at 3840x2160, it falls from 34.1 to 29.5 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 3070's 8 GB VRAM a limiting factor in this game?

A: The measured data does not show any anomalies that would indicate VRAM capacity being a bottleneck. The consistent scaling of frame rates with resolution and settings suggests the performance is tied to compute and memory bandwidth, not the 8 GB capacity. The GDDR6 memory is paired with a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations for The Medium?

A: This specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 ranks 759th out of 1689 tested combos in the game's database. This places it in the upper-middle tier of all systems tested, indicating a solidly capable but not top-tier configuration for this title.

Q: What is the difference in performance between the Low and High presets at 1440p?

A: The jump from Low to High at 2560x1440 is substantial. The average frame rate drops from 106.5 FPS on Low to 45.6 FPS on High. This indicates that the High preset more than doubles the rendering workload per frame, likely due to increased effects and texture detail.

Q: Can this system achieve a stable 60 FPS experience at 4K?

A: No, not with the High or Ultra presets. The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 is 34.1 on High and 29.5 on Ultra. Only the Low preset at 83.4 FPS and the Medium preset at 53.7 FPS come close, with Medium still falling short of the 60 FPS target.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results indicate that the ideal experience depends heavily on the user's display resolution and tolerance for frame rate fluctuations. For a target of 60 FPS, the data clearly points to the Medium preset as the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, but only at 1920x1080 and 2560x1440. At 1080p, Medium delivers 74.3 FPS, offering a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS target. At 1440p, Medium achieves 67.7 FPS, which is still above the threshold but with less headroom.

For users with a 4K display, the choice is stark. The Medium preset at 3840x2160 yields only 53.7 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target but still playable on many displays with adaptive sync. The Low preset at 4K is the only option that provides a definitive smooth experience, hitting 83.4 FPS. However, the visual compromise may be significant for a horror game that relies on atmosphere.

The High preset is difficult to recommend for any resolution, as it falls below 60 FPS at both 1440p (45.6 FPS) and 1080p (56.0 FPS). The Ultra preset is only suitable for users who prioritize maximum visual quality over frame rate, with the 1080p result of 42.4 FPS being the only somewhat playable option. The data suggests that for most users, selecting Medium at 1080p or 1440p offers the best balance, while 4K users should either accept the Medium preset's sub-60 FPS performance or drop to Low for a locked experience.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination holds a rank of 759 out of 1689 total tested combos for The Medium. This places the system in the 55th percentile of all configurations, meaning it outperforms a slight majority of tested systems but is far from the top. The ranking suggests that while this is a capable gaming setup, it is not optimized for the highest-end performance in this specific title.

The CPU component, the Ryzen 7 7700X, sits in the 89th percentile among all CPUs, showing it is a strong processor. Its average benchmark score of 34313 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals, with a 0.4% lead over the Intel Core i5-13500 and a 0.5% lead over the Intel Core i7-12800HX. The GPU, the RTX 3070, is in the 72nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average score of 28238. It performs similarly to the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, which is 0.9% slower, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which is 1% slower.

The game's rank of 759, when combined with the high CPU percentile and moderate GPU percentile, indicates that The Medium is more demanding on the GPU than the CPU. The Ryzen 7 7700X's 8 cores and 16 threads are likely sufficient for the game's logic, but the RTX 3070's performance is the primary constraint on achieving higher frame rates. This is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows significant drops when moving to higher resolutions and settings, a pattern typical of GPU-bound scenarios.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a clear picture of how this combo scales across three resolutions and four settings presets.

1920x1080: The lowest resolution tested shows the most playable results. The Low preset delivers an average of 123.3 FPS, providing a very smooth experience. Medium drops to 74.3 FPS, still comfortably above 60. High yields 56.0 FPS, which is below the ideal target but playable. Ultra is the most demanding, with an average of 42.4 FPS.

2560x1440: Moving to 1440p, the performance takes a noticeable hit. Low remains excellent at 106.5 FPS. Medium is still viable at 67.7 FPS, just above the 60 FPS mark. High falls to 45.6 FPS, and Ultra drops further to 39.5 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows an average performance decrease of roughly 30-40% across all settings, which is expected given the increased pixel count.

3840x2160: At 4K, the RTX 3070 is clearly pushed to its limits. Low is the only preset that delivers a high frame rate at 83.4 FPS. Medium provides a playable but not ideal 53.7 FPS. High drops to 34.1 FPS, and Ultra is nearly unplayable at 29.5 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium at 4K is 29.7 FPS, highlighting the substantial cost of the Medium preset's added visual features at this high resolution.

The data shows that the performance scaling is consistent and predictable, with no anomalies. The gap between Low and Ultra widens with resolution, from 80.9 FPS at 1080p to 53.9 FPS at 4K, indicating that the GPU's compute resources become the limiting factor as pixel count increases.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is the primary driver of the frame rates measured in this analysis. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for the game's textures at the tested settings. The benchmark data does not suggest that memory capacity is exceeded, as there are no sudden drops in performance that would indicate texture swapping.

The GPU's clock speeds are listed with a base of 1500 MHz and a boost of 1725 MHz. The measured performance across the settings presets reflects the GPU's ability to sustain these clocks under load. The significant performance difference between Low and Ultra presets, which can be as much as 80.9 FPS at 1080p, points to the heavy use of shader and pixel processing units. The RTX 3070 features 5888 shading units, 184 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, which handle the rendering workload. The game's fixed-camera angles may also play a role, as the rendering load is more predictable than in a first-person title.

The GPU's 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores are present, but the measured data does not isolate their specific impact in The Medium. The game supports ray tracing, but this analysis does not include separate data for that feature. The 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is the raw compute capability, and the benchmark results show that this power is best utilized at lower resolutions and settings where the GPU is not overburdened. The RTX 3070's role is clearly the bottleneck in this combo, as the Ryzen 7 7700X is ranked in the 89th percentile of CPUs, while the GPU is in the 72nd percentile, confirming that the graphics card is the limiting factor in achieving higher frame rates in this title.