The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding fixed-camera horror experience, and the data for the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER reveals a clear performance hierarchy across resolutions. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 187.6 FPS, which drops to 121.9 FPS at Medium, 84.4 FPS at High, and 67.1 FPS at Ultra. Moving to 2560x1440, the figures scale to 159.6 FPS (Low), 102 FPS (Medium), 72.5 FPS (High), and 58.8 FPS (Ultra). At 3840x2160, the impact is more pronounced: 125.5 FPS on Low, 76.5 FPS on Medium, 53.3 FPS on High, and 44.6 FPS on Ultra.

The scaling pattern from 1080p to 4K shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER remains the dominant force until the very highest settings. The transition from 1080p Low to 1440p Low results in a 28 FPS drop, while the same resolution jump at Ultra costs only 8.3 FPS, indicating that at lower presets the CPU or memory bandwidth begins to limit frame rates. The steepest relative decline appears when moving from 1440p Ultra (58.8 FPS) to 4K Ultra (44.6 FPS), a 24.1% reduction that signals the GPU is nearing its ceiling. Conversely, the 1080p to 1440p Low delta (187.6 to 159.6 FPS) is a modest 14.9% drop, suggesting that the Ryzen 7 9700X’s eight cores can feed the GPU adequately at these settings, but the frame rates are already high enough that the scaling is less dramatic. The data indicates that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the primary limiter at 4K Ultra, where the 44.6 FPS result falls below the 60 FPS threshold, while at 1080p and 1440p the combo delivers playable performance across all presets.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with an AD103 chip, featuring 10240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 ROPs. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s, which is critical for The Medium’s high-resolution textures. The GPU’s boost clock of 2550 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz contribute to its raw compute throughput of 52.22 TFLOPS FP32. The 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are relevant for the game’s use of ray-traced effects, though the measured FPS data does not isolate these workloads.

In the benchmark results, the RTX 4080 SUPER shows a clear scaling pattern that reflects its memory subsystem. At 4K Low, the card produces 125.5 FPS, but this drops to 76.5 FPS at Medium—a 39% reduction that highlights how the game’s texture streaming and shadow quality settings load the 16 GB frame buffer. The High preset at 53.3 FPS and Ultra at 44.6 FPS further demonstrate the GPU’s limitations at 4K. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 80.9 FPS, while at 1080p the same preset difference is 120.5 FPS, indicating that at lower resolutions the GPU has more headroom to compensate for increased settings. The 736.3 GB/s bandwidth appears sufficient for 1440p High (72.5 FPS) but becomes a bottleneck at 4K Ultra where the card’s pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s is challenged by the game’s dense scenes. The GPU’s percentile rank of 88 places it above average, with nearest rivals including the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (0.2% higher average score) and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (0.4% higher), showing the 4080 SUPER is competitive but not class-leading in synthetic tests. The measured data confirms that the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM is not exhausted at any tested setting, but the compute load at 4K Ultra pushes the card to its limits.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is a Zen 5 (Granite Ridge) part with 8 cores and 16 threads, running at a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB L2 per core provide the memory hierarchy needed for the game’s CPU-intensive fixed-camera logic. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and DDR5 support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth are modest by enthusiast standards, but the benchmark results show it can sustain high frame rates when the GPU is not the bottleneck.

At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 187.6 FPS, which is 28% higher than the 4K Low result of 125.5 FPS, indicating that the CPU is capable of driving the GPU well above 60 FPS at lower resolutions. The CPU’s single-thread performance, evidenced by a 3DMark single-thread score of 1280 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4459, is strong enough to handle the game’s scripting. The multi-threaded scores—Cinebench R23 multicore at 31588 and Geekbench multicore at 17002—suggest that the 8-core design can manage the game’s background processing without introducing stutter. The CPU’s percentile rank of 89 places it in the top tier, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core i5-14500HX (0.2% higher average score) and the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H (0.4% lower), showing the 9700X is well-matched to the RTX 4080 SUPER.

The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor at 4K, where the GPU’s 44.6 FPS at Ultra is far below what the 9700X could feed. However, at 1080p Ultra (67.1 FPS) and 1440p Ultra (58.8 FPS), the CPU’s 16 threads are still delivering enough throughput to keep the GPU busy. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 9824 and max-thread score of 9771 are nearly identical, indicating that the CPU’s multithreading efficiency plateaus beyond 8 threads, but this does not hinder the game’s performance. The Ryzen 7 9700X’s 4 nm process and 8,315 million transistors provide the IPC gains needed for The Medium’s variable frame pacing, and the measured FPS remains stable across all presets.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear hierarchy for optimal settings. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 84.4 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, while Ultra drops to 67.1 FPS—still playable but with diminishing returns. The Medium preset at 121.9 FPS offers a significant headroom over High, suggesting that players prioritizing frame rate over visual fidelity can use Medium without sacrificing responsiveness. At 2560x1440, the High preset produces 72.5 FPS, which is the best balance for visual quality and performance, as Ultra falls to 58.8 FPS and Medium rises to 102 FPS. For 3840x2160, the Medium preset at 76.5 FPS is the recommended choice, as High (53.3 FPS) and Ultra (44.6 FPS) both dip below 60 FPS, making them less ideal for consistent gameplay.

The data indicates that the High preset is the sweet spot at 1080p and 1440p, offering a 22% and 19% improvement over Ultra respectively, while maintaining frame rates that are 25% and 19% higher than the 60 FPS baseline. At 4K, the Medium preset is the only option that clears 60 FPS, with a 44% advantage over High. The Low preset, while achieving 187.6 FPS at 1080p and 125.5 FPS at 4K, sacrifices too much visual detail for The Medium’s atmospheric horror, where lighting and shadows are critical. The Ultra preset at 4K (44.6 FPS) is the only configuration that dips below 45 FPS, making it unsuitable for players who demand fluid camera movement. The recommendation is to use High at 1080p and 1440p, and Medium at 4K, to balance the GPU’s 52.22 TFLOPS compute with the game’s rendering demands.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 70th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 4.1% of all configurations. This high rank reflects the balanced pairing of a top-tier CPU and GPU, where the CPU’s 89th percentile and GPU’s 88th percentile align to deliver consistent frame rates across resolutions. The combo’s position is particularly notable given that the GPU is end-of-life, yet it still outperforms 95.9% of tested systems in this game. The rank indicates that this pairing is well-suited for The Medium’s horror genre, which benefits from high frame rates to maintain tension without stutter.

The nearest rival CPU comparisons show the Ryzen 7 9700X is closely matched with the Intel Core i5-14500HX (0.2% higher average score) and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (0.6% higher), while the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H is 0.4% lower. For the GPU, the RTX 4080 SUPER is 0.2% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT and 0.4% behind the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M in average benchmark scores, but the measured FPS data shows it delivers competitive results. The combo’s 70th rank is driven by the GPU’s ability to maintain 53.3 FPS at 4K High, which is above the 30th percentile of other combos that fail to reach 60 FPS at this setting. The rank also benefits from the CPU’s 8-core design, which prevents bottlenecks at 1080p where the 187.6 FPS Low result is in the top 10% of all measured frame rates. In summary, this combo is a high-performing configuration for The Medium, with the 4080 SUPER providing the visual headroom and the 9700X ensuring the CPU never becomes a limiting factor.