The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title from 2021, presents a unique stress profile that combines heavy GPU load with CPU demands for its dual-reality rendering. The pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 produces a configuration that ranks 1336th out of 1689 tested combos for this game, placing it in the lower third of the database. This rank reflects a significant bottleneck, as the 12-core CPU far outpaces the GPU's capabilities in this specific title, leading to frame rates that are often at the edge of playability at higher settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces an average of 35 FPS. This is identical to the 1440p High result, indicating that the system is not resolution-limited at this quality level.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X has an average benchmark score of 54450, which is 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i7-14700F's score of 54097. It trails the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D by a marginal 0.4% (54681 score) and sits 1.5% behind the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K.

Q: What is the GPU's performance percentile relative to all other graphics cards?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6600 falls into the 69th percentile of all GPUs, indicating it performs better than roughly two-thirds of the database. Its average benchmark score is 25235, which is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon 890M's score of 25246.

Q: How many frames per second can the system achieve at 4K with Low settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Low settings, the average FPS is 57.8. This is the highest frame rate recorded at 4K and is more than double the 27.2 FPS average seen at 4K High settings.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between High and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: Moving from High to Ultra at 2560x1440 results in a drop from 35.0 FPS to 25.5 FPS, a reduction of 9.5 frames per second. This shows that the Ultra preset is significantly more demanding on the GPU.

Q: Does the system maintain a consistent frame rate across 1080p and 1440p at High settings?

A: Yes, the data shows an identical average FPS of 35.0 for both 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 at High settings. This plateau strongly suggests that the performance ceiling is being set by the GPU's raw processing power, not the display resolution.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, operating with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its substantial 64 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support provide a powerful foundation for any gaming workload. In synthetic tests, the CPU demonstrates its high-end pedigree, scoring 46438 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 6555 in single-core, placing it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs.

However, the benchmark results from The Medium suggest that the CPU is not the primary constraint in this combination. The game's fixed-camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds may not scale perfectly with the processor's massive thread count, leaving its considerable multi-core potential underutilized. The CPU's performance in the game's measured FPS is effectively masked by the GPU's limitations. The data indicates that at High settings, the frame rate is identical at 35.0 FPS for both 1080p and 1440p, a clear sign that the CPU is feeding frames faster than the GPU can render them, making the GPU the limiting factor.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600, built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 23 chip, is a more modest performer in this pairing. It features a game clock of 2044 MHz and a boost clock of 2491 MHz, paired with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. Its 1792 shading units and 28 ray accelerators position it as a capable 1080p card, a classification supported by its 69th percentile standing among all GPUs.

In The Medium, the GPU's role is decisive. The transition from 1080p to 4K at High settings sees average FPS fall from 35.0 to 27.2, a 22% drop. More telling is the impact of graphical presets; at 4K, the average FPS plummets from 57.8 at Low settings to 19.0 at Ultra settings. This sensitivity to both resolution and quality settings confirms that the RX 6600 is the bottleneck. The game's rendering demands, likely including its signature dual-world split-screen effect, quickly overwhelm the GPU's 8 GB of VRAM and compute resources, particularly at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combined performance of the Ryzen 9 9900X and Radeon RX 6600 places this setup at rank 1336 out of 1689 tested combinations in The Medium. This ranking, which falls in the bottom 21% of all combos, is a direct consequence of the significant imbalance between the two components. The CPU is a top-tier part, but the GPU is a mid-range offering, and the game's performance is heavily dependent on the GPU.

This rank is not a reflection of poor component quality, but rather of their compatibility for this specific workload. The data shows the CPU is more than capable of keeping up, but the GPU's performance ceiling is what dictates the final frame rates. In contrast, a system with a more balanced pairing, such as a lower-tier CPU with a higher-tier GPU, would likely achieve a much better rank in this database, as the game's performance scaling is tied almost entirely to the graphics card. The 1336th rank highlights that for The Medium, the GPU is the dominant factor, and this configuration leaves substantial CPU headroom on the table.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and somewhat unusual scaling pattern. At High settings, the average FPS is 35.0 at both 1080p and 1440p, only dropping to 27.2 at 4K. This initial plateau suggests that at 1080p and 1440p, the system is hitting a hard performance wall that is not related to pixel count. The fact that 1080p and 1440p produce identical results implies the GPU is fully saturated even at the lower resolution, a sign that the CPU is not the limiting factor.

The scaling becomes more conventional when looking at the Low settings preset. Here, the FPS increases from 57.8 at 4K to 72.1 at 1440p and finally to 85.2 at 1080p. This shows that when the graphical load is lightened, the resolution does begin to have an impact, but the GPU is still the primary constraint. The most dramatic scaling is seen with the Ultra preset, where the frame rate is 28.1 at 1080p, 25.5 at 1440p, and just 19.0 at 4K. The severe drop at 4K Ultra, a 32% decrease from the 1080p result, points to the 8 GB VRAM buffer and the GPU's compute limits being overwhelmed by the game's highest quality assets and effects. This data collectively confirms that the AMD Radeon RX 6600 is the definitive bottleneck, with the CPU's performance headroom having no positive impact on the frame rates once the GPU is fully loaded.