The Medium

# The Medium — AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti

This combination of an AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti delivers a curious split in The Medium: at 4K Ultra the frame rate drops to 42 FPS, yet at 1080p Low it reaches 180 FPS. The data suggests a system that is heavily GPU-bound at high settings but reveals surprising CPU headroom at lower presets, with the measured results placing this combo at rank 209 out of 2,911 tested configurations.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a steep and consistent decline as resolution increases, which is the classic signature of a GPU-limited workload. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 81 FPS at 1920x1080 to 68 FPS at 2560x1440 — a drop of 13 FPS — and then further down to 53 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 34.6% reduction from 1080p to 4K at High settings, indicating that the rendering pipeline is scaling nearly linearly with pixel count.

The pattern intensifies at Ultra settings, where the frame rate drops from 64 FPS at 1080p to 54 FPS at 1440p and finally to 42 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 42 FPS is particularly telling: it suggests that the RTX 5070 Ti is being pushed to its limits at this resolution, with the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth becoming the primary constraint. The fact that the 4K Ultra score is only 65.6% of the 1080p Ultra score (42 vs 64) highlights how much additional pixel throughput is required at 4K.

Low settings tell a different story. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 180 FPS, which drops to 152 FPS at 1440p and 119 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Low is 33.9%, which is remarkably similar to the High preset's 34.6% reduction. This consistency across settings suggests that resolution scaling is primarily driven by pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth, not by shader complexity — the RTX 5070 Ti's 96 ROPs and 896.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are being exercised similarly regardless of the visual preset.

The gap between Medium and High presets at each resolution is also informative. At 1080p, Medium delivers 113 FPS while High drops to 81 FPS — a 28.3% penalty for moving up one preset level. At 1440p, the same comparison shows 95 FPS versus 68 FPS (28.4% penalty), and at 4K it's 74 FPS versus 53 FPS (28.4% penalty). This near-identical percentage penalty across resolutions indicates that the Medium-to-High transition adds a consistent amount of GPU work, likely from increased texture filtering and shadow detail, without fundamentally changing the bottleneck profile.

GPU Role

The RTX 5070 Ti brings substantial resources to The Medium: 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, and a boost clock of 2452 MHz across 8,960 shading units. The 16 GB frame buffer is more than sufficient for this game, even at 4K Ultra, as no memory-related stutters can be inferred from the measured FPS data — the min FPS values at Medium settings (63 FPS at 4K, 81 FPS at 1440p, 96 FPS at 1080p) are all reasonably close to their average counterparts, suggesting no VRAM overflow or texture thrashing.

The GPU's compute capability is substantial, with 43.94 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput and 70 RT cores, though The Medium is not a ray-tracing showcase. The measured results show that the GPU's raw rasterization performance is the key driver: at 4K Ultra, the 42 FPS average indicates that the card is saturated, while at 1080p Low the 180 FPS ceiling appears to be constrained by something else — possibly the CPU or a frame rate limiter, though the data doesn't specify.

Comparing the RTX 5070 Ti to its nearest rivals using the average benchmark scores, it sits at 49,957 versus 50,001 for the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (a 0.1% deficit), 49,737 for the Intel Arc A550M (0.4% ahead), 50,951 for the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (2% behind), and 48,477 for the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (3.1% ahead). This places the card in a competitive mid-range position, and the The Medium results reflect that — the GPU can handle 1440p High at 68 FPS comfortably, but 4K Ultra at 42 FPS is borderline for smooth gameplay.

The clock behavior is worth noting: the base clock of 2295 MHz and boost of 2452 MHz are relatively close (6.8% difference), which suggests the card maintains near-boost frequencies under sustained load. The measured FPS at Medium settings — 113 FPS at 1080p, 95 FPS at 1440p, and 74 FPS at 4K — show a scaling pattern that aligns with the GPU's pixel rate of 235.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 686.6 GTexel/s. These are the metrics that matter for a fixed-function heavy title like The Medium, and the data confirms they're being fully utilized.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the Medium preset offers the best balance of performance and visual quality for this GPU-CPU combo. At 1080p Medium, the system delivers 113 FPS with a min FPS of 96 and max of 130, which provides a smooth experience well above typical display refresh rates. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 95 FPS (min 81, max 109), still excellent for high-refresh monitors. Even at 4K Medium, the 74 FPS average (min 63, max 86) is playable, though the min FPS of 63 suggests occasional dips that might be noticeable on 60 Hz displays.

The High preset is a reasonable choice for 1080p (81 FPS) and 1440p (68 FPS), but at 4K it falls to 53 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold many players target. The Ultra preset is only viable at 1080p (64 FPS) and 1440p (54 FPS), with 4K Ultra at 42 FPS being the least desirable option in the entire measured set. Given that the jump from Medium to High costs roughly 28% performance at every resolution, and the visual gains in a fixed-camera horror game like The Medium are likely modest, Medium appears to be the sweet spot.

For players prioritizing frame rate, the Low preset offers remarkable headroom: 180 FPS at 1080p, 152 FPS at 1440p, and 119 FPS at 4K. These numbers suggest that even at 4K Low, the system is never GPU-bound in a problematic way — 119 FPS is well above what most displays can show, and the 34% drop from 1080p to 4K at Low is less severe in absolute terms than the 28 FPS difference at High settings.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Medium?*

A: The data shows 1440p Medium provides 95 FPS average with a min of 81 FPS, making it the highest resolution and preset combination that maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average drops to 74 FPS but the min FPS of 63 is still above 60, so 4K Medium is also viable.

*Q: Can this system handle 4K Ultra in The Medium?*

A: Yes, but just barely — the measured 4K Ultra average is 42 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider smooth, so while it works, it may feel sluggish during action sequences.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 Ti compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score of 49,957 is 0.1% below the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (50,001), 0.4% above the Intel Arc A550M (49,737), 2% below the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (50,951), and 3.1% above the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (48,477).

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 9850X3D a bottleneck at 1080p Low?

A: The 1080p Low result of 180 FPS is notably higher than the 1440p Low (152 FPS) and 4K Low (119 FPS), but the fact that it doesn't scale beyond 180 FPS suggests the CPU may be limiting at this resolution and preset, given that the GPU has more headroom at lower pixel counts.

Q: What is the difference between Medium and High settings at each resolution?

A: At 1080p, Medium delivers 113 FPS versus High's 81 FPS (a 28.3% penalty). At 1440p, it's 95 FPS versus 68 FPS (28.4% penalty). At 4K, it's 74 FPS versus 53 FPS (28.4% penalty). The consistent percentage drop indicates the same GPU workload increase at all resolutions.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combo rank is 209 out of 2,911 tested combos, placing it in the top 7.2% of all systems tested in The Medium.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a 8-core, 16-thread processor with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz, built on TSMC's 4 nm process with 96 MB of shared L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 scores of 22,807 multi-core and 2,228 single-core, combined with a Passmark single-thread score of 4,704, indicate strong per-core performance that should easily keep up with the RTX 5070 Ti in most scenarios.

The CPU's percentile rank of 92 vs all CPUs and average benchmark score of 58,386 place it just 0.1% above the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (58,323), 0.2% below the Intel Xeon w5-2545 (58,504), 0.5% above the Intel Core i9-14900 (58,115), and 0.7% below the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 (58,826). These are extremely tight margins, suggesting the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is well within the expected performance envelope for a high-end desktop CPU.

In The Medium, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU at most settings. The measured FPS differences between resolutions at the same preset are large and consistent, which would not be the case if the CPU were the primary bottleneck. However, the 1080p Low result of 180 FPS is suspiciously round and may indicate a CPU-imposed frame rate ceiling. The Passmark data shows the CPU achieves 41,318 in multithread and 4,704 in single-thread tests, with physics at 4,171 — all healthy numbers that should handle the game's fixed-camera rendering and audio processing without issue.

The 8-core, 16-thread configuration with a 5.60 GHz boost clock is more than adequate for a game like The Medium, which launched in 2021 and is not known for aggressive multi-threading. The CPU's 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth and DDR5 support ensure that data feeding to the GPU is not a constraint, and the 96 MB L3 cache likely helps maintain consistent frame times in the game's corridor-like environments. The measured min FPS values at Medium settings (96 FPS at 1080p, 81 FPS at 1440p, 63 FPS at 4K) show no signs of CPU-related stutter — the minimums are all within 18-15% of their respective averages, which is typical for GPU-bound scenarios.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all presets. Low settings produce 180 FPS average, Medium produces 113 FPS (min 96, max 130), High produces 81 FPS, and Ultra produces 64 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra represents a 64.4% reduction in frame rate, from 180 to 64 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset costs more than two-thirds of the Low preset's performance.

At 2560x1440, the results are 152 FPS at Low, 95 FPS (min 81, max 109) at Medium, 68 FPS at High, and 54 FPS at Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across settings: Low loses 15.6%, Medium loses 15.9%, High loses 16.0%, and Ultra loses 15.6%. This uniformity suggests that resolution scaling in The Medium is purely a function of pixel count, with no additional memory pressure or bandwidth bottleneck emerging at 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the numbers are 119 FPS at Low, 74 FPS (min 63, max 86) at Medium, 53 FPS at High, and 42 FPS at Ultra. The 4K Ultra result of 42 FPS is the lowest measured value in the entire set, and it represents a 34.4% drop from the 1440p Ultra score of 54 FPS. Notably, the 4K Low score of 119 FPS is still higher than the 1080p Ultra score of 64 FPS, which indicates that even at 4K, the Low preset leaves substantial GPU headroom.

The Medium preset's min and max FPS values provide the only frame time data in the measured set. At 1080p, the range is 96 to 130 FPS (a 34 FPS spread), at 1440p it's 81 to 109 FPS (28 FPS spread), and at 4K it's 63 to 86 FPS (23 FPS spread). The narrowing spread at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU becomes more consistently loaded as pixel count increases, reducing frame time variance.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 209 out of 2,911 tested configurations places this system in the top 7.2% of all combos tested in The Medium. This is a strong showing, but not an elite one — the top 7% includes configurations with more powerful GPUs or CPUs that push the game to higher frame rates at 4K Ultra.

The rank is particularly interesting given the individual component rankings. The CPU sits at the 92nd percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU sits at the 86th percentile among all GPUs. In The Medium, this combo outperforms what those individual percentiles might suggest — 7.2% of combos is better than the GPU's 14% ranking would imply, suggesting that the game is more CPU-sensitive than the raw resolution scaling data initially indicates.

The nearest CPU rivals — the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M, Intel Xeon w5-2545, Intel Core i9-14900, and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 — all have average benchmark scores within 0.7% of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. Similarly, the GPU's nearest rivals (RX Vega 64, Arc A550M, RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT) are all within 3.1% of its average score. This clustering suggests that the combo's rank of 209 is not driven by a single outlier component, but rather by the balanced pairing of a high-end CPU with a capable GPU.

The fact that this combo achieves 53 FPS at 4K High while only 42 FPS at 4K Ultra suggests that the game's Ultra preset includes effects that disproportionately tax the GPU. Given the combo's rank, it's likely that many of the 2,702 combos ranked above it feature GPUs with higher memory bandwidth or more shading units, which would allow them to maintain higher frame rates at 4K Ultra. The RTX 5070 Ti's 96 ROPs and 896.0 GB/s bandwidth are strong, but clearly not sufficient to dominate this title at maximum settings.