The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding fixed-camera horror experience, and the pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 produces a performance profile that is heavily dependent on both resolution and the chosen graphics preset. The measured data reveals a system that is capable of smooth play at lower resolutions but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K with maximum settings. This analysis breaks down the scaling behavior, settings impact, and the distinct roles played by the CPU and GPU in this specific configuration.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data shows a clear and expected decline as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, but the magnitude of the drop is heavily influenced by the graphics preset. At the Low preset, the transition from 1080p to 4K sees the average frame rate fall from 123.8 FPS to 79.0 FPS, a reduction of approximately 36%. This relatively modest decline suggests that at lower settings, the workload is less punishing on the GPU, and the system has more headroom. In contrast, the High preset shows a more severe scaling penalty: performance drops from 57.5 FPS at 1080p to 37.9 FPS at 4K, a 34% decrease, but from a much lower starting point, leaving the system below the 60 FPS threshold at all tested resolutions above 1080p.

The data indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings. At 4K Ultra, the average frame rate collapses to 30.1 FPS, which is only 37% of the 1080p Low result. This steep curve is characteristic of a GPU that is saturated by the pixel count and the complexity of the Ultra preset. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly telling; on the Medium preset, performance drops from 66.5 FPS to 52.2 FPS, a 21.5% decline, while the High preset sees a 19.9% drop from 47.3 FPS to 37.9 FPS. This consistent 20% penalty for the resolution increase confirms that the RTX 3070’s rendering throughput is the bottleneck, not the CPU or memory subsystem.

For a 4K display, the data suggests that only the Low preset offers a playable experience, with 79.0 FPS being the sole result above 60 FPS. The 1440p resolution is more viable, with the Low preset hitting 106.9 FPS and the Medium preset achieving 66.5 FPS, both comfortably playable. At 1080p, the system is at its most versatile, with Low, Medium, and High presets all exceeding 57.5 FPS, but the Ultra preset still dips to 46.2 FPS, indicating that even at the lowest resolution, maximum settings are a stretch for this combination.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy for optimizing the experience in The Medium. The most significant performance jump occurs when moving from the Ultra preset to High. At 1080p, this change improves the average frame rate from 46.2 FPS to 57.5 FPS, a 24.4% increase. At 1440p, the same preset shift yields a 17.9% improvement, from 40.1 FPS to 47.3 FPS. However, even with this gain, the High preset at 1440p remains below 60 FPS, suggesting that this resolution is not ideal for a smooth experience.

The Medium preset presents a compelling balance. At 1080p, it delivers 78.2 FPS, which is 35.8% faster than High and 69.2% faster than Ultra. This makes it the recommended preset for 1080p gaming, as it provides a significant margin above the 60 FPS target while retaining a higher level of visual fidelity than the Low preset. At 1440p, Medium achieves 66.5 FPS, which is the only preset at that resolution to cross the 60 FPS line, making it the definitive choice for 1440p displays. The Medium preset at 4K yields 52.2 FPS, which is below 60 FPS but could be acceptable for players who prioritize visual quality over a hard frame rate target.

The Low preset is the only option that provides a high refresh rate experience. At 1080p, it hits 123.8 FPS, and at 1440p, it reaches 106.9 FPS. This preset is best suited for competitive play or for users with high refresh rate monitors who want to maximize smoothness. However, the visual sacrifice is substantial, and the fact that Low at 4K (79.0 FPS) outperforms Ultra at 1080p (46.2 FPS) underscores the performance cost of the Ultra preset. For most users, the Medium preset offers the best ratio of visual quality to performance, as it is the highest setting that maintains a 60+ FPS average at both 1080p and 1440p.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is a high-end desktop processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 5 architecture on a 4 nm process. Its base clock is 3.80 GHz with a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, and it features a 32 MB shared L3 cache. In the context of The Medium, a game that is not typically CPU-bound, this processor provides substantial headroom. The benchmark results show that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this configuration, as the frame rates scale consistently with resolution changes, which is a hallmark of a GPU-bound scenario.

The CPU’s multithreaded performance is strong, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 31588 and a Geekbench multicore score of 17002. These results place it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 36029 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i5-14500HX, which is only 0.2% ahead, and the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, which is 0.4% behind. For a game like The Medium, which relies on fixed camera angles and pre-rendered scenes, the CPU’s single-thread performance is more relevant, and the Ryzen 7 9700X excels here with a Geekbench single-core score of 3353 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4459.

The data suggests that the CPU is more than capable of feeding the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The fact that the frame rate drops by roughly 20-35% when moving from 1080p to 4K, regardless of the preset, indicates that the GPU’s rendering load is the primary constraint. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see frame rates plateau at lower resolutions, which is not the case. The 65W TDP and 24 PCIe Gen 5 lanes provide ample bandwidth for the RTX 3070, ensuring that the CPU does not introduce a performance ceiling. In this pairing, the Ryzen 7 9700X is a silent partner, providing consistent performance without becoming a limiting factor.

How This Combo Ranks

In the global database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Ryzen 7 9700X and RTX 3070 holds a rank of 712 out of 1689 tested combos for The Medium. This places it in the upper-middle tier of all systems, indicating that while it is not a top-tier configuration, it is far from underpowered. The rank of 712 out of 1689 puts it in roughly the 58th percentile of all tested systems, which is a reasonable result for a mid-range GPU paired with a high-end CPU.

The ranking suggests that the RTX 3070 is the limiting factor in this pairing. The Ryzen 7 9700X is a powerful processor that could easily support a more capable GPU, but the RTX 3070’s performance characteristics, such as its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, cap the overall system performance. This is evident when comparing the GPU’s benchmarks to its rivals; the RTX 3070 has an average benchmark score of 28238, which is only 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT and 1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti. These are all older or lower-tier cards, indicating that the RTX 3070 is positioned in a mature segment of the market.

The combo’s rank is a reflection of the GPU’s limitations in this specific game. The Medium’s high preset and 4K resolution requirements push the RTX 3070 to its limits, resulting in frame rates that are below the 60 FPS target. If the combo were paired with a faster GPU, the ranking would likely be significantly higher, as the CPU would not be a bottleneck. As it stands, the 712th rank out of 1689 combos is a fair assessment of the system’s overall capabilities in this title, highlighting that the GPU is the component that determines the experience.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture and features 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units. It has a base clock of 1500 MHz and a boost clock of 1725 MHz, with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. These specifications are indicative of a mid-range to upper-mid-range GPU that was designed for 1440p gaming. The benchmark results in The Medium confirm this positioning, as the GPU’s performance is strongest at 1080p and 1440p, but it struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K.

The GPU’s memory capacity of 8 GB appears to be a limiting factor at higher settings and resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the average frame rate drops to 30.1 FPS, which is a 61% reduction compared to 1080p Low. This steep decline suggests that the GPU is not only fill-rate limited but also potentially memory-bandwidth limited. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is substantial, but the demands of The Medium’s high-resolution textures and effects at Ultra settings may be exceeding the available memory capacity, causing the GPU to rely on slower system memory, which would explain the significant performance drop.

The GPU’s compute capabilities, such as its 20.31 TFLOPS FP32 performance, are not fully utilized in this game, as it is not a compute-heavy title. However, the data shows that the RTX 3070 is the decisive factor in this system’s performance. The percentile ranking of 72 against all GPUs indicates that it is a competent card, but its nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, show that it is not a class-leading product. The performance scaling across presets is consistent with a GPU that is being pushed hard; for instance, moving from Medium to Ultra at 1440p results in a 39.7% drop in frame rate, from 66.5 FPS to 40.1 FPS. This pattern confirms that the RTX 3070 is the primary component determining the playability of The Medium, and its performance envelope is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming with the Medium preset.