The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title built on Unreal Engine 4, presents an interesting stress profile for the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 pairing. The measured data shows a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, with the CPU headroom becoming apparent only as the resolution drops and frame rates climb. This combination ranks 8th out of 3,724 tested combos, placing it in the top percentile of systems for this specific title.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-limited scenario, though with some nuance at the lower end. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 168 FPS at 1920x1080 to 129 FPS at 2560x1440, then further to 76 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 23% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a 41% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The scaling pattern suggests that the RTX 4080's rendering throughput is the primary constraint as pixel count increases.

The Low settings preset tells a similar story but with higher absolute numbers. At 1920x1080 Low, the system achieves 205 FPS, which drops to 181 FPS at 2560x1440, and then to 131 FPS at 3840x2160. The percentage drops are 12% and 28% respectively, indicating that even at Low settings, the GPU remains the bottleneck at 4K, though the CPU begins to assert more influence at 1440p and below.

Interestingly, the Medium preset shows the most linear scaling behavior. The 186 FPS average at 1080p falls to 164 FPS at 1440p (a 12% drop), and then to 100 FPS at 4K (a 39% drop). The 4K Medium result of 100 FPS sits almost exactly halfway between the Low and High figures, suggesting that the Medium preset provides a balanced workload that scales predictably with resolution.

The Ultra settings curve is the most compressed, with 165 FPS at 1080p, 123 FPS at 1440p, and 72 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 72 FPS is the lowest measured across all presets, and the fact that the gap between 1080p and 4K is roughly 56% indicates that the RTX 4080 is working near its limits with all settings maxed. For a horror game that relies on atmosphere and lighting, the 4K Ultra experience remains playable, but the data clearly shows diminishing returns beyond High settings at this resolution.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X brings 8 cores and 16 threads to this pairing, based on the Zen 4 Raphael architecture. Its base clock of 4.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz provide substantial single-thread headroom, which is critical for a game like The Medium that relies on a fixed-camera perspective and likely has a dominant render thread. The CPU's Cinebench R23 scores of 19,088 multi-core and 1,987 single-core confirm strong performance, but the game's frame rates suggest that the 7700X is never the limiting factor.

At 1920x1080 Low, the system reaches 205 FPS, which is the highest measured result across all configurations. This figure remains well below the CPU's theoretical maximum, as indicated by its 3DMark single-thread score of 1,090. The gap between the Low and Ultra presets at 1080p is only 40 FPS (205 vs 165), which is a relatively narrow margin compared to the 74 FPS spread at 4K (131 vs 72). This compression at 1080p suggests that the CPU is beginning to approach its limits, though the 7700X's 5.40 GHz boost capability keeps frame rates high.

The CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth provide ample memory bandwidth for the game's streaming requirements. The 7700X's benchmark percentile of 85 against all CPUs places it in the upper tier, and its nearest rivals—the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845, Intel Core 7 250H, AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350, and Intel Core Ultra 9 185H—all score within 0.7% of the 7700X's average benchmark score of 35,909. This indicates that the CPU's performance is competitive but not exceptional, which aligns with the measured FPS data showing that the GPU is the primary driver of frame rates in this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for maximizing the experience with this hardware combination. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset delivers an average of 100 FPS with a minimum of 85 FPS and a maximum of 114 FPS. This is the only 4K preset with reported minimum and maximum values, and the 85 FPS floor ensures consistent frame pacing during tense moments. The High preset at 4K drops to 76 FPS average, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes. The Ultra preset at 72 FPS is the most demanding, and for a horror game where smooth motion is essential for atmosphere, the Medium preset represents the best balance of visual quality and performance at 4K.

At 2560x1440, the High preset achieves 129 FPS average, which is more than sufficient for a smooth experience. The Medium preset at 164 FPS provides additional headroom but the visual uplift from Medium to High is likely worth the 35 FPS cost. The Ultra preset at 123 FPS is also viable, and the data shows that this resolution is well within the capabilities of the RTX 4080. The 1440p Medium preset reports a minimum of 139 FPS and a maximum of 188 FPS, indicating excellent frame consistency.

For 1920x1080, the Ultra preset at 165 FPS is the recommended choice, as the hardware has ample performance to run all settings maxed while maintaining a high refresh rate experience. The High preset at 168 FPS is nearly identical, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional effects have minimal performance impact at this resolution. The Medium preset at 186 FPS offers diminishing returns in visual quality for a modest FPS gain, and the Low preset at 205 FPS is unnecessary given the other options. For users with high refresh rate monitors, the 1080p Ultra setting provides an excellent balance, though the 4K Medium preset is the standout choice for visual fidelity.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 achieves a rank of 8 out of 3,724 tested combinations in The Medium. This places the system in the top 0.2% of all tested hardware configurations, which is an exceptional result for a game that is heavily GPU-dependent. The rank reflects the RTX 4080's strong performance in this title, as the CPU's contribution is secondary given the measured frame rates.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 54,247 places it at the 86th percentile against all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are the RTX 4080 SUPER (0.1% faster), AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (1.1% slower), AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (2.6% slower), and AMD Radeon 8060S (2.7% slower). The fact that the RTX 4080 SUPER is only 0.1% ahead in synthetic benchmarks suggests that the 4080's performance in The Medium is representative of its overall capabilities, and the combo rank of 8 confirms that this system is among the best for this game.

The CPU's rank of 8th overall is particularly notable given that the 7700X is not the absolute fastest processor available. This indicates that the game's performance is dominated by the GPU, and the CPU's 8-core, 16-thread configuration with high boost clocks is more than sufficient to keep pace. The combo rank of 8 out of 3,724 suggests that only seven other CPU-GPU pairings deliver higher frame rates in this title, which is an impressive achievement for a mid-range enthusiast CPU paired with a high-end GPU.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this configuration, and its specifications explain the measured performance. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is well-suited for The Medium's high-resolution textures and complex lighting effects, as the game's horror aesthetic relies heavily on detailed environments. The 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores provide substantial ray tracing and AI acceleration capabilities, though the measured FPS data does not specify whether ray tracing is enabled in these presets.

The GPU's boost clock of 2505 MHz and base clock of 2205 MHz, combined with 9,728 shading units, deliver a peak FP32 throughput of 48.74 TFLOPS. This raw compute power is evident in the 4K Medium result of 100 FPS, which is a demanding workload for any GPU. The RTX 4080's texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s ensure that the game's fixed-camera scenes, which often feature intricate background details, are rendered without texture streaming bottlenecks.

The GPU's benchmark results show a PassMark G3D score of 34,457 and a PassMark GPU Compute score of 20,671, placing it at the 86th percentile against all GPUs. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,567 indicates strong DirectX 12 performance, which is relevant for a game running on Unreal Engine 4. The RTX 4080's 16 GB of VRAM is particularly important for The Medium, as the game's dual-world mechanic—which renders two simultaneous environments—places significant memory pressure on the GPU. The measured FPS data shows consistent performance across all presets, suggesting that the 16 GB frame buffer is sufficient even at 4K Ultra.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the system delivers the following average frame rates across presets: Low at 131 FPS, Medium at 100 FPS, High at 76 FPS, and Ultra at 72 FPS. The Medium preset is the only 4K configuration with reported variance, showing a minimum of 85 FPS and a maximum of 114 FPS. This 29 FPS range indicates some scene-to-scene variability, but the minimum remains well above playable thresholds. The gap between High and Ultra at 4K is only 4 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional effects have minimal impact on performance at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates are: Low at 181 FPS, Medium at 164 FPS, High at 129 FPS, and Ultra at 123 FPS. The Medium preset reports a minimum of 139 FPS and a maximum of 188 FPS, showing a similar 49 FPS range as the 4K Medium setting. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 58 FPS, which is proportionally smaller than the 59 FPS spread at 4K. This suggests that the GPU is still the primary constraint at 1440p, but the CPU's influence is becoming more apparent as the pixel count decreases.

At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are: Low at 205 FPS, Medium at 186 FPS, High at 168 FPS, and Ultra at 165 FPS. The Medium preset reports a minimum of 158 FPS and a maximum of 213 FPS, which is the widest variance range across all tested configurations. The 40 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is the smallest across all resolutions, indicating that the CPU is beginning to limit performance at this resolution. The 205 FPS Low result is the highest measured frame rate in the entire dataset, and it represents the practical ceiling for this CPU-GPU combination in The Medium.