The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti combination ranks 637th out of 1,689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the upper-middle tier of all configurations, indicating a balanced pairing that handles the game's demands without excelling at the extreme high end. The rank suggests that while many systems outperform it, a substantial majority of tested combos deliver worse results, making this a solidly competitive setup for this horror title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 637 out of 1,689 places it in the 62nd percentile of all tested configurations. This is a respectable position, showing that the pairing is better than most but not among the elite. The data indicates that the system is well-matched for the game's requirements, as it avoids the bottlenecking that plagues less balanced builds. The position reflects a configuration that can deliver playable performance across most settings, though it will struggle with the most demanding presets at high resolutions. The ranking also implies that the CPU and GPU are working in relative harmony, with neither component dramatically holding back the other in this specific workload.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor from the 9000 series, built on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) using TSMC's 4 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, which are strong figures for a desktop part. The CPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks shows a clear pattern: a single-thread score of 1,280 in 3DMark and 4,459 in Cinebench R23, while multi-thread results reach 9,771 in 3DMark Max Threads and 31,588 in Cinebench R23 Multicore. These numbers indicate that the 9700X has both excellent single-core strength and substantial multi-core capability.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is significant because the game features a dual-reality mechanic where two worlds are rendered simultaneously. This creates a workload that can stress multiple threads. The 8-core, 16-thread configuration provides enough parallel processing power to handle this split rendering, while the high boost clock ensures that single-thread-dependent tasks are processed quickly. The CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache also helps by keeping frequently accessed data close to the cores, reducing latency during scene transitions. The processor's average benchmark score of 36,029 places it at the 89th percentile of all CPUs, with its nearest rivals being the Intel Core i5-14500HX (0.2% faster), Intel Core Ultra 9 185H (0.4% slower), AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (0.6% faster), and Intel Core Ultra 5 225H (0.8% slower). This shows the 9700X is competitively positioned among modern processors, though the small deltas mean real-world differences are minimal.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is an Ampere architecture GPU based on the GA104 chip, manufactured on Samsung's 8 nm process. It features 8 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 608.3 GB/s. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1575 MHz and a boost clock of 1770 MHz, with memory running at 19 Gbps effective. The 3070 Ti has 6,144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 96 raster operation units, along with 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores. Its FP32 performance is rated at 21.75 TFLOPS.

The GPU's benchmark scores include a Passmark G3D score of 23,356 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 137,518, placing it at the 74th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME (0.3% faster), AMD Radeon RX 6700 (0.8% slower), NVIDIA Quadro M5000 (0.9% slower), and NVIDIA GRID M60-1Q (1.2% slower). The 8 GB VRAM is a critical factor in The Medium, as the game's dual-world rendering can consume significant memory. While 8 GB is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, it may become a limiting factor at 4K with high textures. The GPU's ray tracing cores are available, but the game's horror atmosphere benefits more from consistent frame rates than from ray-traced effects, which can be demanding.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data reveals how this combo performs across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the system achieves an average of 129.2 FPS on Low settings, which drops to 83 FPS on Medium, 55.8 FPS on High, and 48.2 FPS on Ultra. These results show that at 1080p, the system can easily handle high refresh rate gaming on lower settings, and even Ultra settings remain playable above 45 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 110.7 FPS on Low, 67 FPS on Medium, 50.7 FPS on High, and 39.8 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p results demonstrate a noticeable but manageable performance hit compared to 1080p. The system provides smooth gameplay on Medium settings, while High remains playable, and Ultra dips below the 40 FPS threshold, which may feel less fluid.

At 3840x2160, the performance decreases significantly: 89.2 FPS on Low, 54.8 FPS on Medium, 38.4 FPS on High, and 31.6 FPS on Ultra. The 4K results show the system's limits, as even Medium settings barely reach 55 FPS, and Ultra drops below 32 FPS. The GPU's 8 GB VRAM likely becomes a bottleneck at this resolution with higher settings, as the game's dual-world rendering increases memory pressure. The data shows a clear pattern: the system is capable at 1080p and 1440p, but 4K gaming requires a significant reduction in settings to maintain playable frame rates.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component in this pairing. At Ultra settings, the average FPS falls from 48.2 at 1080p to 39.8 at 1440p (a 17.4% decrease) and then to 31.6 at 4K (a further 20.6% decrease). This progressive decline indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint, as the resolution increase places more demand on the rasterization and memory bandwidth of the RTX 3070 Ti. The CPU's performance is sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, but the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and bandwidth limit its ability to maintain frame rates as pixel count grows.

The scaling pattern is consistent across settings. At Low settings, the drop from 129.2 FPS at 1080p to 110.7 FPS at 1440p is 14.3%, and then to 89.2 FPS at 4K is a further 19.4%. This shows that even at low graphical fidelity, the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher resolutions. The CPU's strong single-thread performance and high boost clock ensure that it does not become the limiting factor, as evidenced by the relatively small performance difference between the 1080p and 1440p results at lower settings. However, at Ultra settings, the GPU's limitations are more pronounced, with 4K performance dropping to just 31.6 FPS, which is below the 30 FPS threshold and indicates that this combo is not suited for 4K Ultra gaming. The data suggests that for this pairing, 1440p is the sweet spot, where users can enjoy High settings at an average of 50.7 FPS, while 4K requires Medium settings or lower to achieve playable frame rates.