The Medium

The Medium is a fixed-camera horror title that leans heavily on atmosphere, and the benchmark data for the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 reveals a system that is clearly GPU-bound at every tested resolution. Across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, the measured average frame rates scale almost entirely with the graphics preset, while the CPU’s 8-core, 16-thread configuration provides more than enough headroom for this game’s demands. The result is a combo that delivers playable performance at lower settings, but struggles to maintain smooth motion at higher presets, particularly as resolution climbs toward 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for this combo shows a steep and predictable decline as resolution increases, with the gap between Low and Ultra settings widening dramatically at higher pixel counts. At 1920x1080, the average frame rate ranges from 83 FPS on Low to 30 FPS on Ultra, with Medium and High landing at 52 FPS and 37 FPS respectively. This 53 FPS spread between the lowest and highest presets indicates that even at 1080p, the RTX 2060’s rendering load is the primary constraint, as the CPU is unlikely to bottleneck a fixed-camera game at these frame rates.

Stepping up to 2560x1440, the averages drop to 70 FPS on Low, 44 FPS on Medium, 31 FPS on High, and 25 FPS on Ultra. The Low preset loses 13 FPS compared to 1080p, while the Ultra preset loses only 5 FPS, suggesting that the higher presets are already so demanding that additional resolution has a diminishing absolute impact on frame rate. The Medium preset at 1440p shows a minimum of 37 FPS and a maximum of 50 FPS, which indicates some frame pacing variance, but the overall trend is consistent with a GPU that is being pushed progressively harder.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more severe. The Low preset averages 55 FPS, which is still playable, but Medium drops to 34 FPS with a minimum of 29 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS. High falls to 25 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 20 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K on the Low preset is a 15 FPS loss, while the Medium preset loses 10 FPS, and the High and Ultra presets lose just 6 and 5 FPS respectively. This pattern reveals that the RTX 2060’s 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth become increasingly inadequate as pixel count rises, with the already-low frame rates at high presets leaving little room for further degradation.

The limiting component is unmistakably the GPU. The Ryzen 7 9700F, with its 5.50 GHz boost clock and 32 MB of shared L3 cache, does not appear to be the bottleneck in any of the twelve measured rows. If the CPU were the constraint, we would expect to see similar frame rates across resolutions at a given preset, but the data shows a consistent 20-30% drop from 1080p to 1440p and another 20-25% drop from 1440p to 4K on the Low and Medium presets. This is classic GPU-bound scaling, where the render resolution directly determines the frame rate.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a Zen 5 desktop processor built on TSMC’s 4 nm process, featuring 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its PassMark single-thread score of 4691 and multithread score of 36470 place it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 69996. For a game like The Medium, which uses fixed camera angles and does not typically stress many cores, the CPU’s high single-thread performance is the more relevant metric.

The nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark data are all within a narrow band of performance. The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX scores 69875, which is 0.2% lower than the 9700F, while the Intel Core i7-14700KF scores 70163, which is 0.2% higher. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Intel Core i7-14700K are 0.7% and 0.9% lower respectively, with scores of 69515 and 69355. This clustering means that in CPU-bound scenarios, the 9700F would perform nearly identically to these rivals, but the game’s measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU limitation.

The 65 W TDP and 89.6 GB/s dual-channel DDR5 memory bandwidth are ample for this title. The Medium’s measured frame rates at 1080p Low (83 FPS) and 1440p Low (70 FPS) are high enough that even a significantly faster CPU would not produce higher scores, because the GPU is already saturated. The PassMark physics score of 2122 and floating-point math score of 77955 further indicate strong computational throughput, which is irrelevant here because the game’s rendering pipeline is the bottleneck.

In terms of the CPU’s role specifically, the data suggests that the Ryzen 7 9700F is overqualified for The Medium. The game’s reliance on a few heavily optimized threads means that the 8-core, 16-thread configuration provides no advantage over a 6-core part in this title, but it also means that the CPU never causes frame drops. The minimum FPS values recorded for the Medium preset at all three resolutions (44 FPS at 1080p, 37 FPS at 1440p, and 29 FPS at 4K) are all above the average frame rates for the High preset, which indicates that the CPU is not introducing stutter or frame time spikes.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is a Turing-architecture GPU with 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs, paired with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus. Its memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s and boost clock of 1680 MHz give it a PassMark G3D score of 14111, placing it in the 58th percentile of all GPUs. The nearest GPU rivals in the benchmark data include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 with a score of 15283 (a 0% delta), the AMD Radeon 680M with 15270 (0.1% higher), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM with 15199 (0.6% higher). The AMD Radeon RX 7600 scores 15171, which is 0.8% higher than the RTX 2060.

These rival scores are remarkably close, indicating that the RTX 2060 sits in a narrow performance band. However, the measured FPS data for The Medium shows that this GPU is insufficient for high-quality settings at 4K, and only marginally acceptable at 1440p. The 6 GB VRAM is a particular concern, as the game’s textures and effects at High and Ultra presets likely exceed this capacity, leading to the steep frame rate drops seen in the data.

The GPU’s role is best illustrated by the scaling from Low to Ultra at each resolution. At 1080p, the RTX 2060 delivers 83 FPS on Low but only 30 FPS on Ultra, which is a 64% reduction. At 1440p, the same preset transition drops from 70 FPS to 25 FPS, a 64% reduction as well. At 4K, the Low preset averages 55 FPS, while Ultra averages 20 FPS, a 64% reduction again. This consistent percentage reduction across resolutions suggests that the GPU’s compute and memory resources are being exhausted in a predictable way as the quality settings increase.

The RTX 2060’s 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores are present, but The Medium’s measured FPS data does not include ray tracing or DLSS-specific rows, so their impact cannot be quantified here. The DirectX 12 score of 53 in PassMark is low, but the game’s actual performance at 1080p Low indicates that the GPU is still capable of high frame rates when settings are reduced. The pixel rate of 80.64 GPixel/s and texture rate of 201.6 GTexel/s are the theoretical limits, and the measured data shows that the GPU approaches these limits only at Low settings and lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the best experience for this combo is the Medium preset at 1920x1080, which delivers an average of 52 FPS with a minimum of 44 FPS and a maximum of 60 FPS. This is the only preset and resolution combination where the average frame rate exceeds 50 FPS while maintaining a minimum above 40 FPS, which is generally considered the threshold for smooth gameplay in a slow-paced horror title. The Low preset at 1080p offers 83 FPS, but the visual quality reduction is substantial, and the Medium preset provides a better balance of fidelity and performance.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset averages 44 FPS with a minimum of 37 FPS and a maximum of 50 FPS. This is playable but not ideal, as the minimum dips below 40 FPS. The Low preset at 1440p averages 70 FPS, which is smooth, but users who prioritize resolution over quality may find this acceptable. The High preset at 1440p averages 31 FPS, which is too low for consistent gameplay, and the Ultra preset at 25 FPS is not recommended.

At 3840x2160, the only viable option is the Low preset, which averages 55 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K averages 34 FPS, which is borderline, and the High and Ultra presets at 25 FPS and 20 FPS respectively are not playable in any meaningful sense. For 4K users, the data suggests that the RTX 2060 is not suited for this game beyond Low settings, and even then, the 55 FPS average is close to the edge of acceptability.

The Ultra preset is uniformly poor across all resolutions, with averages of 30 FPS at 1080p, 25 FPS at 1440p, and 20 FPS at 4K. The High preset is only marginally better, with 37 FPS at 1080p, 31 FPS at 1440p, and 25 FPS at 4K. These presets likely enable effects that the 6 GB VRAM cannot handle efficiently, causing the frame rate to drop below playable thresholds. The Medium preset is the clear sweet spot, as it provides a 52 FPS average at 1080p and a 44 FPS average at 1440p, with the latter being the highest resolution where this combo can maintain a minimum above 35 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks 2287 out of 2911 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the bottom 21% of all configurations. This low ranking is primarily due to the GPU’s age and limited VRAM, as the CPU’s 94th percentile performance is not enough to compensate for the GPU’s 58th percentile standing. The data indicates that this combo is better suited for 1080p gaming, where it can achieve acceptable frame rates on Medium settings, but it falls behind most modern configurations at higher resolutions.

The combo rank of 2287 out of 2911 means that roughly 624 tested combos perform worse, which puts this pairing in the lower quartile. This is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows that the combo cannot reach 60 FPS at any resolution on High or Ultra settings, and only reaches 60 FPS at 1080p Low. In a game like The Medium, which is not particularly demanding on CPU resources, the GPU is the sole determinant of the combo’s rank, and the RTX 2060’s performance is simply not competitive in 2025.

The delta between this combo and better-ranked configurations is likely significant, but the fact pack does not provide specific rival combo scores. However, the CPU’s nearest rivals (within 0.9% performance) and the GPU’s nearest rivals (within 0.8% performance) suggest that swapping either component for a slightly better part would not dramatically change the in-game results, because the bottleneck is the GPU’s memory capacity and bandwidth. A combo with the same CPU but a faster GPU would rank much higher, while a combo with a slower CPU but the same GPU would rank similarly.

The ranking also reflects the game’s release date of 2021-01-27, which means that the RTX 2060 was already two generations old when The Medium launched. The GPU’s end-of-life production status and 6 GB VRAM are the primary reasons for the low rank, as the game’s high-resolution textures and effects exceed the VRAM budget. The 9700F, released in 2025, is far newer and more capable, but it is wasted in this pairing for this specific title.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the combo can maintain an average above 50 FPS on the Medium preset, with 52 FPS average and 44 FPS minimum. At 2560x1440, the Medium preset drops to 44 FPS average, and at 3840x2160, only the Low preset exceeds 55 FPS.

Q: Can this combo run The Medium at 4K?

A: Yes, but only on the Low preset, which averages 55 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K averages 34 FPS, while High and Ultra average 25 FPS and 20 FPS respectively, which are not playable.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 9700F or the RTX 2060 the bottleneck in this game?

A: The GPU is the bottleneck. The CPU has a PassMark multithread score of 36470 and single-thread score of 4691, while the GPU has a PassMark G3D score of 14111. The measured FPS drops consistently with resolution and preset, which indicates GPU-bound performance.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 2060 has an average benchmark score of 15290. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 scores 15283 (a 0% delta), the AMD Radeon 680M scores 15270 (0.1% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM scores 15199 (0.6% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 scores 15171 (0.8% higher).

Q: What is the highest settings preset that maintains a minimum FPS above 40 at 1080p?

A: The Medium preset at 1080p has a minimum FPS of 44 and an average of 52 FPS. The High preset at 1080p averages 37 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 30 FPS, so Medium is the only preset with a minimum above 40 FPS.

Q: Why does the Ultra preset perform so poorly across all resolutions?

A: The Ultra preset averages 30 FPS at 1080p, 25 FPS at 1440p, and 20 FPS at 4K. This is consistent with the RTX 2060’s 6 GB VRAM and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth being insufficient for the preset’s memory demands, causing the frame rate to drop to unplayable levels regardless of resolution.