The Medium

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The measured FPS data for The Medium with the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 reveals a clear hierarchy across the four presets tested. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 196.4 FPS, which is the highest raw throughput recorded for this combo. However, this setting sacrifices visual fidelity in a game that relies heavily on atmospheric horror. The Medium preset at 1080p produces 125.2 FPS, which remains comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold while providing a more balanced visual experience.

For users prioritizing the smoothest possible experience at high refresh rates, the Low preset at 1920x1080 is the only configuration that approaches 200 FPS. Yet, the data suggests that Medium at this resolution represents the best overall experience per the measured rows: it maintains a 125.2 FPS average, which is more than double the 60 FPS target, while the jump from Medium to High at 1080p yields a substantial 35.7 FPS drop to 89.5 FPS. This indicates that the High preset imposes a significant cost relative to its incremental visual gain over Medium.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again emerges as the optimal choice. The measured 105.2 FPS average is high enough for smooth gameplay on most displays, and it sits 31.6 FPS above the High preset's 73.6 FPS. The Ultra preset at this resolution drops to 61.1 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS line but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes. At 3840x2160, the situation changes: Medium produces 85.7 FPS, while High falls to 59.8 FPS and Ultra to 45.3 FPS. For 4K users, the Medium preset is the only tested configuration that simultaneously exceeds 60 FPS and retains moderate visual quality; Low at 4K reaches 135.9 FPS but strips away too much of the game's intended atmosphere.

The data strongly suggests that the Medium preset is the sweet spot across all three resolutions. It provides the best balance between frame rate and visual fidelity, with averages of 125.2 FPS at 1080p, 105.2 FPS at 1440p, and 85.7 FPS at 4K. Users with high-refresh-rate monitors at 1080p may prefer Low for its 196.4 FPS ceiling, but this comes at the cost of the game's horror presentation. Conversely, the Ultra preset should be avoided at 4K, as its 45.3 FPS average falls below playable thresholds for most users.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 serves as the primary driver of frame rates in these measurements, with its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus providing a 960.0 GB/s bandwidth. This memory configuration is critical for The Medium, which renders dual-world scenes simultaneously — a technique that places heavy demands on both framebuffer capacity and bandwidth. The GPU's 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 293.1 GPixel/s pixel rate enable the high fill rates observed in the Low and Medium presets.

The RTX 5080's clock behavior also influences results. Its base clock of 2295 MHz and boost clock of 2617 MHz allow the card to scale performance with thermal and power headroom, which is particularly visible in the 4K Low preset achieving 135.9 FPS — a figure that exceeds many lower-tier GPUs at 1080p. The memory clock of 1875 MHz (30 Gbps effective) contributes to the 960.0 GB/s bandwidth, which becomes a limiting factor at higher resolutions and quality settings where texture streaming and dual-scene rendering demand more data movement.

The GPU's 84 RT cores and 336 tensor cores are relevant for The Medium's use of ray-traced reflections and ambient occlusion, though the measured presets do not explicitly separate these effects. The data shows that resolution scaling follows an expected pattern: dropping from 1080p to 1440p reduces average FPS by roughly 15-20% across presets, while moving to 4K imposes a further 30-35% reduction. This scaling behavior is consistent with a GPU that is bandwidth-bound at higher resolutions, given the fixed 960.0 GB/s bandwidth and the increasing memory pressure from larger framebuffers.

Compared to its nearest rivals in the benchmark database, the RTX 5080 ranks in the 89th percentile among all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 59188 places it 1.6% ahead of the Intel Arc A570M, 2.5% ahead of the Intel Arc A580, and 2.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5500X, while trailing the Intel Arc Pro A60 by 1.9%. These margins indicate that the RTX 5080 is a high-tier GPU, but the narrow deltas among its nearest competitors suggest that in The Medium's specific workload, the CPU and memory subsystem also play measurable roles.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 achieves a combo rank of 33 out of 1689 tested combinations in The Medium. This places the pairing in the top 2% of all tested systems, confirming that this hardware combination is exceptionally well-suited to the game's demands. The rank of 33 out of 1689 indicates that only 32 other CPU-GPU pairings deliver higher measured average frame rates across the tested resolutions and settings.

The CPU's contribution to this ranking is significant. The Ryzen 7 9700X, with its 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture, posts an average benchmark score of 36029, placing it in the 89th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-14500HX (score 35940, 0.2% behind), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (score 35802, 0.6% behind), and the Intel Core Ultra 5 225H (score 36328, 0.8% ahead). These tiny deltas suggest that the 9700X is competitive with mid-range mobile and desktop chips, though it does not dominate its price-adjacent peers in synthetic benchmarks.

In the context of The Medium, the combo's rank reflects the synergy between the 9700X's single-thread performance (3dmark_single_thread score of 1280) and the RTX 5080's raw GPU power. The game benefits from strong single-core throughput for game logic and physics, while the GPU handles the rendering load. The measured FPS data shows that even at 4K Ultra — the most demanding preset — the combo maintains 45.3 FPS, which is playable for slower-paced horror gameplay. At 1080p Low, the 196.4 FPS result demonstrates that the CPU does not bottleneck the GPU until frame rates exceed 200 FPS, a threshold that only the absolute fastest CPUs might reach.

The 33rd rank out of 1689 combos also implies that the 9700X + RTX 5080 pairing outperforms many configurations with theoretically higher-end CPUs or GPUs, likely due to balanced memory bandwidth and PCIe Gen 5 connectivity. The DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth provides adequate data throughput for the CPU to feed the GPU without stalling, while the PCIe 5.0 x16 interface offers ample bandwidth for GPU-to-system communication.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four quality presets, yielding 12 distinct data points. At the lowest resolution and quality combination — 1920x1080 with Low settings — the combo achieves its maximum average of 196.4 FPS. Moving up to Medium at the same resolution produces 125.2 FPS, a 36.3% reduction. High settings at 1080p yield 89.5 FPS, and Ultra drops to 74.4 FPS. This progression shows that each step from Low to Ultra at 1080p costs between 15 and 35 FPS, with the largest single-step drop occurring between Low and Medium.

At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats with lower absolute numbers. The Low preset averages 171.8 FPS, which is 24.6 FPS below the 1080p Low result. Medium at 1440p produces 105.2 FPS, a 20.0 FPS drop from 1080p Medium. High settings at 1440p reach 73.6 FPS, while Ultra falls to 61.1 FPS. Notably, the 1440p Ultra result of 61.1 FPS is only 1.1 FPS above the 4K High result of 59.8 FPS, suggesting that resolution scaling and quality scaling impose similar costs at the upper end of the performance envelope.

At 3840x2160, the data shows the most dramatic scaling. Low settings at 4K achieve 135.9 FPS, which is still higher than the 1080p High result of 89.5 FPS — proof of the RTX 5080's raw power. Medium at 4K drops to 85.7 FPS, High to 59.8 FPS, and Ultra to 45.3 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest measured value across all 12 configurations, representing a 76.9% reduction from the 1080p Low peak. The gap between 4K Medium (85.7 FPS) and 4K High (59.8 FPS) is 25.9 FPS, indicating that the High preset's additional effects impose a heavy penalty at this resolution.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently delivers the most predictable frame rates, with the smallest relative drops when moving from 1080p to 1440p (16.0% loss) and from 1440p to 4K (18.5% loss). The Low preset shows similar scaling efficiency, while the High and Ultra presets exhibit steeper degradation at higher resolutions, with the 4K Ultra result being 39.1% below the 1440p Ultra result.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in The Medium?*

A: The highest measured average is 196.4 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This is the only configuration in the dataset that exceeds 190 FPS.

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra?

A: No. The 4K Ultra preset produces an average of 45.3 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold. To achieve 60 FPS at 4K, users must select the Medium preset, which delivers 85.7 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's single-thread performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700X scores 1280 in 3dmark_single_thread. Its nearest rivals in the database — the Intel Core i5-14500HX, Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845, and Intel Core Ultra 5 225H — have average benchmark scores within 1% of the 9700X, indicating comparable single-thread capabilities.

Q: What is the largest performance gap between presets at a given resolution?

A: At 1920x1080, the gap between Low (196.4 FPS) and Ultra (74.4 FPS) is 122.0 FPS. At 2560x1440, the Low-to-Ultra gap is 110.7 FPS (171.8 vs 61.1). At 3840x2160, the Low-to-Ultra gap is 90.6 FPS (135.9 vs 45.3).

Q: Does the GPU's memory bandwidth limit performance at 4K?

A: The RTX 5080's 960.0 GB/s bandwidth appears sufficient for Low and Medium presets at 4K, which achieve 135.9 FPS and 85.7 FPS respectively. However, the High and Ultra presets at 4K drop to 59.8 FPS and 45.3 FPS, suggesting that the increased texture and rendering demands at these settings strain the memory subsystem.

*Q: How does this combo rank compared to all tested systems in The Medium?*

A: The combo ranks 33rd out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the top 2% of all systems. This indicates that the Ryzen 7 9700X and RTX 5080 pairing delivers exceptional performance in this title, with only 32 other configurations producing higher average frame rates.