The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti combination delivers a highly capable, though not flawless, experience in The Medium. The benchmark data shows a clear pattern: this pairing excels at lower resolutions and medium settings, but struggles to maintain high refresh rates at 4K with maximum graphical fidelity. The combination ranks 223rd out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the top 13% of all configurations, a strong result that reflects the hardware's balance of CPU and GPU power.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium produces an average of 108.9 FPS, which is a 42.6 FPS improvement over High settings (76.3 FPS) and a 44 FPS gain over Ultra (64.9 FPS). This setting provides a substantial performance buffer while still maintaining respectable visual quality. At 2560x1440, Medium delivers 94.2 FPS, which remains well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, while High drops to 65.8 FPS and Ultra falls to 50.5 FPS.

For 4K gaming, the situation becomes more demanding. At 3840x2160, Medium achieves 72.6 FPS, which is the only preset that comfortably exceeds 60 FPS at this resolution. High settings yield 54.4 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action, while Ultra drops to 41.2 FPS, a figure that may cause noticeable stuttering in a horror title where smooth camera movement is critical. The Low preset, while producing 113.7 FPS at 4K, sacrifices too much visual detail to be recommended for general play.

The data suggests that Medium is the optimal choice for this hardware combination. It provides a 30.1% performance increase over High at 1440p and a 33.5% increase at 4K, while the visual difference between Medium and High in a game like The Medium is often less pronounced than the frame rate gap suggests. For users prioritizing maximum smoothness at 1080p, the Low preset at 146.6 FPS is available, but Medium offers a superior balance of image quality and performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is the primary driver of frame rates in this configuration. With 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, the card provides 504.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This bandwidth proves sufficient for The Medium's requirements at 1080p and 1440p, where the GPU's compute capabilities are the limiting factor. The card's 7680 shading units and 240 texture mapping units allow it to handle the game's fixed-camera angles and detailed environments efficiently.

The RTX 4070 Ti operates with a base clock of 2310 MHz and a boost clock of 2610 MHz, which are relatively high frequencies for the Ada Lovelace architecture. At 1440p Medium, the GPU produces 94.2 FPS, demonstrating strong raw throughput. However, the data reveals a significant performance cliff when moving to 4K Ultra: the frame rate drops from 50.5 FPS at 1440p Ultra to 41.2 FPS at 4K Ultra, a 18.4% reduction. This indicates that the 12 GB VRAM capacity, while adequate for most scenarios, becomes strained at 4K with maximum textures, potentially causing the GPU to rely on slower memory access patterns.

The GPU's 40.09 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 60 RT cores provide ample power for The Medium's DirectX 12 rendering. The card's percentile ranking of 85th among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 44900, places it in the upper tier of graphics hardware. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, scores 45152, a negligible 0.6% difference, confirming that the desktop RTX 4070 Ti remains competitive even against newer mobile parts.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti achieves a respectable rank of 223rd out of 1689 tested configurations in The Medium. This places the combo in the 86.8th percentile of all systems tested, meaning it outperforms the vast majority of alternatives. This ranking is particularly notable given the game's release in 2021, as the hardware is well-matched to the title's engine requirements.

The CPU component of this pairing is a significant contributor to the overall ranking. The Ryzen 9 5950X, with its 16 cores and 32 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, posts an average benchmark score of 49062, placing it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-14600K, scores 49166, a mere 0.2% difference, indicating that the 5950X remains highly competitive despite its older release date. The CPU's strong multi-threaded performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 38607, ensures that it does not bottleneck the GPU in most gaming scenarios.

The combo's rank of 223 indicates that while the system is powerful, it is not at the absolute top tier. Systems with newer GPUs or higher-tier cards like the RTX 4090 likely occupy the upper echelons of the ranking. However, for the majority of users, this configuration provides a frame rate experience that exceeds the requirements of The Medium's horror gameplay, where atmospheric tension matters more than competitive frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080 resolution, the system demonstrates its peak performance across all settings. The Low preset achieves an average of 146.6 FPS, which is the highest frame rate measured in the entire dataset. Medium produces 108.9 FPS, High delivers 76.3 FPS, and Ultra manages 64.9 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a steady decline, with the Ultra preset costing 55.7% of the performance of Low. This resolution is clearly GPU-bound, as the CPU has ample headroom at these frame rates.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down proportionally. Low yields 138.4 FPS, a modest 5.6% reduction from 1080p, while Medium achieves 94.2 FPS and High reaches 65.8 FPS. Ultra drops to 50.5 FPS, which is the first preset to fall below 60 FPS. The 1440p results indicate that the RTX 4070 Ti still has sufficient bandwidth to handle the increased pixel count, as the performance penalty from 1080p to 1440p is relatively consistent across settings.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's limitations become apparent. Low produces 113.7 FPS, which is a 22.4% decrease from 1080p Low. Medium falls to 72.6 FPS, High drops to 54.4 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 41.2 FPS. The difference between 1440p and 4K is more pronounced at higher settings: Ultra loses 18.4% performance, while Low only loses 17.8%. This pattern suggests that the 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Low and Medium, but High and Ultra presets require more memory bandwidth than the 504.2 GB/s can provide at 4K.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 with Medium settings provides the best balance, delivering 94.2 FPS. This resolution maintains high visual quality while avoiding the significant frame rate drops seen at 4K Ultra.

Q: Does this combo achieve 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Yes, but only with the Medium preset, which averages 72.6 FPS. High settings fall to 54.4 FPS and Ultra drops to 41.2 FPS, neither of which consistently maintains 60 FPS.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from High to Medium at 1440p?

A: The measured data shows a 43.2% improvement, from 65.8 FPS to 94.2 FPS. This is a substantial gain that makes Medium the recommended preset for smooth gameplay.

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

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is the primary bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 146.6 FPS, suggesting the CPU can handle high frame rates, but the GPU's performance declines significantly at 4K Ultra.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other systems?

A: The combination ranks 223rd out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the top 13.2% of configurations. This is a strong result that reflects the hardware's balanced capabilities.

Q: What is the difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1080p?

A: The average frame rate drops from 146.6 FPS on Low to 64.9 FPS on Ultra, a 55.7% reduction. This demonstrates the significant GPU load imposed by the Ultra preset's graphical enhancements.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important characteristics about the system's performance. At Medium settings, the average FPS declines from 108.9 at 1080p to 94.2 at 1440p, a 13.5% reduction, and then to 72.6 at 4K, a further 22.9% reduction from 1440p. This non-linear scaling indicates that the GPU is increasingly stressed as pixel count rises, with the 4K resolution requiring four times the pixels of 1080p.

For the High preset, the scaling is more severe: 76.3 FPS at 1080p drops to 65.8 FPS at 1440p (13.8% decrease) and then to 54.4 FPS at 4K (17.3% decrease from 1440p). The Ultra preset shows the steepest decline, falling from 64.9 FPS at 1080p to 50.5 FPS at 1440p (22.2% decrease) and then to 41.2 FPS at 4K (18.4% decrease from 1440p).

These patterns suggest that the limiting component shifts from the GPU's compute units to its memory subsystem at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the RTX 4070 Ti's 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient, but at 4K, the 192-bit bus and 12 GB VRAM become constrained, particularly when High or Ultra settings increase texture memory usage. The Low preset's relatively strong 4K performance (113.7 FPS) confirms that reducing memory pressure allows the GPU to maintain higher frame rates even at 4K.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X plays a supporting but crucial role in this configuration. With 16 cores and 32 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, the CPU provides substantial multi-threaded performance that ensures it does not bottleneck the RTX 4070 Ti in The Medium. The processor's 3.40 GHz base clock and 4.90 GHz boost clock deliver strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5450.

The CPU's 64 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth provide sufficient data throughput for the game's streaming requirements. The 5950X's average benchmark score of 49062, which places it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, indicates that it has substantial headroom for gaming workloads. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-14600K, scores 49166, a 0.2% difference that is within measurement error.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is most evident at lower resolutions where frame rates are highest. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 146.6 FPS, which requires the CPU to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates at a rapid pace. The 5950X's high single-threaded performance, shown by a Geekbench single-core score of 2211, ensures that this process does not introduce stutters. However, at 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 41.2 FPS, a level at which the CPU is likely idle waiting for the GPU, confirming that the graphics card is the definitive limiting factor in the most demanding scenarios.