The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding workload, and the pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 lands in the middle of the pack for this title. The data places this specific configuration at rank 922 out of 1689 tested combos, putting it in the 55th percentile of all systems benchmarked for this game. This is not a top-tier showing, but it is far from a weak one. The position suggests that the RTX 4060 is the primary constraint in this pairing, as the Ryzen 7 9700X is a high-end processor that sits in the 89th percentile against all CPUs, while the GPU is in the 66th percentile against all GPUs. The combination results in a system that can play the game, but users will need to be mindful of their settings and resolution to achieve a consistently smooth experience.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 922 out of 1689 places it squarely in the middle of the field. This is a critical data point, as it indicates that while the hardware is capable, it is not optimized for pushing The Medium to its absolute limits. The benchmark results show a clear pattern where the GPU is the bottleneck. The Ryzen 7 9700X's strong synthetic performance—evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 31588 and a single-core score of 4459—is more than sufficient for the game's logic. The RTX 4060, with its 8GB of VRAM and 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth, is what determines the final frame rates. In synthetic tests, the RTX 4060 sits close to its nearest rivals; it is a mere 0.6% slower than the AMD Radeon RX 6600M, 0.7% slower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti, and 0.7% faster than the Intel Arc B580. This clustering shows that the GPU's raw compute is competitive, but its memory subsystem and capacity are what hold it back in a title like this.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of performance across the four available presets. At 1080p, the Medium preset delivers an average of 67.3 FPS, which is a solid baseline for playability. However, the jump to High drops the average to 50.2 FPS, and Ultra brings it down further to 40.7 FPS. The most balanced experience for a standard 60Hz display is the Medium preset at 1080p, as it offers a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. For those with higher refresh rate monitors, the Low preset at 1080p, which averages 110.1 FPS, is the only option that fully exploits the display's potential. The analysis suggests that the step from Medium to High is the most costly in terms of performance, representing a significant 25% reduction in frame rate. This indicates that the High preset introduces effects that heavily tax the GPU, and the visual fidelity gain may not justify the performance hit for most users.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution increases, which is a direct indicator of the GPU being the limiting factor. At 1080p with Medium settings, the average FPS is 67.3. Moving to 1440p drops that to 58 FPS, a 14% reduction. The jump to 4K is far more punishing, with the average plummeting to 43.3 FPS, a further 25% drop from 1440p. This scaling pattern is classic for a GPU with a 128-bit memory bus and 8GB of VRAM. The processor is not the bottleneck here; if it were, the frame rates would remain relatively flat across resolutions. Instead, the consistent and dramatic decline with each resolution increase points squarely at the RTX 4060's fillrate and memory bandwidth being overwhelmed. The 4K Ultra preset is effectively unplayable, averaging only 27.4 FPS, and even 4K High struggles at 33.5 FPS. The takeaway is that this combo is best suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming, with 4K reserved for less demanding titles or with significant settings compromises.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full set of measured results provides a detailed view of the combo's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 110.1 FPS, which is the highest score recorded for this configuration. The Medium preset delivers 67.3 FPS, High drops to 50.2 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 40.7 FPS. The 1440p results show a similar pattern but with lower absolute numbers: Low averages 93.3 FPS, Medium 58 FPS, High 43.4 FPS, and Ultra 35 FPS. At 4K, the numbers become marginal. Low settings are required for playability, yielding an average of 69.5 FPS. Medium drops to 43.3 FPS, High to 33.5 FPS, and Ultra is the worst performer on the chart at 27.4 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is consistent across all resolutions, but the relative cost of Ultra becomes more severe at higher resolutions. For example, at 1080p, Ultra is 63% slower than Low, while at 4K, it is 61% slower. This suggests the game's Ultra preset has a fixed overhead that is not resolution-dependent, but the base load from resolution scaling makes it untenable at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is the defining component in this analysis. Its 8GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus is the primary limitation, as The Medium's high-resolution textures and effects can easily exceed this capacity. The GPU's boost clock of 2460 MHz and 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are adequate, but the memory bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s is simply not enough to sustain high frame rates at 4K. The data shows that the GPU's synthetic benchmark score of 19545 in Passmark G3D places it at the 66th percentile, which aligns with its mid-range positioning. Its nearest rivals are all within a 1% performance delta, indicating that the GPU is not an outlier in its class. The 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are present, but their impact on this specific title is secondary to the raw memory throughput. The card's 115W TDP and dual-slot design suggest it is a power-efficient part, but this efficiency comes at the cost of the raw performance needed to drive a horror game with heavy atmosphere and lighting effects at high resolutions. The conclusion is that the RTX 4060 is a capable 1080p and entry-level 1440p card, but it is out of its depth at 4K in this specific game.