The Medium

Resolution Scaling

The Medium presents a steep performance curve as resolution climbs, and the data for the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combination shows a clear transition from CPU-bound to GPU-bound behavior. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 162.1 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 137.2 FPS, a 15.4% reduction. At 4K Low, the average falls to 109.4 FPS, which is 32.5% below the 1080p Low figure. This scaling pattern indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU well, but the render load is already starting to bite.

The gap widens dramatically when settings are raised. At High settings, the frame rate goes from 72.5 FPS at 1080p to 58.7 FPS at 1440p, then to 48.2 FPS at 4K. That is a 33.5% total drop from 1080p to 4K. The Ultra preset is even more demanding: 57.9 FPS at 1080p, 48.1 FPS at 1440p, and only 38.4 FPS at 4K. The delta between 1080p and 4K at Ultra is 33.7%, nearly identical to the High preset drop.

The limiting component shifts as resolution increases. At 1080p Ultra, the system still manages 57.9 FPS, suggesting that the RTX 5070 has enough headroom to process frames quickly, and the Ryzen 7 7700X with its 8 cores and 16 threads keeps up. By 4K Ultra, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as the pixel throughput requirement—4,096 by 2,160—overwhelms the render pipeline. The data shows that the gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 104.2 FPS, while at 4K that same gap shrinks to 71.0 FPS. When the GPU is saturated, the difference between presets becomes less about CPU limits and more about raw shading and texture work.

Interestingly, the Medium preset shows the most balanced scaling. At 1080p Medium, the combo hits 100.7 FPS. At 1440p Medium, 82.7 FPS. At 4K Medium, 67.4 FPS. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Medium is 33.1%, which is consistent with the High and Ultra presets. This consistency suggests that The Medium's renderer scales uniformly across its quality levels, with no single setting causing a disproportionate hit.

For players targeting 60 FPS, the data indicates that 4K High is not achievable with this combo, as it averages 48.2 FPS. Dropping to 4K Medium brings the average to 67.4 FPS, a comfortable margin above 60. At 1440p, High yields 58.7 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS threshold, but Medium at 82.7 FPS provides plenty of headroom. At 1080p, even Ultra manages 57.9 FPS, and High reaches 72.5 FPS. The resolution scaling analysis shows that this combination is best suited for 1080p Ultra or 1440p Medium if the goal is a locked 60 FPS experience, while 4K requires Medium settings or lower to stay fluid.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for a 60 FPS target in The Medium with this hardware?

A: Based on the measured data, 4K Medium averages 67.4 FPS, which clears the 60 FPS bar. At 1440p, Medium averages 82.7 FPS, and High averages 58.7 FPS, which is just under 60. At 1080p, all presets except Ultra (57.9 FPS) exceed 60 FPS, with High at 72.5 FPS and Low at 162.1 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 perform relative to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5070's average benchmark score is 41,687. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 5300, scores 41,610, which is 0.2% lower. The NVIDIA Tesla M40 scores 41,897, a 0.5% advantage. The RTX 5070 sits between these two in the aggregate, with a percentile ranking of 83 among all GPUs.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 7700X a strong match for the RTX 5070 in this game?

A: The CPU's synthetic scores show it is a solid partner. In Cinebench R23, the 7700X scores 30,325 multi-core and 4,281 single-core. In Geekbench, it scores 15,538 multi-core and 2,985 single-core. The measured FPS data confirms that at 1080p Low, the combo reaches 162.1 FPS, indicating the CPU can drive high frame rates without holding the GPU back.

Q: What are the 3DMark results for the CPU, and how do they translate to gaming?

A: The Ryzen 7 7700X scores 8,859 in 3DMark with 16 threads and 8,852 with max threads. Its single-thread score is 1,090, and its 2-thread score is 2,112. In The Medium, these translate to strong performance at lower resolutions, where CPU throughput matters most.

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

A: The combo ranks 299th out of 1,689 tested combinations, placing it in the top 17.7% of all systems tested for this game. This ranking reflects the balance between the 8-core CPU and the Blackwell-architecture GPU.

Q: Does the GPU's ray tracing performance matter in this game?

A: The RTX 5070 has 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores, which support DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4. The Medium is a horror game with fixed camera angles and pre-rendered lighting, so the measured FPS data indicates that traditional rasterization, not ray tracing, drives the performance numbers shown here.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is built on the Zen 4 architecture with a Raphael codename, fabricated on TSMC's 5 nm process. It packs 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 4.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. The 105 W TDP and unlocked multiplier make it a flexible desktop part, but for The Medium, the key figures are its multi-threaded throughput and single-core speed.

The benchmark results show a CPU that excels in both areas. Cinebench R23 multi-core scores 30,325, while single-core hits 4,281. Geekbench reports 15,538 multi-core and 2,985 single-core. The 3DMark suite shows scaling from 2,112 with 2 threads to 8,859 with 16 threads, indicating that the CPU utilizes its full thread count efficiently. PassMark multi-thread scores 35,686, and single-thread scores 4,190.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p Low, where the combo achieves 162.1 FPS. This is the highest average in the measured dataset, and it demonstrates that the Ryzen 7 7700X can feed the RTX 5070 enough data to saturate the GPU at lower resolutions. The 8-core, 16-thread configuration is well-suited for a game that likely uses multiple threads for audio, AI, and streaming level geometry.

The cache hierarchy—64 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3—provides ample bandwidth for the CPU's memory controller, which supports DDR5 over a dual-channel bus at 83.2 GB/s. This memory bandwidth is critical for maintaining high frame rates when the CPU is actively loading assets in a horror game with large, detailed environments.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 89 among all CPUs confirms its position as a high-end processor. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-13500, scores 34,175, a mere 0.4% lower. The Intel Core i7-12800HX scores 34,136, a 0.5% deficit. On the other side, the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H scores 34,584, a 0.8% advantage, and the AMD EPYC 4244P scores 34,599, also 0.8% higher. This tight grouping shows that the Ryzen 7 7700X sits at the upper edge of its performance class.

For gaming, the single-core performance is often the deciding factor, and the 7700X's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,281 is strong. The boost clock of 5.40 GHz ensures that single-threaded game logic runs at high speed. The measured FPS data supports this: at 1440p Low, the combo still hits 137.2 FPS, and at 4K Low, it achieves 109.4 FPS, indicating that even when the GPU is less stressed, the CPU does not become a limiting factor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The dataset provides 12 measured FPS points across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 162.1 FPS, the highest number in the entire dataset. Medium at 1080p drops to 100.7 FPS, High to 72.5 FPS, and Ultra to 57.9 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 61.4 FPS reduction, while the step from Medium to High is 28.2 FPS, and High to Ultra is 14.6 FPS. This diminishing return pattern suggests that Ultra settings add visual fidelity without a proportional performance cost relative to the earlier steps.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 137.2 FPS, Medium 82.7 FPS, High 58.7 FPS, and Ultra 48.1 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low is 24.9 FPS, at Medium it is 18.0 FPS, at High it is 13.8 FPS, and at Ultra it is 9.8 FPS. This shows that as settings increase, the resolution penalty becomes smaller in absolute terms, again pointing to the GPU becoming the primary constraint at higher quality levels.

At 3840x2160, the numbers compress further. Low averages 109.4 FPS, Medium 67.4 FPS, High 48.2 FPS, and Ultra 38.4 FPS. The transition from 1440p to 4K at Low costs 27.8 FPS, at Medium 15.3 FPS, at High 10.5 FPS, and at Ultra 9.7 FPS. The Ultra preset's drop from 1440p to 4K is remarkably consistent with the High preset's drop, suggesting that both presets are hitting similar GPU limits.

The game's genre as a horror title with fixed camera angles means that the renderer's workload is consistent across scenes, avoiding the variability seen in open-world games. The data shows no min or max FPS figures, only averages, so the stability of these numbers cannot be assessed. However, the averages alone indicate that the RTX 5070 with 12 GB of GDDR7 memory and a 192-bit bus can handle 4K Medium at 67.4 FPS, which is a playable experience for most users.

For competitive or high-refresh-rate play, 1080p Low at 162.1 FPS is the only preset that exceeds 144 Hz. 1080p Medium at 100.7 FPS and 1440p Low at 137.2 FPS are suitable for 120 Hz displays. The 4K Ultra figure of 38.4 FPS is below the 40 FPS threshold often cited for cinematic games, but the Medium preset at 4K offers a better balance.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combination ranks 299th out of 1,689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 82.3rd percentile. This is a strong showing, considering the game's release date of January 2021, which predates both the CPU (September 2022) and the GPU (March 2025). The combo is newer than the game itself, and the data shows that it handles the horror title with ease at most settings.

The ranking reflects the balance between the CPU and GPU. The Ryzen 7 7700X's average benchmark score of 34,313 places it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, while the RTX 5070's average score of 41,687 places it in the 83rd percentile of GPUs. The combo's in-game rank of 299 is slightly lower than the CPU's percentile, which suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing for The Medium's specific workload.

The nearest CPU rivals show how close the 7700X is to its competition. The Intel Core i5-13500 is 0.4% slower, the Intel Core i7-12800HX is 0.5% slower, while the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H and AMD EPYC 4244P are 0.8% faster. These small deltas mean that swapping the CPU for any of these parts would not significantly change the in-game FPS, reinforcing that the GPU is the primary determinant of performance in this title.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5070's rivals are a mixed bag. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 is 0.2% slower, the NVIDIA Tesla M40 is 0.5% faster, and the AMD Radeon Pro 580X is 0.7% slower. The RTX 3090, a previous-generation flagship, is 0.6% slower than the RTX 5070 in synthetic benchmarks. This suggests that the RTX 5070 is positioned between older high-end cards and professional workstation parts.

In practical terms, the combo's rank of 299 means that 1,390 tested combinations performed worse in The Medium. This places the system in the upper tier of gaming hardware, capable of delivering 60+ FPS at 4K Medium and 100+ FPS at 1080p Medium. For a horror game that relies on atmosphere over fast-paced action, the 67.4 FPS average at 4K Medium is more than sufficient, and the 48.2 FPS at 4K High still provides a cinematic experience.

The data confirms that the Ryzen 7 7700X is not a bottleneck for the RTX 5070 in this game. At 1080p Low, the 162.1 FPS result shows the CPU can push well beyond typical refresh rates, and the scaling pattern across resolutions is consistent with GPU-bound behavior. The combo's rank of 299 out of 1,689 confirms the hardware's overall capability, even though it falls short of the top 10% of systems. For players seeking a high-quality horror experience at 1440p or 4K, this pairing delivers reliable performance across the board.