The Medium

The Medium with AMD Ryzen 9 7900X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti delivers a performance profile that is heavily dictated by the graphics card’s memory bandwidth and the game’s demanding visual effects. This combination places 439th out of 1689 tested combos, putting it in the upper quartile of all systems tested for this title. The data shows a clear pattern: the RTX 3080 Ti’s 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for the game’s asset streaming but becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions and quality presets.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA102 chip manufactured on Samsung’s 8 nm process. Its memory subsystem is a standout feature: 12 GB of GDDR6X running at an effective 19 Gbps across a 384-bit bus yields a bandwidth of 912.4 GB/s. This is the single most important specification for The Medium, a horror title that relies on seamless scene transitions and high-resolution textures. The benchmark results indicate that when the GPU’s memory bandwidth is saturated, frame rates drop sharply, but when the load is reduced, the headroom becomes obvious.

The GPU’s clock behavior also plays a role. With a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, the RTX 3080 Ti is not running at extreme frequencies compared to newer cards, but its raw compute resources compensate. The card has 10,240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units, along with 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores. For a game like The Medium, which uses fixed camera angles and pre-baked lighting in many scenes, the rasterization throughput of 186.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 532.8 GTexel/s are what drive most of the rendering work.

The CPU, an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from the 7000 series based on Zen 4 architecture. It runs at a base clock of 4.70 GHz and boosts to 5.60 GHz. In this game, the CPU is rarely the bottleneck. The benchmark results show that at 1080p Low, the combo reaches 149.5 FPS, which is still below the CPU’s potential ceiling, indicating the GPU is doing most of the heavy lifting. The CPU’s dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth provides enough data throughput to keep the GPU fed, but it does not directly influence the frame rate in a way that would change the ranking among other tested combos.

The interaction between the GPU’s memory and the game’s settings is critical. At 4K Ultra, the card’s 12 GB VRAM is likely being pushed to its limit with high-resolution textures and shadow maps, resulting in a 32.7 FPS average. Dropping to 4K Low increases the average to 97.6 FPS, a nearly threefold improvement. This sensitivity to settings suggests that the game’s visual features, not the raw shader count, are what tax the RTX 3080 Ti. The card’s 34.10 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is more than adequate for the geometry and lighting, but the memory bandwidth is the constraining resource when quality presets increase the data footprint.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: How does the RTX 3080 Ti’s performance compare to its closest rival in this GPU class?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti has an average benchmark score of 41,224. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, scores 41,441, which is 0.5% higher. The AMD Radeon Pro 5300 scores 41,610, a 0.9% advantage, while the RTX 5070 is 1.1% ahead with 41,687. The data shows the RTX 3080 Ti is effectively on par with these cards in synthetic tests, but the real-world FPS in The Medium depends on other factors.

Q: What is the best performance this combo achieves at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average FPS of 149.5. This is the highest frame rate recorded across all resolutions and settings. On Medium settings, it drops to 90.4 FPS, on High it is 65.4 FPS, and on Ultra it falls to 54.9 FPS.

Q: Does the Ryzen 9 7900X bottleneck the RTX 3080 Ti in this game?

A: The benchmark data does not indicate a CPU bottleneck. The CPU’s single-thread score in 3DMark is 1,093, and its multi-thread score is 12,536. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 149.5 FPS, which is below the theoretical CPU limit. The frame rate scales inversely with resolution and settings, suggesting the GPU is the limiting component in most scenarios.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations for The Medium?

A: The combo ranks 439th out of 1,689 total tested combinations. This places it in the top 26% of all systems, which is consistent with the RTX 3080 Ti’s 83rd percentile ranking among all GPUs and the Ryzen 9 7900X’s 93rd percentile among all CPUs.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 4K High and 4K Ultra?

A: At 3840x2160 with High settings, the average FPS is 45.7. Raising to Ultra settings reduces the average to 32.7 FPS. This represents a 39.8% drop in performance, which is considerable and indicates that Ultra settings introduce effects that are particularly demanding on the GPU’s memory subsystem.

Q: Is the RTX 3080 Ti’s 12 GB VRAM sufficient for this game at 4K?

A: The data suggests it is borderline. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 32.7, which is playable but not smooth. Dropping to Medium at 4K yields 63.2 FPS, a significant improvement. The large bandwidth of 912.4 GB/s helps, but the capacity appears to be a limiting factor at the highest quality preset.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

At 1920x1080, the combo shows its most responsive behavior. On Low settings, the average FPS is 149.5, which is the only result above 120 FPS in the entire dataset. Moving to Medium reduces the average to 90.4 FPS, a drop of 39.5% from Low. High settings produce an average of 65.4 FPS, which is 27.7% lower than Medium. Ultra settings bring the average down to 54.9 FPS, a 16.1% reduction from High. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p is a 63.3% performance loss, which shows that the game’s Ultra preset is substantially more demanding than the lower tiers.

At 2560x1440, the pattern continues but with lower absolute numbers. Low settings yield an average of 126.3 FPS, which is still very smooth. Medium settings drop to 75.4 FPS, a 40.3% decrease from Low. High settings result in 56.9 FPS, which is 24.5% lower than Medium. Ultra settings bring the average to 45.4 FPS, a 20.2% reduction from High. The total scaling from Low to Ultra at 1440p is a 64.1% loss, which is nearly identical to the 1080p scaling, indicating that the per-pixel cost of the settings is consistent across these two resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the GPU begins to struggle with the higher presets. Low settings produce an average of 97.6 FPS, which is still playable. Medium settings reduce this to 63.2 FPS, a 35.2% drop. High settings yield 45.7 FPS, which is 27.7% lower than Medium. Ultra settings bring the average down to 32.7 FPS, a 28.4% reduction from High. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K is a 66.5% loss, which is the largest percentage drop across all resolutions. This suggests that the combination of 4K resolution and Ultra settings pushes the GPU’s memory bandwidth to its limit.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The resolution scaling data reveals a GPU-bound configuration. When moving from 1080p Low to 4K Low, the average FPS drops from 149.5 to 97.6, a 34.7% reduction. This is close to the theoretical scaling that would be expected if the GPU were the sole bottleneck, as the pixel count increases by a factor of 4 but the frame rate does not drop by the same factor. The reason is that the GPU’s compute units are not fully saturated at 1080p Low, so there is headroom to absorb the additional pixel work at 4K.

For Medium settings, the drop is more pronounced. At 1080p Medium, the average is 90.4 FPS; at 4K Medium, it is 63.2 FPS, a 30.1% reduction. High settings show a similar trend: 65.4 FPS at 1080p down to 45.7 FPS at 4K, a 30.1% drop. Ultra settings show the largest relative decline: 54.9 FPS at 1080p down to 32.7 FPS at 4K, a 40.4% reduction. This larger percentage drop at Ultra settings indicates that the memory bandwidth becomes a harder constraint as both resolution and settings increase.

The data points to the GPU as the limiting component. The CPU’s performance is consistent across resolutions, but the FPS scales with the GPU’s workload. At 1080p Low, the GPU is underutilized, allowing the CPU to push 149.5 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the GPU is fully saturated, and the frame rate drops to 32.7 FPS. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain constant regardless of resolution. Instead, the FPS drops by 78.1% from 1080p Low to 4K Ultra, which is a clear sign that the RTX 3080 Ti’s memory bandwidth and processing power are the limiting factors.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ranks 439th out of 1,689 tested combos for The Medium. This puts the system in the top 26% of all configurations, which is a strong result for a GPU that is now end-of-life. The rank is influenced by the GPU’s 83rd percentile standing among all GPUs and the CPU’s 93rd percentile among all CPUs, but the game’s performance is more dependent on the GPU than the CPU.

Compared to other GPUs in the RTX 3080 Ti’s nearest rival group, the results are close. The RTX 3080 Ti’s average benchmark score is 41,224, while the RTX 3090 scores 41,441 (0.5% higher), the Radeon Pro 5300 scores 41,610 (0.9% higher), and the RTX 5070 scores 41,687 (1.1% higher). These differences are within the margin of error for synthetic benchmarks, but in The Medium, the RTX 3080 Ti’s specific memory configuration (12 GB GDDR6X at 912.4 GB/s) may give it a slight edge or disadvantage depending on the scene complexity.

The CPU’s ranking among its rivals is similarly tight. The Ryzen 9 7900X has an average benchmark score of 50,556. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 5 235, scores 50,598, which is 0.1% higher. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT scores 50,738 (0.4% higher), the Intel Core i7-13850HX scores 50,827 (0.5% higher), and the Intel Core i9-13980HX scores 50,944 (0.8% higher). These CPU differences have minimal impact on The Medium’s frame rates, as the game is not CPU-intensive. The combo’s 439th rank is therefore primarily a function of the GPU’s ability to handle the game’s visual load, and the data confirms that the RTX 3080 Ti remains a capable performer for this title at mid-range settings.