The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X paired with the Intel Arc B570 delivers a strictly 1080p-class experience in The Medium, with performance collapsing as resolution increases. Across all measured settings, the combo’s best average frame rate is 78 FPS at 1080p Low, while the most visually demanding preset (4K Ultra) yields just 18 FPS. The data indicates a GPU-bound system at higher resolutions, but with a CPU capable of far more than this game demands.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows show a clear hierarchy: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra presets at each resolution. At 1080p, the step from Low to Medium costs 29 FPS (78 to 49), while Medium to High costs another 14 FPS (49 to 35). The jump from High to Ultra is smaller in absolute terms (35 to 28, a 7 FPS drop) but the final preset still lands below 30 FPS.

For a playable experience, Medium at 1080p is the pragmatic choice. The 49 FPS average, with a measured range of 41 to 56 FPS, stays above the 30 FPS threshold and provides a smoother frame pacing than High’s 35 FPS. Low at 1080p offers 78 FPS, which is the only setting in the entire dataset that approaches high-refresh territory, but it comes at the cost of visual fidelity.

At 1440p, Medium produces 41 FPS with a 35 to 47 FPS range—borderline but technically playable. High drops to 29 FPS, which falls below the 30 FPS line. At 4K, even Low only reaches 52 FPS, while Medium falls to 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 FPS. The data suggests that users targeting 4K should stick to Low or Medium, but the 32 FPS average at 4K Medium already shows visible dips below 30 FPS.

Ultra is never a viable option. Across all three resolutions, Ultra delivers 28, 23, and 18 FPS at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K respectively. These numbers are consistently below playable thresholds, and the 4K Ultra result of 18 FPS is the worst measured figure in the entire dataset.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on Zen 5 architecture, built on a 4 nm process. Its base clock is 4.40 GHz with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The CPU has 64 MB of L3 cache, with 1 MB of L2 and 80 KB of L1 per core. It supports dual-channel DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s.

In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU scores 32,172 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,253 in single-core. The Geekbench results are 22,174 multi-core and 3,010 single-core. The 3DMark 16-thread score is 12,552, while the max-threads score reaches 13,929. The single-thread 3DMark score is 1,286, and the 2-thread score is 2,519.

For The Medium, a horror game with fixed camera angles and scripted sequences, the CPU load is modest. The game’s performance scaling from 1080p to 4K shows that frame rates drop by roughly half at each resolution step, which is characteristic of GPU-bound rendering. At 1080p Low, the 78 FPS result suggests the CPU can feed the GPU adequately, but the 1440p Low figure of 66 FPS and 4K Low of 52 FPS indicate that the GPU becomes the limiting factor well before the CPU’s headroom is exhausted.

The CPU’s 92nd percentile ranking among all tested CPUs (with an average benchmark score of 57,498) places it in the top tier. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 9015 (0.1% slower), AMD EPYC 7313 (0.2% faster), Intel Core i9-14900 (1.1% faster), and Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (1.4% faster). These deltas are within 1.5%, showing that the 9900X sits in a tightly clustered performance band. None of these differences would manifest as meaningful FPS variations in The Medium, given the game’s GPU bottleneck at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is a Battlemage-generation GPU based on the Xe2-HPG architecture, built on a 5 nm process. It features 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. The GPU has 2,304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. Its base and boost clocks are both 2500 MHz, with memory clocked at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective).

The GPU’s compute capabilities include 11.52 TFLOPS FP32 and 23.04 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio). The pixel rate is 200.0 GPixel/s and texture rate is 360.0 GTexel/s. In synthetic tests, the GPU scores 14,195 in Passmark G3D and 2,649 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. Its Geekbench Vulkan score is 96,844 and OpenCL score is 83,514.

The Arc B570’s 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs (average benchmark score 20,556) is notably lower than the CPU’s 92nd percentile. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (0.1% faster), Intel Arc A750 (0.1% slower), NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (0.4% faster), and AMD Radeon R9 M390X (0.5% slower). The GPU’s performance class is clearly mid-range, which aligns with the measured FPS results in The Medium.

The 10 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for this game at 1080p and 1440p, but the 160-bit memory bus limits bandwidth. At 4K, the combination of higher memory pressure and lower bandwidth per pixel contributes to the severe FPS drop from 52 (Low) to 23 (High). The GPU’s 150 W TDP and PCIe 4.0 x8 interface are consistent with a mainstream card, but the x8 link could theoretically bottleneck data transfer in CPU-heavy scenes, though the measured results show no such evidence.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 2,321 out of 2,911 tested combinations in The Medium. This places it in the bottom 20% of all combos, which is expected given the GPU’s mid-range positioning. The rank reflects the GPU’s inability to maintain playable frame rates at higher resolutions, despite the CPU’s top-tier status.

The discrepancy between the CPU’s 92nd percentile and the GPU’s 65th percentile is stark. The 9900X is capable of driving far more powerful GPUs, but the Arc B570 holds the system back. In a game like The Medium, which is not particularly CPU-intensive, the combo’s rank is almost entirely determined by the GPU’s raw throughput.

Compared to the GPU’s nearest rivals, the Arc B570 performs within 0.5% of the RTX 3070 Mobile, Arc A750, Quadro M4000M, and R9 M390X in synthetic benchmarks. However, the combo ranking of 2,321 out of 2,911 indicates that many other GPU pairings achieve better results in this specific game. The 4K High result of 23 FPS and 1440p Ultra of 23 FPS highlight the GPU’s weakness at high pixel counts.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a consistent pattern across all settings: performance degrades significantly as resolution increases from 1080p to 1440p to 4K. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 78 to 66 to 52, representing a 15% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 21% drop from 1440p to 4K. At Medium, the numbers are 49, 41, and 32, with drops of 16% and 22% respectively.

The High preset shows a steeper decline: 35 FPS at 1080p, 29 FPS at 1440p, and 23 FPS at 4K. This represents a 17% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 21% drop from 1440p to 4K. The Ultra preset follows the same trend with 28, 23, and 18 FPS, though the absolute numbers are all below playable thresholds.

The scaling pattern—roughly 15-20% drops per resolution step—indicates a GPU-bound system. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would stay relatively flat across resolutions. The fact that 4K Low (52 FPS) is lower than 1080p Ultra (28 FPS) by a wide margin confirms that the GPU’s pixel throughput is the primary constraint. The CPU’s 12 cores and 24 threads are not being stressed by this game, as evidenced by the 78 FPS at 1080p Low, which is likely near the game’s engine limit for this CPU-GPU pairing.

FAQ

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

A: Based on the measured data, 1080p is the only resolution where all settings except Ultra maintain above 30 FPS. Low gives 78 FPS, Medium gives 49 FPS, and High gives 35 FPS.

*Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in The Medium?*

A: Only at Low settings, which produces 52 FPS. Medium drops to 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 FPS, while High and Ultra fall to 23 and 18 FPS respectively.

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

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X scores within 1.5% of the AMD EPYC 9015 (0.1% slower), AMD EPYC 7313 (0.2% faster), Intel Core i9-14900 (1.1% faster), and Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (1.4% faster).

Q: Is the GPU the limiting factor in this combo?

A: Yes. The GPU ranks in the 65th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU ranks in the 92nd percentile. The FPS drops of 15-20% per resolution step confirm GPU-bound behavior.

Q: What is the highest playable setting at 1440p?

A: Medium provides 41 FPS with a 35 to 47 FPS range. High drops to 29 FPS, which is below the 30 FPS threshold.

Q: Does the combo’s overall rank reflect the CPU or GPU performance?

A: The rank of 2,321 out of 2,911 is driven by the GPU. The CPU’s top-tier synthetic scores do not translate to high FPS in this game because the Arc B570 cannot deliver sufficient frame rates at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 52 FPS average
• Medium: 32 FPS average (27 minimum, 37 maximum)
• High: 23 FPS average
• Ultra: 18 FPS average

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 66 FPS average
• Medium: 41 FPS average (35 minimum, 47 maximum)
• High: 29 FPS average
• Ultra: 23 FPS average

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 78 FPS average
• Medium: 49 FPS average (41 minimum, 56 maximum)
• High: 35 FPS average
• Ultra: 28 FPS average

The data shows that only 1080p Low and Medium, along with 1440p Low, produce average frame rates above 60 FPS. The 1080p Medium figure of 49 FPS with a minimum of 41 FPS is the highest-quality setting that maintains a consistent 40+ FPS floor. All other settings either dip below 30 FPS or hover in the 30-40 FPS range, which may be acceptable for a slow-paced horror game but is far from smooth. The 4K Ultra result of 18 FPS is effectively unplayable, and even 1440p Ultra (23 FPS) fails to meet minimum playability standards.