The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 presents an extreme bottleneck scenario in The Medium. The data shows this combination delivers a playable experience only under the most restrictive settings, with the CPU's immense processing power largely wasted by the GPU's limited rendering capabilities. This analysis breaks down the measured performance to guide settings choices and explain the hardware dynamics at play.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured frames per second across all resolutions and presets, the only viable path to a smooth experience is the Low preset, and even then, only at 1080p. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 44 FPS, which is the only configuration in the dataset that approaches a playable 60 FPS target, though it still falls short of it. The Medium preset at 1080p drops to 27 average FPS, which is a 17 FPS (roughly 39%) reduction from Low, making it a poor trade for any visual uplift. At 1440p, the Low preset yields 37 average FPS, which is below the 45 FPS threshold many consider the minimum for acceptable action, but it may be tolerable for a slower-paced horror title. However, the 4K Low preset at 29 average FPS is firmly in slideshow territory.

For the best balance of playability and visual fidelity, the data suggests using Low settings at 1080p. The High preset at 1080p only produces 20 average FPS, which is less than half of what Low achieves. The Ultra preset is essentially unplayable at every resolution, with 16 average FPS at 1080p, 13 at 1440p, and 10 at 4K. The Medium preset, while offering a frame window (23 min, 31 max at 1080p), is still too inconsistent and slow for a game that relies on atmospheric tension. Therefore, the recommendation is clear: select Low settings for any chance at a coherent experience. If a higher resolution is a hard requirement, 1440p Low at 37 average FPS is the only other setting that stays above 30 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at all resolutions indicates that the game's rendering load quickly overwhelms the GTX 1650, so staying on the lowest preset is the only practical choice.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a high-end desktop processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 5 architecture. Its benchmark scores place it in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22807 and a single-core score of 2228. These numbers are far beyond what The Medium requires, as evidenced by the fact that even at the lowest settings, the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU's base clock is 4.70 GHz with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, and it features a large 96 MB shared L3 cache. In this specific game, the CPU's role is to feed frames to the GPU, and it does so with ease.

The performance data confirms that the CPU is not a bottleneck. At 1080p, going from Low to Ultra settings only changes the average FPS from 44 to 16, a dramatic shift that is entirely attributable to the GPU's workload increasing. If the CPU were the constraint, we would expect to see similar FPS numbers across different settings at the same resolution, as the CPU would be maxed out. Instead, the FPS scales inversely with the graphical preset, which is a clear sign of a GPU-bound scenario. The CPU's nearest rivals, like the Intel Core i9-14900, have a similar average benchmark score (58115 vs 58386), but their performance in this game would be equally irrelevant if paired with a GTX 1650. The data indicates that the 9850X3D is effectively idle, waiting for the GTX 1650 to catch up. Its high single-thread performance (4704 in Passmark) is excellent for general tasks, but in The Medium, it provides no tangible benefit because the rendering pipeline is stalled at the GPU stage.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is the clear bottleneck in this configuration. It is an end-of-life product from the GeForce 16-series, built on the Turing architecture with a 12 nm process. It has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth. Its compute capabilities are modest, with an FP32 performance of 2.984 TFLOPS and 896 shading units. The GPU's average benchmark score is 7472, placing it in the 40th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the Intel UHD Graphics 750 and the AMD Radeon R7 350, which are integrated or low-end discrete solutions. This context is crucial: the GTX 1650 is not a gaming card by modern standards, and The Medium is a demanding title.

The measured FPS data highlights the GPU's limitations. At 1080p, the Low preset yields 44 average FPS, but this drops to 27 at Medium and 20 at High. This steep decline shows that the GTX 1650's 4 GB VRAM and limited shading power are quickly saturated by the game's textures and effects. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 305 is very low, reflecting its inability to handle modern DirectX 12 workloads. The GPU's memory clocks are listed at 2001 MHz (8 Gbps effective), and while this is fixed, the performance is not memory-bandwidth-bound; it is compute-bound. The 4 GB VRAM is a particular concern for The Medium, which is known for its dual-reality rendering technique. At 4K, the Low preset only manages 29 average FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 10 average FPS, which is an unplayable 3 FPS higher than the High preset's 13. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is completely overwhelmed, and the settings have a diminishing impact on the frame rate because the base workload is already too high.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of components ranks 2817 out of 2911 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the bottom 3% of all configurations. This poor ranking is almost entirely due to the GTX 1650. The CPU's high percentile (92nd) is negated by the GPU's low percentile (40th). The data shows that this combo is not just below average; it is near the very bottom of the barrel. The rank indicates that 2816 other CPU and GPU pairings deliver better performance in this game, which is expected given that most modern gaming GPUs outperform the GTX 1650 by a significant margin.

The combo's rank is a direct consequence of the GPU's performance being the limiting factor. The CPU's passmark multi-thread score is 41318, which is strong, but the GPU's passmark G3D score is only 7880. In a game like The Medium, the GPU's score is far more predictive of the final FPS. The deltaPct values for the GPU's nearest rivals show a tight cluster: the AMD Radeon HD 8850M is 0.3% slower, and the Intel Arc A310 is 1% faster. This means that any of these GPUs would produce nearly identical results in this game. Conversely, the CPU's nearest rivals are all within 0.7% of its average score, but their performance is irrelevant here. The ranking of 2817 out of 2911 is a warning that this system is not suited for this game, and users should expect performance at the very low end of the spectrum.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is severe and non-linear, which further confirms the GPU bottleneck. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 44 at 1080p to 37 at 1440p (a 16% drop) and then to 29 at 4K (a 22% drop from 1440p). This scaling is what we would expect from a GPU that is running out of raw compute and memory bandwidth. At Medium settings, the drop is from 27 at 1080p to 23 at 1440p (a 15% drop) and then to 18 at 4K (a 22% drop). The percentage drops are relatively consistent, indicating that the GPU is hitting a similar performance ceiling at each resolution, just at a lower frame rate.

The scaling behavior shows that the GTX 1650's 128.1 GB/s memory bandwidth is insufficient for higher resolutions. At 4K, the pixel count is four times that of 1080p, but the FPS at Low settings only drops by 34% (from 44 to 29). This is because the game is not purely pixel-bound; it is also bound by the GPU's shading units and VRAM capacity. However, the fact that the FPS does not scale linearly with resolution suggests that the GPU is not completely bandwidth-starved, but rather that the overall compute load is too high. The 4K Ultra preset at 10 average FPS is a clear outlier, showing that the combination of high resolution and high settings is impossible. For any playable experience, the user must stick to 1080p, and even then, the Low preset is the only option that stays above 40 FPS. The data indicates that the CPU has no role in this scaling; the frame rate is entirely dependent on the GPU's ability to render the scene at each resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Here is the complete measured FPS data, presented by resolution and settings.

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 44 average FPS
• Medium: 27 average FPS (minimum 23, maximum 31)
• High: 20 average FPS
• Ultra: 16 average FPS

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 37 average FPS
• Medium: 23 average FPS (minimum 20, maximum 26)
• High: 16 average FPS
• Ultra: 13 average FPS

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 29 average FPS
• Medium: 18 average FPS (minimum 15, maximum 21)
• High: 13 average FPS
• Ultra: 10 average FPS

The data shows a monotonically decreasing FPS as resolution and settings increase. At 1080p Low, the 44 average FPS is the only result above 40. The Medium preset provides a frame window, but its 27 average is still below the 30 FPS threshold often considered the minimum for playable. At 1440p, the Low preset at 37 average FPS is the best result, but it is still 7 FPS slower than the same preset at 1080p. At 4K, all results are below 30 average FPS, making the game effectively unplayable. The minimum FPS values for the Medium preset at each resolution (23 at 1080p, 20 at 1440p, 15 at 4K) indicate that there are stutters and drops below the average, which would be noticeable in a horror game. The maximum FPS values (31 at 1080p, 26 at 1440p, 21 at 4K) are still below what most players would consider smooth. The data is unequivocal: for a playable experience, the user must select 1080p Low. Any other setting will result in a sub-30 FPS average or worse. This breakdown confirms that the GTX 1650 is a severe limitation, and the Ryzen 7 9850X3D's power cannot compensate for it.