The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER pairing delivers a starkly tiered performance profile in The Medium, where the GPU’s raw throughput dominates at lower settings, but the engine’s demands at higher presets reveal a system that scales predictably with resolution. This combination lands in the 137th spot out of 2,911 tested configurations, placing it in the top 5% of all recorded hardware pairings for this title, a position driven largely by the RTX 4080 SUPER’s substantial memory bandwidth and the 9700F’s high single-thread throughput.

Resolution Scaling

The performance curve from 1080p to 4K shows a classic GPU-bound progression, but with an unusual twist: the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens dramatically as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 190 FPS, which drops to 85 FPS at High, a 55% reduction that suggests the CPU is still feeding frames efficiently at lower resolutions. Moving to 2560x1440, the same Low-to-High transition sees 160 FPS fall to 72 FPS, a 55% drop that mirrors the 1080p pattern, indicating the GPU is becoming the primary limiter at this resolution.

The 4K results tell a more complex story. At 3840x2160, Low settings yield 126 FPS, which is 34% slower than the 1080p Low figure, showing that even at the lowest preset, the pixel count begins to tax the RTX 4080 SUPER. However, the jump from Low to Medium at 4K is severe: 126 FPS drops to 79 FPS, a 37% hit, and then further to 56 FPS at High and 45 FPS at Ultra. That Ultra figure is only 24% of the 1080p Low score, revealing that The Medium’s higher presets introduce rendering features that scale non-linearly with resolution.

The data suggests that at 1080p and 1440p, the Ryzen 7 9700F is capable of keeping the GPU fed at Low and Medium settings, but at 4K, the RTX 4080 SUPER’s 16 GB frame buffer and 736.3 GB/s bandwidth become the bottleneck, especially at High and Ultra where the game’s fixed-function effects multiply pixel work. The 1440p Medium result of 100 FPS with a min of 85 and max of 115 shows a stable frame time distribution, whereas the 4K Medium’s 67-90 FPS range indicates more variance, pointing to shader complexity rather than memory capacity as the limiting factor. In practical terms, this combo is best suited for 1440p High or 4K Medium, as the scaling from 1440p to 4K at Ultra (57 to 45 FPS) shows a 21% degradation that pushes the experience below the 60 FPS threshold.

How This Combo Ranks

With a rank of 137 out of 2,911 tested combinations, this pairing sits in the 95.3rd percentile, which is remarkably high for a mid-generation CPU paired with a previous-generation flagship GPU. The ranking reflects the RTX 4080 SUPER’s position against its nearest rivals: it scores 54,209 on average, which is only 0.1% behind the standard RTX 4080 (54,247) and 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54,828). This puts the SUPER variant in a virtual tie with its non-SUPER predecessor, meaning the performance advantage in The Medium comes more from driver optimization than raw hardware differences.

The CPU side of the equation reinforces this. The Ryzen 7 9700F posts an average benchmark score of 69,996, which is 0.2% above the Ryzen 9 7940HX (69,875) and 0.7% below the Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515). Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-14700KF, scores 70,163, a 0.2% delta that places the 9700F in a tight competitive cluster. In The Medium, this CPU’s single-thread score of 4,691 and multithread score of 36,470 suggest it can handle the game’s AI and scripting workload, but the rank is ultimately driven by the GPU, since the game is visually intensive rather than physics-heavy.

The 137th rank out of 2,911 means this combo outperforms approximately 95% of all tested systems, which is notable because the RTX 4080 SUPER is end-of-life and the 9700F was released later. The combination’s percentile ranking of 86 for the GPU and 94 for the CPU indicates that both components are above-average individually, and their synergy in The Medium produces a result that exceeds what either component’s percentile would suggest, likely due to the game’s moderate thread usage that favors the 9700F’s high boost clock of 5.50 GHz.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this hardware?

A: The data shows 1440p High provides 72 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS playability threshold, while 4K Medium offers 79 FPS with a min of 67, making it the highest visual quality option that stays consistently smooth. For a locked 60 FPS experience, 4K High at 56 FPS is borderline, so 1440p Ultra at 57 FPS is the ceiling for that resolution.

Q: Is the RTX 4080 SUPER holding back the Ryzen 7 9700F?

A: No, the opposite is true. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 190 FPS, which is close to the CPU’s practical limit, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU’s 45 FPS is clearly the bottleneck. The CPU’s 8 cores and 16 threads are sufficient for The Medium’s workload, as evidenced by the 1080p High score of 85 FPS, which is still GPU-limited.

Q: How does the 9700F compare to its closest CPU rivals in this game?

A: The 9700F’s average score of 69,996 is 0.2% higher than the Ryzen 9 7940HX and 0.2% lower than the Intel Core i7-14700KF, but in The Medium, the difference is negligible because the game is not CPU-bound at standard settings. The 9700F’s 5.50 GHz boost clock gives it an edge in single-threaded tasks that the game uses for its fixed-timestep logic.

Q: Should I use ray tracing or DLSS with this combo?

A: The FACT PACK does not include ray tracing or DLSS data for The Medium, and the measured FPS values are from standard rasterization. The RTX 4080 SUPER’s 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores would support these features, but without measured numbers, no definitive claim can be made about their impact.

Q: Why is the 4K Ultra score so much lower than 4K High?

A: The drop from 56 FPS at High to 45 FPS at Ultra is a 20% regression, which is consistent with the game’s Ultra preset enabling additional volumetric effects and higher-quality shadows that tax the GPU’s 52.22 TFLOPS FP32 throughput. The 16 GB VRAM is not the issue, as the capacity is sufficient; it is the shader complexity that reduces frame rates.

Q: Is this combo future-proof for upcoming horror titles?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER’s 86th percentile ranking and the 9700F’s 94th percentile ranking suggest both are strong, but the GPU’s end-of-life status and the CPU’s 65W TDP indicate this pairing is more about current-gen performance than future headroom. The 16 GB GDDR6X memory is a positive, but the 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 6,600 shows it is not a top-tier card for next-gen workloads.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the performance envelope is wide, with Low settings hitting 190 FPS, Medium at 119 FPS (min 101, max 137), High at 85 FPS, and Ultra at 68 FPS. The 1080p Medium frame times show a 36 FPS spread, which is the largest relative variance across all resolutions, indicating that the game’s medium preset introduces effects that cause spikes on this hardware. The 1080p Ultra score of 68 FPS is 21% below the High score, suggesting that the Ultra preset at this resolution is still GPU-limited, but the CPU has enough headroom to avoid being a constraint.

Moving to 2560x1440, the scores are 160 FPS at Low, 100 FPS at Medium (min 85, max 115), 72 FPS at High, and 57 FPS at Ultra. The 1440p Low score is 16% lower than 1080p Low, which is a smaller drop than expected, confirming that the CPU’s 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth is sufficient for lower settings. The 1440p High score of 72 FPS is 15% lower than 1080p High, and the Ultra score of 57 FPS is 16% lower than 1080p Ultra, showing a consistent scaling factor that points to the GPU’s pixel throughput as the limiter.

At 3840x2160, the results are 126 FPS at Low, 79 FPS at Medium (min 67, max 90), 56 FPS at High, and 45 FPS at Ultra. The 4K Low score of 126 FPS is a 34% drop from 1440p Low, which is proportionally larger than the 1440p-to-1080p drop, indicating that the RTX 4080 SUPER’s 736.3 GB/s bandwidth is stretched at 4K even on low settings. The 4K Medium frame range of 67-90 FPS shows a 23 FPS variance, which is tighter than the 1080p Medium spread, suggesting that at higher resolutions, the GPU’s consistent workload reduces frame time spikes. The 4K Ultra score of 45 FPS is the only result below the 60 FPS threshold, and it represents a 21% degradation from 4K High, making it the least optimal setting for this combo.

GPU Role

The RTX 4080 SUPER’s 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for The Medium’s high-resolution textures. The 4K Medium score of 79 FPS versus the 4K High score of 56 FPS shows a 29% drop, and this is not due to memory capacity, as the game’s texture budget likely fits within 16 GB. Instead, the difference lies in the GPU’s compute resources: 10,240 shading units and 112 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s, but the Ultra preset’s additional lighting calculations reduce the effective fill rate.

The GPU’s boost clock of 2550 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz are modest for a 320W card, but the 52.22 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is what drives the 1080p Low score of 190 FPS. The 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 6,600 and Passmark G3D score of 34,245 place the 4080 SUPER in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rival, the standard RTX 4080, is only 0.1% faster on average. This means the SUPER variant’s advantage is negligible in The Medium, and the performance differences between settings are more attributable to the game’s engine than to the GPU’s clock speed.

The memory clock of 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective) results in a bandwidth that is sufficient for 4K, but the 4K Ultra score of 45 FPS suggests that the GPU’s compute units are the limiting factor, not the memory subsystem. The 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present but unused in the measured data, as The Medium does not require ray tracing for its core rendering. The GPU’s 5 nm process node and 45,900 million transistors give it a density of 121.1M per mm², but this does not translate to a linear FPS advantage, as the game’s fixed-function units are the primary determinant of performance.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 9700F’s 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 5 architecture, provide a solid foundation for The Medium’s CPU demands. The base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz are high for a 65W TDP, and the 4 nm process node from TSMC allows for efficient power delivery. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB per-core L2 cache are adequate for the game’s data streaming, and the 89.6 GB/s DDR5 memory bandwidth is a significant advantage over older platforms.

In the benchmark results, the 9700F’s single-thread score of 4,691 and multithread score of 36,470 are strong, with the Passmark data compression score of 421,988 indicating high integer performance. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 94 places it above the average, and its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-14700KF, scores 70,163, which is 0.2% higher. This delta is negligible in The Medium, as the game’s frame rates are primarily GPU-bound at higher settings, but at 1080p Low (190 FPS), the CPU’s boost clock of 5.50 GHz is likely the reason the combo avoids a CPU bottleneck.

The 9700F’s 16 threads are sufficient for The Medium’s multi-threaded rendering, but the game’s fixed-timestep logic benefits from the high single-thread performance. The Passmark physics score of 2,122 is modest, but it does not impact this title, which relies more on scripted events than real-time physics. The CPU’s 65W TDP and AM5 socket compatibility make it a sensible pairing with the 320W GPU, as the total system power draw is manageable, though the data does not include specific power consumption figures for the game. The 9700F’s release date of 2025-09-15 is later than the GPU’s 2024-01-30, but this does not affect compatibility, and the combo’s rank of 137 out of 2,911 confirms that the pairing is well-balanced for The Medium’s specific workload.