The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT delivers a playable but demanding experience in The Medium, with performance that hinges heavily on the selected graphics preset. The data shows a system that can handle 1080p and 1440p gaming comfortably at medium settings, but struggles to maintain smooth frame rates at higher presets, particularly at 4K. This combination ranks in the 43rd percentile of tested combos, indicating a mid-pack performer that requires careful settings tuning.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and clearly exposes the GPU as the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 125.7 FPS at 1920x1080 to 107.8 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of roughly 14%, and then plummets to 82.7 FPS at 3840x2160, a further 23% drop. This scaling pattern shows that even at the lowest settings, the pixel throughput demand of 4K significantly taxes the RX 7700 XT.

The situation becomes more pronounced at higher presets. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 53.6 FPS at 1080p to 44.7 FPS at 1440p, and then to 39.6 FPS at 4K. This represents a 26% total decrease from 1080p to 4K, which is less severe in percentage terms than at Low settings but results in a frame rate that is below the 40 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling, with the 45.9 FPS at 1080p falling to 35.7 FPS at 1440p and finally to 29.5 FPS at 4K, a 36% overall reduction.

The data indicates that the game's fixed camera angles and pre-rendered scenes do not alleviate the load on the GPU. At 1080p, the CPU has enough headroom to push the GPU to its limits, but as resolution increases, the GPU's rendering workload becomes dominant. The scaling from Medium to High settings at each resolution is also notable, with a consistent drop of roughly 20-30 FPS, suggesting that the Medium preset is the sweet spot for this hardware combination.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is the limiting factor in this configuration, especially at 1440p and 4K. The GPU's 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for the game's textures at 1080p and 1440p, but the data shows that the 4K Ultra preset (29.5 FPS) is simply too demanding. The boost clock of 2544 MHz and the game clock of 2171 MHz are relatively high, yet the GPU's FP32 performance of 35.17 TFLOPS is not enough to maintain fluid frame rates at higher resolutions with this horror title.

The RX 7700 XT's percentile rank among all GPUs is 73, and its average benchmark score of 30097 places it virtually tied with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, which has a deltaPct of 0. This means the two cards offer nearly identical raw compute performance. However, in The Medium, the RX 7700 XT's performance at 1080p High (53.6 FPS) suggests that the game's rendering engine is not fully leveraging the card's compute capabilities. The 96 ROPs and 216 TMUs are adequate for lower resolutions, but the 4K results indicate a fill-rate limitation.

The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support is relevant, as the game likely uses DX12 features. The PassMark DirectX 12 score of 79 is low compared to the DirectX 11 score of 232, which may indicate driver overhead or that the game's implementation does not scale well with the architecture. The 54 ray tracing cores are present, but the game's fixed camera angles may not utilize them heavily, which could explain why performance at High settings is closer to Medium than to Ultra.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X provides a robust foundation for this game, with its 8 cores and 16 threads running at a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. The CPU's benchmark scores are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 31588 and a single-core score of 4459, placing it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs. In The Medium, the CPU is not the bottleneck at any resolution, as evidenced by the fact that the FPS drops are consistent with GPU load scaling.

The CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache and DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth ensure that frame data can be fed to the GPU without stuttering. The PassMark single-thread score of 4654 indicates that the CPU can handle the game's main thread logic, which is often the case in horror titles with scripted sequences. The Ryzen 7 9700X's average benchmark score of 36029 is nearly identical to its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-14500HX, with a deltaPct of 0.2, meaning the two CPUs are effectively interchangeable for this workload.

Given that the CPU is not the limiting factor, the frame rate differences between presets are entirely attributable to the GPU. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 125.7 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS target, indicating that the CPU can drive the GPU to its maximum output. At 4K Ultra, the CPU's utilization likely drops, as the GPU is unable to keep up with the rendering demands, resulting in the 29.5 FPS average.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for this system in The Medium?*

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 with Medium settings yields 68.1 FPS, which is the highest average frame rate above 60 FPS at a resolution higher than 1080p. At 1920x1080, Medium settings deliver 75.4 FPS, but the 1440p Medium preset offers a better balance of visual fidelity and performance.

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

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, where the average frame rate is 82.7 FPS. At Medium settings, the frame rate drops to 53.1 FPS, which is below 60 FPS, and at High settings it falls to 39.6 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is not playable, with an average of 29.5 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 7700 XT compare to its nearest GPU rival in this game?

A: The RX 7700 XT has an average benchmark score of 30097, which is identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 with a deltaPct of 0. This indicates that in synthetic benchmarks, the two GPUs are equal, but the measured FPS in The Medium will depend on driver optimizations and game-specific factors.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 9700X a good match for the RX 7700 XT?

A: The benchmark data indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck, as its 89th percentile ranking and high single-thread scores (3353 in Geekbench) allow the GPU to be the limiting factor. The CPU's performance is sufficient to avoid holding back the GPU at all resolutions and settings tested.

Q: Why is the performance difference between High and Ultra settings so large?

A: The frame rate drops from 53.6 FPS at 1080p High to 45.9 FPS at 1080p Ultra, a 14% decrease. At 4K, the drop is from 39.6 FPS to 29.5 FPS, a 25% decrease. This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces effects that significantly increase the GPU's workload, particularly at higher resolutions.

*Q: What is the overall ranking of this CPU-GPU combo in the database for The Medium?*

A: The combination ranks 733rd out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the 43rd percentile. This indicates that it performs better than a majority of tested systems, but there is substantial headroom for improvement with a more powerful GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT combination ranks 733rd out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 43rd percentile. This is a mid-tier ranking, indicating that while the system is capable of running the game, it is not among the top performers. The rank suggests that many other combinations, likely with higher-end GPUs, achieve significantly better frame rates, particularly at higher resolutions.

The CPU's high percentile ranking (89th) compared to the GPU's lower ranking (73rd) confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor for this combo. If a user were to upgrade the GPU, the combo's rank would likely improve substantially, as the CPU has the headroom to support a more powerful graphics card. However, as configured, this system is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming at Medium to High settings, where it can maintain playable frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers an average of 125.7 FPS on Low settings, 75.4 FPS on Medium, 53.6 FPS on High, and 45.9 FPS on Ultra. The 1080p results show a clear degradation as settings increase, with the gap between Low and Medium being the largest at 50.3 FPS, indicating a significant jump in visual complexity.

Moving to 2560x1440, the average frame rates are 107.8 FPS on Low, 68.1 FPS on Medium, 44.7 FPS on High, and 35.7 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p Medium preset maintains a smooth experience above 60 FPS, while High drops below 45 FPS, making it less desirable for fast-paced gameplay. The Ultra preset at 1440p is only marginally better than the 4K High preset, suggesting that the GPU is struggling with the higher fidelity settings.

At 3840x2160, the system averages 82.7 FPS on Low, 53.1 FPS on Medium, 39.6 FPS on High, and 29.5 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low preset is the only setting at this resolution that provides a frame rate above 60 FPS, while Medium is borderline playable at 53.1 FPS. The High and Ultra presets at 4K are not recommended for a consistent experience, as the frame rates dip into the 30s and below. The data shows a consistent pattern: the RX 7700 XT is capable of handling the game at lower quality settings, but the higher presets require a more powerful GPU to maintain fluid performance.