The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT delivers a playable experience in The Medium, but the data reveals a configuration that is heavily constrained by graphics settings rather than raw resolution scaling. The benchmark results show that this combo ranks in the 750th position out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it squarely in the upper-middle tier of systems. The most striking finding is the massive performance gulf between Low and Ultra settings, which far exceeds the typical cost of simply raising resolution, indicating that the GPU’s memory subsystem and shading power are the primary determinants of final frame rates.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data strongly indicates that Medium settings provide the optimal balance for this hardware in The Medium. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset yields an average of 77.4 FPS, which is a 39.5% improvement over High’s 55.5 FPS while remaining perfectly smooth for the horror genre’s typically slower pacing. Pushing to Low at the same resolution nets 126.6 FPS, but the visual degradation in a game that relies on atmosphere is not worth the extra 49.2 FPS headroom. At 2560x1440, Medium produces 63.9 FPS, which remains above the 60 FPS threshold, while High drops to 47.5 FPS and Ultra falls to a stutter-prone 38.1 FPS.

For 4K users, the choice becomes more difficult. The data shows Medium at 3840x2160 averaging 51.2 FPS, which is borderline but playable for a story-driven title. High at 4K drops to 35.3 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 27.7 FPS, both of which are below acceptable thresholds for consistent motion. The recommendation is clear: stick with Medium for a locked experience, as the jump from Medium to High costs 31.5% performance at 1440p and 31.1% at 4K. Low settings are only advisable for competitive play, which is irrelevant in this single-player horror title, making Medium the definitive choice across all tested resolutions.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7700 XT’s 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth, is the central pillar of this configuration’s performance. The GPU’s boost clock of 2544 MHz and game clock of 2171 MHz drive its 3456 shading units, and the benchmark results show that this raw compute power scales predictably with settings. The data indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at Ultra settings, where the 4K average of 27.7 FPS and 1440p average of 38.1 FPS reveal an inability to sustain the shading load required by the highest preset.

Interestingly, the GPU’s performance percentile of 73 versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30097, places it in close contention with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, which scores 30109 with a deltaPct of 0. This near-parity is reflected in the measured FPS, where the RX 7700 XT’s 12 GB frame buffer proves sufficient for Medium settings but becomes a bottleneck at High and Ultra. The 18 Gbps effective memory speed, while not directly cited in FPS figures, correlates with the observed 83.3 FPS at 4K Low versus 35.3 FPS at 4K High. This 57.6% performance drop from Low to High at 4K, compared to a 32.4% drop from 1440p to 4K at Medium, confirms that the GPU’s shading units and texture rate of 549.5 GTexel/s are saturated by the higher presets.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads based on Zen 3 architecture, provides ample headroom that the benchmark data shows is rarely taxed in The Medium. The CPU’s boost clock of 4.80 GHz and 64 MB of L3 cache contribute to a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 33150, but the game’s frame rates do not scale with CPU core count. Evidence of this is found in the FPS deltas: at 1080p, moving from Low to Medium drops performance by 38.9%, from 126.6 to 77.4 FPS, which is a GPU-bound behavior pattern. The CPU’s single-thread score of 4680 in Cinebench R23 and Geekbench single-core score of 2202 are more than sufficient for the game’s logic, as no measured FPS value shows a CPU-imposed ceiling.

The processor’s 90th percentile ranking versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 39453, places it 0.9% ahead of the Intel Core i7-13700F in synthetic tests, yet this advantage never translates to higher frame rates in the measured data. The 3.70 GHz base clock ensures consistent minimum frame delivery, but the game’s reliance on GPU effects like ray-traced reflections and volumetric lighting means the CPU sits idle relative to the GPU’s workload. This is a classic case of over-provisioning compute resources for a title that demands graphics throughput first, as evidenced by the 4K Ultra result of 27.7 FPS, which would not improve with a faster CPU given the GPU’s saturation.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 750th out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the 55.6th percentile of all systems benchmarked in The Medium. This position is underwhelming given the individual component rankings, but the data explains why: the GPU’s 73rd percentile against all GPUs is the ceiling, while the CPU’s 90th percentile cannot boost the score. The ranking suggests that this pairing is balanced for 1080p and 1440p Medium play, but it falls behind combos that pair similarly powerful CPUs with higher-tier GPUs. The nearest GPU rival, the RTX 5060 with a deltaPct of 0, would likely produce near-identical results, confirming that the RX 7700 XT is the limiting factor in this specific configuration.

The rank of 750 indicates that roughly 939 other combos outperform this system in The Medium, which aligns with the GPU’s mid-range positioning. The data shows no scenario where this combo excels beyond its GPU’s capabilities, meaning users should expect performance in line with other RX 7700 XT systems. The CPU’s headroom is wasted in this title, as the measured FPS at 1080p Low of 126.6 FPS is a GPU limit, not a CPU one, since the Ryzen 9 5900X can handle far higher frame rates in less demanding scenes.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, but the magnitude varies dramatically by settings. At Medium settings, the average FPS falls from 77.4 at 1080p to 63.9 at 1440p (a 17.4% drop) and then to 51.2 at 4K (a 19.9% drop from 1440p). This gradual scaling indicates that the GPU’s 12 GB memory and 432.0 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for Medium, with the 4K result remaining above 50 FPS. However, at High settings, the drop from 55.5 FPS at 1080p to 47.5 FPS at 1440p (14.4%) and then to 35.3 FPS at 4K (25.7%) shows an accelerating decline that points to VRAM capacity or bandwidth saturation at higher pixel counts.

The Low settings data tells a different story: 126.6 FPS at 1080p, 106.2 FPS at 1440p, and 83.3 FPS at 4K. Here, the 4K result is 65.8% of the 1080p result, which is a milder degradation than at High (63.6%) or Ultra (61.7%). This suggests that at Low settings, the GPU is less constrained by shading complexity and more by pure pixel fill rate, with the 244.2 GPixel/s pixel rate being the limiting factor. The Ultra settings show the worst scaling, with 44.9 FPS at 1080p falling to 27.7 FPS at 4K, a 38.3% reduction, confirming that the highest preset overwhelms the GPU’s compute resources regardless of resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear hierarchy: Low averages 126.6 FPS, Medium averages 77.4 FPS, High averages 55.5 FPS, and Ultra averages 44.9 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs 38.9% performance, while Medium to High costs 28.3%, and High to Ultra costs 19.1%. At 2560x1440, the values are 106.2 FPS for Low, 63.9 FPS for Medium, 47.5 FPS for High, and 38.1 FPS for Ultra. The Medium to High drop of 25.7% is steeper than at 1080p, indicating increased GPU pressure. At 3840x2160, Low produces 83.3 FPS, Medium drops to 51.2 FPS, High falls to 35.3 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 27.7 FPS.

The most notable data point is the 4K Low result of 83.3 FPS, which is higher than the 1080p High result of 55.5 FPS. This demonstrates that settings have a larger impact on performance than resolution, as the GPU can handle 4K pixel counts when shading complexity is reduced. Conversely, the 1080p Ultra result of 44.9 FPS is only 6.8 FPS higher than the 4K Medium result of 51.2 FPS, showing that the Medium preset at 4K is a better experience than Ultra at 1080p, a counterintuitive finding that validates the settings recommendation above.

FAQ

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

A: Medium settings provide the best experience, yielding 77.4 FPS at 1080p, 63.9 FPS at 1440p, and 51.2 FPS at 4K, all above playable thresholds. High and Ultra presets drop below 60 FPS at 1440p, making them less suitable for consistent motion.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this configuration?

A: The GPU is the clear bottleneck. The RX 7700 XT’s 12 GB VRAM and 3456 shading units are saturated at High and Ultra settings, as evidenced by the 4K Ultra result of 27.7 FPS. The Ryzen 9 5900X’s 24 threads and 4.80 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom, with no measured FPS showing a CPU constraint.

Q: How does this combo compare to the RTX 5060 in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 7700 XT scores 30097 in average benchmarks, while the RTX 5060 scores 30109, a deltaPct of 0. This near-identical synthetic performance suggests the two GPUs would produce similar frame rates in The Medium, though the data only confirms the RX 7700 XT’s measured results.

Q: Why does the 4K Low preset outperform the 1080p High preset?

A: The 4K Low preset averages 83.3 FPS, while 1080p High averages 55.5 FPS. This occurs because Low settings drastically reduce shading complexity, allowing the GPU’s 244.2 GPixel/s pixel rate to handle 4K resolution, whereas High settings tax the shading units more than the pixel fill rate.

Q: What is the performance drop from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: The drop is 26.2 FPS, from 77.4 FPS at 1080p to 51.2 FPS at 4K, representing a 33.9% reduction. This is a moderate decline that keeps the 4K result above 50 FPS, making Medium the only preset where 4K is viable for this combo.

Q: Does the CPU’s 90th percentile ranking help in this game?

A: No. The CPU’s high synthetic scores, such as 33150 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, do not translate to higher FPS in The Medium. The game is GPU-bound, as shown by the consistent FPS drops across settings that mirror GPU workload, not CPU capability.