The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title from 2021, presents an unusual stress profile: it is heavily GPU-bound at high settings but reveals significant CPU scaling at lower presets. With the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, the benchmark data shows a system that can push past 180 FPS at 1080p Low yet drops to 53.2 FPS at 4K Ultra, highlighting a stark performance ceiling dictated by settings rather than raw hardware capability.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with High settings?

A: The system delivers 98.9 FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings. This is notably lower than the 134.3 FPS achieved at Medium and the 182.5 FPS at Low, indicating that the High preset introduces a significant rendering load.

Q: How does the RTX 5090's benchmark score compare to its closest rival?

A: The RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 84,306. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D, scores 84,241, placing the RTX 5090 just 0.1% ahead. The AMD Radeon PRO W6600 trails by 1.3% with a score of 83,209.

Q: What is the combo's ranking among all tested system configurations?

A: This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 8th out of 1,689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the top percentile of all configurations benchmarked for this game.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the limiting factor at 4K Ultra?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K Ultra. The average FPS drops to 53.2, which is a substantial reduction from the 142.7 FPS seen at 4K Low, indicating that the rendering workload at Ultra overwhelms the graphics card despite the CPU's high performance.

Q: What is the memory configuration of the RTX 5090?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. This large memory pool is a key attribute for high-resolution textures and data-heavy scenes.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to a recent Intel chip?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D scores 34,004 in Cinebench R23 multi-core. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-13600KF, has an average score of 38,028, which is 0.7% higher. The data shows the Ryzen chip is competitive but slightly behind in this specific multi-threaded test.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the benchmark results. With 21,760 shading units and 170 RT cores, the GPU is built for massive parallel workloads. The memory subsystem is equally imposing: 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus yields 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for feeding the high-resolution assets in The Medium without stuttering. The card's boost clock is 2407 MHz, and its FP32 performance is rated at 104.8 TFLOPS, making it one of the most powerful consumer GPUs available.

The game's performance scaling with settings shows where this GPU's headroom lies. At 1080p Low, the system produces 182.5 FPS, indicating the GPU is not fully taxed. However, at 4K Ultra, the average FPS plummets to 53.2. This 129.3 FPS swing demonstrates that the GPU's raw compute and memory bandwidth are the primary drivers of performance at higher presets. The data suggests that the RTX 5090's architecture is efficient, but The Medium's Ultra settings introduce effects that heavily tax even this flagship card. The GPU's 94th percentile ranking versus all GPUs confirms its elite status, yet the 4K Ultra result shows that no single component can brute-force every scenario without compromise.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases. At 1080p, the system achieves 98.9 FPS on High, 134.3 FPS on Medium, and 182.5 FPS on Low. Moving to 1440p, those numbers drop to 82.8 FPS, 112.7 FPS, and 177.1 FPS respectively. At 4K, the High preset yields 66.7 FPS, Medium 88.9 FPS, and Low 142.7 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at High settings is a 32.2 FPS reduction (from 98.9 to 66.7), which is a 32.6% performance loss.

This behavior indicates that the system is heavily GPU-limited at higher resolutions. The CPU, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, has ample headroom; its benchmark scores, such as 34,004 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, show it is not a bottleneck. The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is nearly linear with pixel count, which is a classic sign of pixel-fill and memory-bandwidth limits. The RTX 5090's 1.79 TB/s bandwidth is substantial, but the jump to 4K requires four times the pixel throughput of 1080p. The data shows that at Low settings, the 4K result of 142.7 FPS is still higher than the 1080p High result of 98.9 FPS, proving that settings have a greater impact on performance than resolution alone.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is ranked 8th out of 1,689 tested combinations in The Medium. This top-tier ranking is expected given the components' individual standings: the CPU is in the 90th percentile versus all CPUs, and the GPU is in the 94th percentile versus all GPUs. However, the rank is not first, suggesting that other combinations may offer better optimization for this specific title.

The CPU's nearest rivals provide context for its performance. The Intel Xeon 6353P scores 37,811, a mere 0.1% higher than the Ryzen's 37,780 average. The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is also 0.1% ahead, while the Intel Core i9-13900HK is 0.6% ahead. This places the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in a tight cluster at the top of CPU performance charts. On the GPU side, the RTX 5090's performance is nearly identical to the RTX 5090 D, which is 0.1% slower. The NVIDIA CMP 40HX is 1.6% faster, but this is a compute-focused card not intended for gaming. The data shows that this combo is at the absolute advanced of hardware, and its 8th place ranking out of 1,689 is a reflection of its elite status, not a deficiency.

Settings Recommendations

Benchmark results indicate that the optimal settings for this system depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. For 1080p gaming, the High preset provides an impressive 98.9 FPS, but the data shows that Low settings unlock a massive 182.5 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. At 1440p, the Medium preset delivers 112.7 FPS, which is a balanced choice for smooth gameplay. The High preset at 1440p yields 82.8 FPS, which is still playable but shows a significant drop from Medium.

At 4K, the picture changes dramatically. The Ultra preset drops to 53.2 FPS, which may be acceptable for a slow-paced horror game but is not optimal for smooth motion. The High preset at 4K provides 66.7 FPS, which is a better experience. The Medium preset at 4K yields 88.9 FPS, which is the best balance between visual fidelity and performance. The data strongly suggests that the Ultra preset is not recommended for this game on this hardware, as it incurs a 35.7 FPS penalty compared to High at 4K. For the best overall experience, selecting Medium settings at 4K or High settings at 1440p will provide frame rates above 80 FPS while maintaining visual quality.