The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title from 2021, presents a distinct challenge for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 paired with the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The measured data reveals a configuration that is heavily influenced by graphical settings, with performance scaling that points to the GPU as the primary bottleneck across most resolutions. This analysis examines the measured FPS rows to detail the relationship between the hardware components and the game's rendering demands.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process, is the decisive component for The Medium’s frame rates. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides ample capacity for the game's assets, and the measured data suggests that memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor. The card’s boost clock of 2475 MHz, combined with 5888 shading units, drives the rendering pipeline, and the FPS results show a clear sensitivity to the game's preset levels.

At 1080p, the RTX 4070 delivers a substantial range of performance. With Low settings, the average frame rate reaches 150.7 FPS, indicating that the GPU is not fully taxed. Moving to Medium, the average drops to 93 FPS, a 38% reduction that highlights the impact of increased shading and texture work. The High preset yields 65.1 FPS, while Ultra brings the average down to 50.9 FPS. This scaling pattern persists at 1440p, where Low averages 126.5 FPS, Medium 76.4 FPS, High 54 FPS, and Ultra 44.3 FPS. The consistent drop between presets, roughly 25-30% per step, suggests that the GPU's compute units and memory bandwidth are being progressively saturated.

The data becomes more telling at 4K. Here, the RTX 4070's limits are exposed. At 4K Low, the average is 97.6 FPS, which is still playable, but the Medium preset falls to 65 FPS. High dips to 45.2 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 36.8 FPS. The transition from 1080p Low to 4K Low shows a 35% performance loss, but the gap widens with higher presets. For instance, Ultra at 1080p averages 50.9 FPS, while Ultra at 4K averages 36.8 FPS, a 28% decline. These figures indicate that The Medium’s higher presets, particularly at 4K, place a heavy load on the GPU’s 64 ROPs and its 504.2 GB/s memory bandwidth. The card’s percentile ranking of 81 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37283, aligns with the measured results, showing a capable but not top-tier part for this specific title.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, with 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture, is unlikely to be the limiting factor in these benchmarks. Its base clock of 4.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.20 GHz provide strong single-thread performance, which is crucial for game logic and draw call processing. The processor’s 96 MB of shared L3 cache is a notable asset, potentially reducing memory latency for frequently accessed data.

The measured FPS data supports the conclusion that the CPU is not a bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the average of 150.7 FPS shows the CPU can feed the GPU sufficient frames to reach high rates. Even at 4K Low, the 97.6 FPS average suggests the CPU is still keeping pace. The 3DMark scores reinforce this, with a single-thread score of 1212 and a 16-thread score of 10081, indicating robust performance across both lightly and heavily threaded workloads. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 34004 further confirms the CPU’s high throughput.

The processor’s percentile ranking of 90 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37780, places it near rivals like the Intel Core i5-13600KF, which scores 38028 and is only 0.7% faster. This margin is negligible in gaming scenarios. The data shows that as resolution increases and the GPU becomes more strained, the CPU’s role diminishes. The difference between 1080p Medium (93 FPS) and 1440p Medium (76.4 FPS) is 18%, which is a classic sign of GPU limitation, not CPU. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D provides a high ceiling for frame generation, but The Medium’s visual effects, such as volumetric lighting and particle systems, are handled by the GPU, making the graphics card the dominant factor in the final output.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and desired smoothness. For a 60 FPS target, the data shows that the Medium preset is the highest quality option that consistently meets this goal. At 1080p Medium, the average is 93 FPS, providing headroom. At 1440p Medium, the average is 76.4 FPS, still comfortably above 60. However, at 4K Medium, the average drops to 65 FPS, which is close to the threshold but likely to be acceptable for a horror title with slower pacing.

The High preset is a different story. It only achieves 65.1 FPS at 1080p, which is playable but not ideal for maintaining a smooth experience during camera transitions. At 1440p High, the average falls to 54 FPS, and at 4K High, it is 45.2 FPS. These numbers suggest that High settings are only viable for users with variable refresh rate monitors who can tolerate frame rates in the 45-65 range. Ultra is the most demanding, with 50.9 FPS at 1080p and 36.8 FPS at 4K, which is not recommended for a fluid experience.

The Low preset, while delivering high frame rates (150.7 FPS at 1080p, 126.5 FPS at 1440p, 97.6 FPS at 4K), likely sacrifices significant visual fidelity, such as shadows and textures. Given the game’s horror atmosphere, the Medium preset appears to be the best balance. It provides a 93 FPS average at 1080p and 65 FPS at 4K, allowing for a consistent experience across resolutions without the steep performance penalty of High or Ultra. The data indicates that Medium is the sweet spot for this hardware combination, as it maintains playable frame rates even at the highest resolution tested.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K provides a clear picture of the system’s bottleneck. Examining the Medium preset, the average frame rate drops from 93 FPS at 1080p to 76.4 FPS at 1440p, a 17.8% decrease. Moving from 1440p to 4K, the average drops to 65 FPS, a 14.9% decrease. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 30.1%. For the Low preset, the figures are 150.7 FPS at 1080p, 126.5 FPS at 1440p (a 16.1% drop), and 97.6 FPS at 4K (a 22.8% drop from 1440p). The total drop for Low is 35.2%.

These percentages are significant. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect the frame rates to remain relatively constant across resolutions, as the CPU workload does not scale with pixel count. Instead, the FPS decreases consistently as resolution increases, which is a hallmark of GPU limitation. The RTX 4070’s pixel rate of 158.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 455.4 GTexel/s are being taxed more heavily at higher resolutions. The fact that the Low preset still shows a 35% drop from 1080p to 4K indicates that even with reduced graphical fidelity, the GPU's fillrate and memory bandwidth are insufficient to maintain frame rates at 4K.

The data confirms that the GPU is the limiting component across all tested presets. The CPU, with its high boost clock and large cache, is not the constraint. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (150.7 FPS) shows the CPU’s capability, but the GPU cannot translate that into higher frame rates at 4K. This analysis is further supported by the fact that the RTX 4070's nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, has a lower average benchmark score by 0.6%, yet the performance gap in this game is likely similar due to the GPU-bound nature of the title.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks 431 out of 1689 tested combos for The Medium. This places the configuration in the top 25.5% of all tested systems. This ranking is noteworthy given the CPU’s high performance percentile (90th) and the GPU’s lower percentile (81st). The discrepancy suggests that the GPU is holding the combo back from a higher rank.

The combo rank of 431 indicates that while this system is capable of running the game, there are many other configurations that achieve higher average frame rates. The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i9-13900HK with an average score of 38020, do not significantly outperform the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which has an average score of 37780. The deltaPct for these rivals is less than 1%, meaning the CPU is not the differentiator in ranking.

Instead, the GPU’s position in the hierarchy is more relevant. The RTX 4070’s average benchmark score of 37283 places it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile, which scores 38135 and is only 2.2% faster. This small difference in raw GPU compute does not translate into a large FPS difference in The Medium, as the game is likely optimized for desktop-class GPUs. The fact that the combo ranks 431 out of 1689 suggests that many systems with higher-end GPUs, such as the RTX 4080 or RX 7900 series, would easily surpass this configuration. The data shows that for a game like The Medium, which is not heavily CPU-bound, the GPU choice has a more pronounced effect on the final rank. The measured FPS values at 4K Ultra (36.8 FPS) are proof of this, as they are below the 60 FPS threshold that many gamers consider playable. Thus, while the CPU provides a strong foundation, the combo’s overall ranking is limited by the RTX 4070’s performance under high graphical loads.