The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title built on Unreal Engine 4, presents an interesting stress profile for the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination. The measured data shows that this pairing is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, but the CPU's capabilities become more relevant at lower settings and resolutions. The benchmark results indicate a system that can handle the game's demanding dual-reality rendering, where two worlds are often displayed simultaneously, but the performance scaling reveals distinct bottlenecks depending on the configuration.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data shows a predictable and steep decline as resolution increases, confirming that the RTX 4090 is the primary limiting component at 4K. At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the system produces an average of 132 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops the average to 111 FPS, a reduction of roughly 16%. The jump to 3840x2160 is far more punishing, with the average falling to 87 FPS, which is a 21.6% decrease from the 1440p result and a 34.1% drop from the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern is typical of a game that becomes exponentially more demanding on the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth as pixel count increases.

The gap between 1080p and 1440p is relatively modest, suggesting that the CPU and GPU combination still has headroom at these resolutions. However, the significant drop at 4K indicates that the RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are being pushed hard by The Medium's high-resolution textures and rendering techniques. At the Ultra preset, the scaling is even more pronounced: 75 FPS at 1080p, 63 FPS at 1440p, and 50 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 4K transition at Ultra results in a 33.3% performance loss, demonstrating that the Ultra preset's additional effects and shadow quality create a workload that is heavily dependent on raw GPU throughput.

Conversely, the Low preset shows the least relative scaling, with 198 FPS at 1080p, 178 FPS at 1440p, and 140 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 4K drop here is 29.3%, which is slightly less than the Medium preset's 34.1% loss. This suggests that at Low settings, the game's visual effects are reduced enough that the CPU's role becomes more prominent, particularly at 1080p where the 198 FPS average indicates the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is capable of feeding frames at a very high rate. The data shows that for users targeting 4K, the Medium preset offers the best balance, as the 87 FPS average is well above the 63 FPS High result and the 50 FPS Ultra result.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play The Medium with this hardware?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 with Medium settings provides a strong balance, yielding 111 FPS average. At 4K, the Medium preset drops to 87 FPS, which is still playable but shows the GPU becoming the limiting factor. For maximum smoothness, 1080p Low hits 198 FPS, but the visual quality trade-off is significant.

Q: How does the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM affect performance in this game?

A: The 24 GB frame buffer is more than sufficient for The Medium at all tested resolutions and presets. The data shows no signs of memory-related stuttering or frame drops, with the minimum FPS at 4K Medium being 74 FPS. The game's dual-reality rendering can be memory-intensive, but the 4090's capacity avoids any VRAM ceiling.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 9850X3D a bottleneck at any resolution?

A: At 1080p with Low settings, the 198 FPS average suggests the CPU is still keeping up, but the scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low (29.3% drop) is less severe than at Medium (34.1% drop), indicating the GPU becomes more dominant at higher settings. The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, are sufficient to avoid being the primary limiter in most tested scenarios.

Q: What is the difference in performance between the High and Ultra presets?

A: At 4K, the High preset averages 63 FPS, while Ultra averages 50 FPS, a 20.6% performance penalty for the increased visual fidelity. At 1440p, the gap narrows slightly, with High at 80 FPS and Ultra at 63 FPS (21.3% difference). At 1080p, High achieves 95 FPS and Ultra 75 FPS, a 21.1% drop.

Q: Does the RTX 4090's benchmark score correlate with its in-game performance here?

A: The GPU's Passmark G3D score of 38194 and its 88th percentile ranking among all GPUs indicate top-tier performance. However, in The Medium, the game's specific engine demands result in 4K Ultra averaging only 50 FPS, showing that even a flagship GPU can be challenged by this title's rendering load.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its rivals, and does it matter here?

A: The CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 22807, which is 0.5% ahead of the Intel Core i9-14900 and 0.1% ahead of the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M. For The Medium, the game's performance scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a GPU bottleneck, so the CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are secondary to the GPU's raw fill rate.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this configuration, and its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. This memory subsystem is critical for The Medium, which renders two simultaneous camera perspectives for its signature dual-reality mechanic. The data shows that the GPU's performance scales as expected with resolution, but the VRAM capacity ensures that no texture streaming issues arise even at 4K Ultra.

The core clocks, with a base of 2235 MHz and boost of 2520 MHz, are relatively high, but the GPU's 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power is what drives the high frame rates at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the 198 FPS average is likely limited by the CPU's ability to issue draw calls, while at 4K Ultra, the 50 FPS result is purely GPU-bound. The RTX 4090's 128 RT cores are not explicitly tested in this data, but The Medium's use of ray-traced reflections and shadows at higher presets likely contributes to the performance drop from High to Ultra.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, with a Passmark G3D score of 38194. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the Intel Arc Pro A60 and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48, which have nearly identical average scores, but the RTX 4090's real-world performance in The Medium is significantly stronger due to its architectural advantages. The data shows that at 4K Medium, the GPU delivers 87 FPS, which is 74% higher than the 50 FPS at 4K Ultra, highlighting how much headroom exists in the Medium preset's reduced shader complexity.

Settings Recommendations

For a balance of visual quality and performance, the Medium preset is the clear recommendation across all tested resolutions. At 4K, it delivers an average of 87 FPS with a minimum of 74 FPS, which is smooth enough for the game's deliberate pacing. The High preset at 4K drops to 63 FPS, which is still playable but not as fluid, while Ultra at 50 FPS is borderline for a game that can have sudden camera cuts and transitions.

At 1440p, the Medium preset's 111 FPS provides excellent headroom for any potential frame drops during intense scenes. The 95 FPS minimum at this resolution indicates consistent performance. The High preset at 1440p, with 80 FPS, is also viable, but the Medium preset's 31 FPS advantage is noticeable. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset achieves 75 FPS, so users with 1080p displays can afford to use higher settings, but Medium at 132 FPS is the sweet spot for high refresh rate monitors.

The Low preset is only recommended for users prioritizing maximum frame rates, such as 198 FPS at 1080p, but the visual downgrade is substantial. The data indicates that the Medium preset is the most efficient in terms of performance per visual fidelity, as it offers a 72.4% improvement over Ultra at 4K (87 vs 50 FPS) while still maintaining a respectable level of detail. The Ultra preset's additional effects do not justify the 42.5% performance loss compared to Medium at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 198 FPS, Medium averages 132 FPS with a minimum of 112 and maximum of 152, High averages 95 FPS, and Ultra averages 75 FPS. This shows a clear linear progression where each step up in settings costs roughly 20-25% performance.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down accordingly: Low averages 178 FPS, Medium averages 111 FPS (min 95, max 128), High averages 80 FPS, and Ultra averages 63 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 95 FPS is notably high, indicating that the game maintains consistent frame pacing at this resolution. The 1440p results are 10-15% lower than 1080p across all settings, which is a moderate penalty for the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck. Low averages 140 FPS, Medium averages 87 FPS (min 74, max 101), High averages 63 FPS, and Ultra averages 50 FPS. The 4K Medium result of 87 FPS is particularly noteworthy because it outperforms the 1440p High result of 80 FPS, suggesting that the Medium preset's reduced effects allow the GPU to allocate more resources to resolution scaling. The 4K Ultra result of 50 FPS is the only configuration that falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making it the least viable option for consistent gameplay.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, provides ample processing power for The Medium. The CPU's base clock of 4.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz are high, but the game's engine is not particularly CPU-intensive, as evidenced by the performance scaling patterns. The 96 MB of shared L3 cache is a notable feature that helps with game data locality, but the benchmark data shows that the GPU is the primary limiter at most settings.

The CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22807 places it in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 58386 is nearly identical to the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (58323) and Intel Core i9-14900 (58115). The deltaPct values show that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is within 0.7% of its nearest rivals, indicating that CPU performance is not a distinguishing factor in this game's results.

At 1080p Low, the 198 FPS average is likely approaching the CPU's frame delivery limit, but it is still well above the refresh rates of most monitors. The 4K Low result of 140 FPS shows that even at lower settings, the GPU can maintain high frame rates, meaning the CPU is not a bottleneck even at 4K. The data suggests that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D's single-thread performance, with a Passmark single-thread score of 4704, is more than sufficient for The Medium's fixed-camera perspective, which relies on moderate draw calls and physics calculations. The CPU's 120W TDP and 4nm process node contribute to its efficiency, but in this specific game, the RTX 4090's 450W TDP and massive compute resources are what ultimately dictate the frame rates.