The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and AMD Radeon RX 9070 combination lands at rank 797 out of 2911 tested combos for The Medium. This places the pairing in the top 27.4% of all tested systems, a solid position for a horror title that demands both strong CPU throughput for scene logic and robust GPU performance for its fixed-camera environments. The rank suggests this combo is well above the median tested system, though the measured frame rates reveal that the experience varies dramatically depending on the resolution and preset selected. The data indicates a configuration capable of smooth play at lower resolutions, but one that struggles to maintain high refresh rates at 4K with maximum quality settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 797 out of 2911 tested combinations places this system in the upper quartile of all pairings tested for The Medium. This is a meaningful distinction — it outperforms roughly 72.6% of all combos in the database for this specific game. The ranking reflects the balance between the Ryzen 7 9700F's strong multi-threaded capabilities and the RX 9070's substantial graphics horsepower. The data shows that this is not an entry-level pairing; it sits comfortably above the median, but it also does not approach the top-tier configurations that would be required to hit maximum frame rates at the highest settings and resolution.

Looking at the CPU’s standalone position, the Ryzen 7 9700F holds a 94th percentile ranking against all CPUs. Its nearest rivals in raw benchmark scores include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, which trails by just 0.2%, and the Intel Core i7-14700KF, which leads by 0.2%. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is 0.7% ahead, and the Intel Core i7-14700K is 0.9% ahead. These are extremely tight margins — the 9700F is effectively trading blows with last-generation flagship desktop parts. For GPU, the RX 9070 sits at the 69th percentile against all GPUs, with its nearest rival being the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER at 1.2% ahead and the AMD Radeon RX 6800S at 0.8% behind. This GPU percentile is notably lower than the CPU percentile, suggesting the graphics card is the more limiting factor in this pairing.

The gap between CPU and GPU percentiles — 94th versus 69th — explains much of the measured behavior in The Medium. The processor has headroom that the graphics card cannot fully utilize at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the combo manages an average of 141 FPS on Low settings, which is excellent, but at 4K Ultra, the average drops to 33 FPS. This pattern indicates that the RX 9070’s relative weakness, compared to the CPU’s strength, becomes the dominant constraint as pixel count increases.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is built on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) using a 4 nm process from TSMC. It features 8 cores and 16 threads, a base clock of 3.80 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. The processor has a 65 W TDP, which is modest for a desktop part with this core count, and it supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 32 MB L3 cache. The CPU is unlocked, allowing for overclocking, and it uses the AMD Socket AM5.

In The Medium, the CPU’s role is to handle the game’s fixed-camera scene management, object interactions, and the asynchronous loading that occurs when the game switches between the two parallel worlds. The 8 cores and 16 threads provide substantial parallel processing capability, which is reflected in the PassMark multithread score of 36,470. The single-thread score of 4,691 indicates strong per-core performance, which is critical for games that rely on a primary render thread. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 141 FPS, and at 1080p Medium, it still manages 88 FPS. These numbers suggest that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at lower resolutions — the frame rates are high enough that the GPU is likely doing most of the work.

However, the CPU’s influence becomes more apparent when examining the scaling from Low to Ultra settings at each resolution. At 1080p, the drop from Low (141 FPS) to Ultra (50 FPS) is a 64.5% reduction. This is a massive performance penalty that is not purely GPU-driven; the game’s CPU-side effects, such as increased draw calls and physics calculations at higher presets, also play a role. The Ryzen 7 9700F’s 32 MB L3 cache and high boost clock help mitigate these demands, but the absolute frame rate at Ultra remains below the 60 FPS threshold. The CPU’s PassMark physics score of 2,122 and floating-point math score of 77,955 indicate robust computational throughput, yet the game’s engine appears to scale poorly with settings, a characteristic of The Medium’s fixed-camera design where scene complexity increases exponentially with quality presets.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is based on the Navi 48 chip using RDNA 4.0 architecture, manufactured on a 4 nm process. It has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s. The GPU’s base clock is 1330 MHz, with a boost clock of 2520 MHz and a game clock of 2070 MHz. It features 3584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 128 raster output units. The card has 56 ray tracing cores and delivers a pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is rated at 36.13 TFLOPS, and the GPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6.

In The Medium, the GPU’s memory capacity and bandwidth are crucial because the game renders two versions of the environment simultaneously during the dual-world segments. The 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for the game’s texture loads, and the 644.6 GB/s bandwidth ensures that data can be streamed quickly. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU’s performance scales predictably with resolution. At 1080p Medium, the average FPS is 88 with a minimum of 75 and a maximum of 101. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 74 with a minimum of 63 and a maximum of 85. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 58 with a minimum of 50 and a maximum of 67.

These numbers reveal a clear GPU bottleneck as resolution increases. The drop from 1080p Medium to 4K Medium is 34.1%, which is consistent with the increase in pixel count. The RX 9070’s PassMark G3D score of 25,381 places it at the 69th percentile among all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER (1.2% ahead) and the AMD Radeon RX 6800S (0.8% behind). This suggests the GPU is roughly on par with last-generation high-end cards, which explains why 4K Ultra (33 FPS) is not playable at high refresh rates. The GPU’s ray tracing cores are present but The Medium does not heavily rely on them, so the primary constraint is raw rasterization throughput at high resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves an average of 141 FPS on Low, 88 FPS on Medium (with a min of 75 and max of 101), 63 FPS on High, and 50 FPS on Ultra. These numbers show that 1080p is the sweet spot for this pairing — even Ultra settings remain above 30 FPS, and Medium delivers a highly playable experience with a decent margin above the 60 FPS threshold.

At 2560x1440, the averages drop to 119 FPS on Low, 74 FPS on Medium (min 63, max 85), 53 FPS on High, and 42 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p Medium setting is the only preset that maintains an average above 60 FPS, with a minimum of 63 FPS that ensures no significant drops below the threshold. High and Ultra fall below 60 FPS, with High at 53 FPS and Ultra at 42 FPS, making these presets less desirable for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 93 FPS on Low, 58 FPS on Medium (min 50, max 67), 42 FPS on High, and 33 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low setting is surprisingly playable at 93 FPS, but Medium drops to 58 FPS, which is borderline. High and Ultra are below 60 FPS, with Ultra at 33 FPS, which is likely to be a stuttery experience on a standard 60 Hz display. The minimum FPS of 50 at 4K Medium indicates that even this setting has occasional dips that could be noticeable.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound performance. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 88 at 1080p to 74 at 1440p (a 15.9% reduction) and then to 58 at 4K (a 21.6% reduction from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 34.1%. This scaling is roughly proportional to the pixel count increase, which is the hallmark of a GPU-limited scenario. The CPU has sufficient headroom to maintain instructions, but the GPU cannot render more pixels at the same rate.

At Low settings, the scaling is more dramatic. The average FPS drops from 141 at 1080p to 119 at 1440p (15.6% reduction) and then to 93 at 4K (21.8% reduction from 1440p), for a total drop of 34.0%. This is nearly identical to the Medium scaling, indicating that the GPU remains the bottleneck even at the lowest quality preset. The fact that Low settings do not shift the bottleneck to the CPU suggests that the Ryzen 7 9700F is not limiting at any resolution — the RX 9070 is always the constraining component.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is slightly different. The average FPS drops from 50 at 1080p to 42 at 1440p (16.0% reduction) and then to 33 at 4K (21.4% reduction from 1440p), for a total drop of 34.0%. The consistent scaling across all settings presets confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor throughout. The data implies that reducing resolution is the most effective way to increase frame rates, but lowering settings has a more pronounced effect — for example, at 4K, switching from Ultra (33 FPS) to Low (93 FPS) more than triples the frame rate, while switching from 4K to 1080p at Ultra only increases from 33 to 50 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the optimal experience depends heavily on the target resolution. At 1080p, Medium settings deliver an average of 88 FPS with a minimum of 75, providing a smooth and responsive experience that is ideal for the game’s horror atmosphere. High settings at 63 FPS are also acceptable, but the margin above 60 FPS is thin. Ultra at 50 FPS is playable but not ideal for a game that relies on ambient tension, as frame drops could be jarring.

At 1440p, Medium is the clear choice, with an average of 74 FPS and a minimum of 63 FPS that keeps the experience above the 60 FPS threshold. High at 53 FPS and Ultra at 42 FPS are below this threshold and are not recommended for a consistently smooth experience. Low at 119 FPS is an option for competitive play, but it sacrifices visual quality that enhances the horror atmosphere.

At 4K, the choices are more constrained. Low offers a surprising 93 FPS average, which is highly playable, but the visual compromise is significant — shadows, textures, and effects are all reduced. Medium at 58 FPS is borderline, with a minimum of 50 that could cause noticeable hitches during intense scenes. High at 42 FPS and Ultra at 33 FPS are not recommended for a game that benefits from fluid motion. For most players, the data suggests that 1080p Medium or 1440p Medium provides the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate stability, while 4K should be reserved for those who prioritize image quality over smoothness.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for a smooth experience in The Medium?

A: The data shows that 1080p Medium delivers an average of 88 FPS with a minimum of 75, and 1440p Medium delivers an average of 74 FPS with a minimum of 63. Both provide a stable experience above 60 FPS, making them the strongest candidates for smooth play.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in The Medium?

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K Low, the average is 93 FPS, which is playable. At 4K Medium, the average drops to 58 FPS with a minimum of 50, which is borderline. Higher presets at 4K result in averages below 45 FPS, which are not recommended.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F scores 69,996 on average, which is 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700KF, 0.7% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, and 0.9% behind the Intel Core i7-14700K. These are negligible differences in real-world performance.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RX 9070 scores 23,877 on average, which is 0.6% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z, 0.8% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6800S, 1.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile, and 1.2% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this combo?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU holds a 94th percentile ranking, while the GPU is at the 69th percentile. The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K is consistent across all settings, which is a hallmark of GPU-bound performance.

Q: What are the minimum and maximum FPS at the most balanced settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 75 FPS and the maximum is 101 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 63 FPS and the maximum is 85 FPS. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 50 FPS and the maximum is 67 FPS.