The Medium

# CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX is a 16-core, 32-thread mobile processor built on TSMC's 5 nm process with the Zen 4 architecture under the Dragon Range codename. Its base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz provide substantial single-thread headroom, while the 64 MB L3 cache (distributed as 1 MB L2 per core and 64 KB L1 per core) helps feed data to the cores efficiently. This CPU sits in the 95th percentile among all tested processors, with an average benchmark score of 76212, placing it just 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (76155) and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (75779), while trailing the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P by 0.4% (76492) and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX by 0.4% (76513).

In The Medium, the CPU's role is primarily about maintaining frame pacing and feeding the GPU with draw calls. The game is a fixed-camera horror title with heavy use of split-screen rendering during the dual-reality sequences, which can stress both CPU and GPU simultaneously. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 137 FPS average, while at 4K Low it drops to 91 FPS. This 46 FPS gap between Low presets across resolutions suggests that at lower settings, the CPU is less of a bottleneck and the GPU becomes more decisive, but the CPU's strong single-core performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6030) ensures that even the most demanding scripted sequences in the game's fixed-camera scenes remain fluid.

The multi-threaded muscle of the 8945HX is evident in Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42713, which is nearly 7x its single-core result. However, The Medium does not typically scale well beyond a handful of threads, so this raw multi-core capability may be underutilized. The PassMark multi-thread score of 51405 and data encryption score of 40836 further confirm the CPU's brute force, but the game's engine likely relies more on the boost clock of 5.40 GHz for latency-sensitive tasks. The 16 cores also help with background tasks, such as the game's streaming of high-resolution textures, but the measured FPS at 1080p Ultra (49 FPS) versus 1080p High (61 FPS) indicates that the CPU is not the primary limiter at higher settings — the GPU takes over that role.

# Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured FPS rows provide a clear picture of how settings affect performance across three resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 86 FPS average with a minimum of 73 FPS and maximum of 99 FPS. This is a solid experience for a horror game where consistent frame pacing matters more than peak frame rates. The High preset at 1080p yields 61 FPS, which is playable but leaves less headroom for sudden drops during the game's more intense dual-reality sequences. The Low preset at 1080p reaches 137 FPS, but this sacrifices visual fidelity that the game's atmosphere heavily relies on.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset produces 72 FPS average (minimum 61, maximum 83), which is the sweet spot for a balance between image quality and smoothness. High at 1440p drops to 52 FPS, which is borderline for a game that benefits from stable frame times. Low at 1440p hits 116 FPS, but again, the visual downgrade is noticeable in a game that uses lighting and shadow to build tension. Ultra at 1440p falls to 41 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that most players prefer for this genre.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset yields 57 FPS average (minimum 48, maximum 65). This is the only 4K setting that maintains a playable frame rate, though the minimum of 48 FPS could be noticeable during camera transitions. High at 4K drops to 41 FPS, and Ultra falls to 32 FPS, both of which are too low for a smooth experience. Low at 4K reaches 91 FPS, but the visual compromise is severe.

The data suggests that the Medium preset is the optimal choice across all three resolutions. At 1080p, it provides 86 FPS with a 73 FPS minimum, offering a 17% performance buffer over the 60 FPS target. At 1440p, the Medium preset's 72 FPS average (61 minimum) is still above 60 FPS, making it the only preset that achieves this at that resolution. At 4K, the Medium preset's 57 FPS average is slightly below 60, but the 48 FPS minimum is the highest among all 4K settings, and the visual quality is acceptable for a game that relies on atmosphere rather than pixel-perfect detail. Ultra settings at any resolution are not recommended, as the 32-49 FPS range is too inconsistent for a horror game where sudden frame drops can break immersion.

# FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Medium settings for this combo?

A: The measured data shows an average FPS of 86 at 1920x1080 with Medium settings, with a minimum of 73 FPS and maximum of 99 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival in benchmark scores?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX has an average benchmark score of 76212, which is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (76155) and 0.6% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (75779), but 0.4% lower than both the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P (76492) and AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX (76513).

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo in The Medium?

A: The highest average FPS is 137, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next highest is 116 FPS at 2560x1440 with Low settings.

Q: Is the game playable at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The measured data shows 32 FPS average at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, which is below the standard 60 FPS threshold and may result in a stuttery experience, especially during fast camera moves common in horror games.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile rank among all tested GPUs?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile is in the 81st percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 38135. It is 0.4% behind the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 (38299) and 0.6% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (38349), while being 1.3% ahead of both the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (37648) and NVIDIA Tesla P4 (37628).

Q: How does the FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 86 at 1080p to 72 at 1440p, a reduction of 14 FPS. The minimum FPS also drops from 73 to 61, while the maximum decreases from 99 to 83.

# How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile ranks 1180 out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the 68.3rd percentile of all tested configurations, meaning roughly one-third of combos perform better. Given the CPU's 95th percentile ranking and the GPU's 81st percentile ranking, the combo's game-specific rank of 1180 suggests that The Medium's performance is not purely driven by raw component strength. The game's fixed-camera design and reliance on pre-rendered backgrounds may benefit from specific hardware features rather than sheer compute power.

The rank of 1180 out of 3724 indicates that many combos with lower-spec components achieve better results in this game. This could be due to The Medium's optimization for certain GPU architectures or its sensitivity to memory bandwidth. The CPU's 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth (dual-channel DDR5) is substantial, but the GPU's 432.0 GB/s bandwidth (12 GB GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus) is more critical for 4K texture streaming. The combo's rank suggests that while the hardware is capable, the game's engine may not fully exploit the CPU's 16 cores or the GPU's 7424 shading units.

The delta between the combo's rank (1180/3724) and the individual component percentiles (CPU 95th, GPU 81st) implies that The Medium is not a synthetic benchmark. The game's measured FPS at 4K Ultra (32 FPS) versus 1080p Low (137 FPS) shows a 4.3x scaling factor, which is typical for a GPU-bound title at high resolutions but also indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at Ultra settings. The combo's rank would likely improve if the game favored multi-threaded CPUs, but the data shows that the GPU's 12 GB VRAM and 432.0 GB/s bandwidth are more decisive at higher resolutions.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process at TSMC, featuring the AD104 chip with 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die. It has 7424 shading units, 232 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operation units, along with 58 ray tracing cores and 232 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1290 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, with memory clocked at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) across a 192-bit bus, yielding 432.0 GB/s bandwidth from 12 GB of GDDR6 memory.

In The Medium, the GPU's role is central, especially at higher resolutions and settings. The measured FPS data shows that at 4K Ultra, the combo achieves only 32 FPS, while at 4K Low it reaches 91 FPS. This 59 FPS difference between Ultra and Low at the same resolution highlights how much the game's visual effects (likely including shadows, reflections, and post-processing) tax the GPU. The GPU's 24.72 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is substantial, but the game's use of split-screen rendering during dual-reality sequences effectively doubles the rendering workload, which may explain why even this high-end mobile GPU struggles at 4K Ultra.

The 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for The Medium's texture requirements, as the game was released in 2021 and does not feature the massive texture packs of more modern titles. The GPU's 432.0 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the memory bandwidth may become a bottleneck during scenes with heavy texture streaming. The GPU's percentile rank of 81 places it among the better-performing GPUs, but its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 (0.4% higher average score) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (0.6% higher), suggesting that the 4080 Mobile is not at the very top of the mobile GPU hierarchy.

The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) ensures compatibility with the game's modern rendering features, and its Vulkan 1.4 and OpenGL 4.6 support provide flexibility. The PassMark G3D score of 24926 and GPU compute score of 11191 indicate strong general-purpose performance, but the game's specific workload may not align perfectly with these metrics. The pixel rate of 133.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 386.3 GTexel/s are high, but the measured FPS at 4K High (41 FPS) versus 1440p High (52 FPS) shows a 21% drop, which is less than the resolution scaling would suggest, indicating that the GPU has some headroom at 1440p but is increasingly strained at 4K.

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

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings levels.

At 1920x1080, the combo achieves the following average FPS: Low 137, Medium 86 (with minimum 73 and maximum 99), High 61, and Ultra 49. The progression from Low to Medium shows a 51 FPS drop, which is the largest single-step decrease in the 1080p range, indicating that the Medium preset introduces significant visual effects that impact performance. The step from Medium to High costs 25 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs another 12 FPS. The minimum FPS at Medium (73) is close to the average FPS at High (61), suggesting that the Medium preset provides a more stable experience than High.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are: Low 116, Medium 72 (minimum 61, maximum 83), High 52, and Ultra 41. The drop from Low to Medium is 44 FPS, from Medium to High is 20 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 11 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 61 FPS is exactly at the 60 FPS threshold, while the High preset's average of 52 FPS falls below it. The 1440p results show a more compressed range (116 to 41 FPS) compared to 1080p (137 to 49 FPS), indicating that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS values are: Low 91, Medium 57 (minimum 48, maximum 65), High 41, and Ultra 32. The drop from Low to Medium is 34 FPS, from Medium to High is 16 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 9 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K has a minimum of 48 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target but still playable for a horror game. The Ultra preset at 32 FPS is the lowest recorded value across all configurations, and the 4K results show that only the Low preset achieves a comfortable frame rate.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently provides the best balance between visual quality and performance. The data shows that the step from Low to Medium has the largest performance impact at 1080p (51 FPS drop) and 1440p (44 FPS drop), but at 4K, the impact is smaller (34 FPS drop), suggesting that the GPU is already heavily loaded at 4K Low and the additional effects have diminishing returns.

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

The resolution scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important characteristics about the bottleneck in this combo. At Low settings, the FPS drops from 137 at 1080p to 116 at 1440p (a 15.3% decrease) and then to 91 at 4K (a 21.6% decrease from 1440p). This total drop of 46 FPS from 1080p to 4K represents a 33.6% reduction. At Medium settings, the FPS drops from 86 at 1080p to 72 at 1440p (a 16.3% decrease) and then to 57 at 4K (a 20.8% decrease from 1440p), totaling a 33.7% reduction. At High settings, the FPS drops from 61 to 52 (14.8% decrease) and then to 41 (21.2% decrease), totaling a 32.8% reduction. At Ultra settings, the FPS drops from 49 to 41 (16.3% decrease) and then to 32 (22.0% decrease), totaling a 34.7% reduction.

The consistency of the percentage drops across all settings (ranging from 32.8% to 34.7%) is striking. This uniformity suggests that the scaling behavior is primarily driven by the GPU's rendering workload, which increases with resolution in a predictable manner. The pixel count from 1080p to 4K increases by a factor of 4, but the FPS does not drop by a corresponding 75%, indicating that the GPU is not purely pixel-bound. The fact that the FPS reduction is only about one-third of the resolution increase suggests that other factors, such as memory bandwidth or CPU overhead, are partially mitigating the pixel count impact.

The near-identical scaling percentages across settings indicate that the GPU is the limiting component at all resolution and setting combinations. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller FPS drops at higher resolutions (since the CPU's workload remains constant) or larger drops at lower resolutions (where the CPU must feed more frames). The data shows the opposite: the FPS drops are slightly larger at Ultra settings (34.7% from 1080p to 4K) compared to Low settings (33.6%), which is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario where higher settings increase the GPU's workload more than the CPU's.

The 4K Medium preset achieves 57 FPS, which is 66.3% of the 1080p Medium performance (86 FPS). This ratio suggests that the GPU's 432.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is sufficient to handle the increased memory demands of 4K, but the GPU's raw compute (24.72 TFLOPS) is the limiting factor. The CPU's 16 cores and 5.40 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom, as evidenced by the fact that even at 1080p Low (137 FPS), the CPU does not appear to bottleneck the GPU. The resolution scaling data thus points to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile as the primary performance limiter in this combo, with the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX providing sufficient processing power to avoid becoming a constraint at any tested resolution or setting.