The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding fixed-camera horror experience, and the data for the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F with the AMD Radeon RX 570 shows a system heavily constrained by its graphics card. The measured frames per second (FPS) across all settings and resolutions tell a consistent story of a GPU struggling to keep pace, making the choice of in-game settings the single most critical decision for playability.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the Low preset is the only viable configuration for achieving a playable experience, and even then, only at 1920x1080. At this resolution, the Low preset yields an average of 44 FPS, which is the highest average recorded for this combo in any configuration. While this is not a high-refresh-rate experience, it is the only setting that approaches the generally accepted threshold for smooth gameplay. The 2560x1440 Low preset produces 37 FPS, which is playable but noticeably less fluid, while the 3840x2160 Low preset drops to 29 FPS, bordering on the edge of acceptability.

The Medium preset, which was tested with minimum and maximum FPS values, reveals the cost of increased visual fidelity. At 1920x1080, the average FPS drops to 28, with a minimum of 23 and a maximum of 32. This represents a 36% reduction in average FPS compared to the Low preset at the same resolution. The frame time consistency also suffers, as indicated by the 9 FPS spread between the minimum and maximum values, which can lead to noticeable stutter in a game that relies on atmospheric tension. At 2560x1440, Medium drops to a 23 FPS average (20 min, 27 max), and at 3840x2160, it falls to 18 FPS (15 min, 21 max).

The High and Ultra presets are not recommended for this hardware configuration. The High preset at 1920x1080 manages only a 20 FPS average, which is below the threshold for comfortable play. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, with a 16 FPS average at 1080p, 13 FPS at 1440p, and just 10 FPS at 4K. The data strongly suggests that for this specific combination of CPU and GPU, the High and Ultra presets are essentially for static screenshots rather than interactive gameplay. The performance cliff between Low and Medium, and again between Medium and High, indicates that the game's higher presets introduce rendering features that are disproportionately taxing on the RX 570's capabilities. For the best experience, the data points unambiguously to 1920x1080 with the Low preset, sacrificing visual polish for functional frame rates.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570, with its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, is the primary bottleneck in this configuration. The benchmark results show a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, which is a classic sign of a GPU struggling with fill-rate and memory bandwidth demands. The card’s 224.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth and 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 compute are simply insufficient for The Medium’s higher-fidelity modes at higher resolutions.

The VRAM capacity is a significant concern. The Medium is a game that likely utilizes substantial texture data, and the 4 GB frame buffer is a limiting factor. While the measured data doesn't explicitly show VRAM overflow, the severe FPS drops at 4K (13 FPS at High, 10 FPS at Ultra) compared to 1080p (20 FPS at High, 16 FPS at Ultra) suggest that the card is overwhelmed by the combination of resolution and texture quality. The 256-bit memory bus provides a theoretical bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s, but this is evidently not enough to feed the GPU's 2048 shading units when processing the game's complex scenes at higher settings.

The GPU's clocks, with a base of 1168 MHz and a boost of 1244 MHz, are modest by modern standards. The performance data indicates that these clocks, combined with the Polaris 20 chip's architecture (GCN 4.0), are the ceiling for this system. The card’s percentile rank of 74 versus all GPUs places it in the mid-range, but the measured FPS in The Medium show it performing at the lower end of playability. The nearestRivals data shows it performing within a narrow band of similar GPUs, with a 0.7% lead over the AMD Radeon R9 M295X and a 0.8% deficit against the AMD Radeon RX 470, confirming its position in the performance hierarchy. The RX 570 is an end-of-life product, and its age is evident in these results, where it cannot handle the game's demands beyond the lowest settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this hardware?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 44 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: Is this system capable of running The Medium at 4K resolution?

A: Technically yes, but not playably. At 3840x2160, the best average FPS is 29 on the Low preset. The Medium preset averages 18 FPS, High averages 13 FPS, and Ultra averages 10 FPS.

Q: How much of a performance drop occurs when moving from the Low to Medium preset?

A: At 1920x1080, the average FPS drops from 44 on Low to 28 on Medium, a reduction of 16 FPS or approximately 36%. This significant drop indicates a large increase in GPU workload.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU bottleneck this system in The Medium?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The FPS scales dramatically with resolution and settings, which is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario, while the CPU's strong benchmark scores suggest it is not the limiting factor.

Q: What is the performance difference between the RX 570 and its closest rival, the RX 470?

A: According to the average benchmark scores, the RX 570 is 0.8% slower than the AMD Radeon RX 470, indicating they are virtually identical in overall performance.

Q: Are the High and Ultra presets usable for gameplay?

A: No. The highest average FPS on the High preset is 20 at 1920x1080, and the Ultra preset's highest average is 16 at the same resolution. These are below the generally accepted threshold for smooth, interactive gameplay.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of the system's capabilities across all tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the performance spans from a playable 44 FPS average on Low to an unplayable 16 FPS average on Ultra. The Medium preset offers a middle ground at 28 FPS, with a recorded range of 23 to 32 FPS, while the High preset sits at 20 FPS. This resolution shows the widest gap between the lowest and highest settings, demonstrating the GPU's sensitivity to the game's graphical features.

Moving to 2560x1440, the overall performance drops significantly. The Low preset averages 37 FPS, which is still a 7 FPS decrease from the 1080p result. The Medium preset averages 23 FPS (20-27 FPS range), and the High preset falls to 17 FPS. The Ultra preset is nearly unplayable at 13 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p highlights the GPU's limitations, as the increased pixel count directly impacts the fill-rate bound performance.

At 3840x2160, the system is clearly overmatched. The Low preset is the only one that remains in the field of playability, with a 29 FPS average. The Medium preset drops to 18 FPS (15-21 FPS range), the High preset to 13 FPS, and the Ultra preset to a slideshow-like 10 FPS. The progression across resolutions shows a consistent pattern: the RX 570's performance degrades sharply as the rendering resolution increases, with the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrowing in absolute FPS terms but widening in relative performance cost.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and AMD Radeon RX 570 combination ranks at 2793 out of 2911 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the bottom 4% of all tested systems, confirming that this is a severely underpowered configuration for this particular game. The rank is a relative measure of the total system performance, and given the GPU's age and the game's demanding nature, this low ranking is expected.

The combo's position is almost entirely dictated by the GPU. While the CPU is a modern, high-performance part, the RX 570 drags the entire system down. The rank of 2793 means that the vast majority of tested systems will deliver a better experience in this game. The data shows that even with the most favorable settings (1080p Low), the system only achieves a 44 FPS average, which is not a smooth experience for many players. This low rank is a clear indicator that this hardware pairing is not suited for The Medium, and users would need to significantly lower their expectations for visual quality and frame rate to play it at all.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a high-end desktop processor based on the Zen 5 architecture. It features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its benchmark scores are impressive, with a Passmark multithread score of 36470 and a single-thread score of 4691. The CPU's percentile rank of 94 versus all CPUs places it in the top 6% of processors, and its average benchmark score of 69996 puts it in a virtual tie with its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i7-14700KF (0.2% slower) and the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (0.7% faster).

However, in The Medium, the CPU's role is largely passive due to the GPU bottleneck. The measured FPS data shows that performance scales almost entirely with resolution and graphics settings, which are GPU-bound variables. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see similar FPS across different resolutions at the same settings, as the CPU's workload (physics, game logic, draw calls) would remain constant. Instead, we see FPS drop significantly from 1080p to 4K (e.g., 44 to 29 FPS on Low), which is the definitive signature of a GPU bottleneck. The Ryzen 7 9700F has ample processing power to feed the RX 570, but the GPU simply cannot render the frames fast enough to utilize the CPU's full potential. The CPU's strong single-thread and multi-thread performance ensures that it is not causing any additional stuttering or frame drops, but its capabilities are effectively wasted in this pairing for this specific game.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior in The Medium provides clear evidence of the system's bottleneck. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on the Low preset results in an FPS drop from 44 to 37, a decrease of 7 FPS or roughly 16%. Moving further to 3840x2160 drops the average to 29 FPS, another 8 FPS decrease (approximately 22% from the 1440p result). This consistent decline with increasing pixel count is a textbook example of GPU-bound scaling. The rendering workload increases with the number of pixels, and the RX 570's fixed computational resources are spread thinner, resulting in lower frame rates.

The scaling is even more pronounced on the Medium preset. The average FPS goes from 28 at 1080p to 23 at 1440p (an 18% drop) and then to 18 at 4K (a 22% drop from 1440p). This shows that the GPU's memory bandwidth and shading power are insufficient for the higher resolutions, even at moderate settings. The High and Ultra presets show even steeper relative declines, though the absolute numbers are already so low that the percentage changes are less meaningful for gameplay.

This scaling pattern confirms that the limiting component is the GPU. A CPU-bound system would show a much flatter FPS curve across resolutions, as the CPU's workload would not increase with resolution. The data's clear and consistent FPS drops at every resolution step point directly to the AMD Radeon RX 570 as the sole bottleneck. The Ryzen 7 9700F is likely capable of much higher frame rates in this game, but it is held back by the GPU's inability to render frames quickly enough. For users of this combo, the only path to a better experience is to reduce the resolution and settings to the absolute minimum, as the data shows no other configuration provides a playable result.