The Medium

The Medium presents a unique challenge for the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti pairing. This is a horror title that is heavily dependent on the graphics card, and the benchmark data reveals a clear hierarchy where the GPU is the primary bottleneck across all tested settings. The combination of a top-tier 12-core CPU with a mid-range to upper-mid-range GPU from the Ampere generation results in a system that is capable of smooth 1080p and 1440p play, but struggles to maintain playable framerates at 4K with higher presets.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is significant, clearly demonstrating that the RTX 3070 Ti is the limiting component. At the Low preset, the system delivers 131.3 FPS at 1920x1080, which drops to 107.6 FPS at 2560x1440, and then falls to 87.2 FPS at 3840x2160. This scaling shows a 17.9% reduction in performance from 1080p to 1440p, but a more substantial 33.6% reduction from 1440p to 4K. This pattern indicates that while the GPU is already under load at 1440p, the jump to 4K dramatically increases the pixel count, causing a steeper performance decline.

The trend becomes even more pronounced at higher settings. Moving from the Low to Ultra preset at 4K, the average FPS plummets from 87.2 to 32.8, a drop of over 62%. At 1080p, the same preset change results in a drop from 131.3 FPS to 46 FPS, a similar percentage reduction. However, the absolute numbers at 4K are critically low. The data suggests that the game's rendering load scales heavily with resolution, and the RTX 3070 Ti's 8 GB of VRAM and memory bandwidth are insufficient to maintain high framerates at 4K, especially when visual fidelity is increased.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture and features 6,144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output pipelines. It operates at a base clock of 1575 MHz and a boost clock of 1770 MHz. The 8 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 608.3 GB/s. The benchmark results show that this configuration is the deciding factor in The Medium's performance, as the GPU's workload scales directly with resolution and preset.

The GPU's percentile ranking is 74th among all tested GPUs, and its average benchmark score is 30,849. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon RX 6700, which has an average score of 31,112 (a delta of -0.8%), and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000, which scores 31,142 (a delta of -0.9%). This places the RTX 3070 Ti in a competitive but not top-tier position. In The Medium, this translates to a card that can handle 1080p and 1440p with ease, but its 8 GB VRAM buffer becomes a constraint at 4K with higher presets, as evidenced by the 40.4 FPS average at 4K High and 32.8 FPS at 4K Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti ranks 639th out of 1,689 tested combos for The Medium. This places it in the 62nd percentile of all system configurations, indicating that it performs better than a majority of tested setups. This ranking is a direct result of the GPU's limitations at higher resolutions, which holds the entire combo back despite the CPU's strength.

The CPU itself is a powerhouse, ranking in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. Its average benchmark score is 54,450, which is comparable to its nearest rivals. The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D scores 54,681 (a delta of -0.4%), and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K scores 55,304 (a delta of -1.5%). This shows that the Ryzen 9 9900X is not the bottleneck. The combo's overall rank is determined by the GPU's performance ceiling, which is far lower than the CPU's potential. The data suggests that this combo is well-balanced for 1440p gaming but is not optimized for 4K, where the GPU's performance deficit is the primary factor in its overall rank.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience, the data suggests that the Medium preset is the optimal choice for this combo. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers an average of 83.3 FPS, which is a substantial improvement over the 57 FPS at High and the 46 FPS at Ultra. This setting provides a smooth and responsive experience without the significant performance penalty of the higher presets. The jump from Medium to High at 1080p results in a 31.6% performance drop, while the jump from High to Ultra results in a further 19.3% drop, making the higher presets less appealing for the marginal visual gains.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is also the recommended choice, delivering an average of 71.1 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The High preset at this resolution drops to 47 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a horror game that benefits from smooth motion. At 3840x2160, the situation is more challenging. The Low preset is the only option that provides a consistently playable framerate, with an average of 87.2 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K drops to 55.8 FPS, which may be acceptable for some users, but the High and Ultra presets at 40.4 FPS and 32.8 FPS respectively are too demanding for this GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of the system's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the performance range is from 131.3 FPS on Low to 46 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset achieves 83.3 FPS, and High achieves 57 FPS. This shows a linear progression where each preset increase imposes a significant performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the framerates are lower across the board. The Low preset delivers 107.6 FPS, Medium drops to 71.1 FPS, High to 47 FPS, and Ultra to 38.6 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 33.9%, which is the largest jump between any two presets at this resolution, indicating a significant increase in GPU load. At 3840x2160, the results are as follows: Low at 87.2 FPS, Medium at 55.8 FPS, High at 40.4 FPS, and Ultra at 32.8 FPS. This resolution is clearly the most demanding, and the system can only handle the Low and Medium presets with acceptable performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture. It has a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a total of 64 MB of L3 cache. Its benchmark scores are exceptional, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 46,438 and a single-core score of 6,555. The CPU's performance is clearly not a limiting factor in The Medium, as even at 1080p with the Low preset, the system achieves 131.3 FPS, which is a high framerate that would challenge many CPUs.

The data indicates that the CPU is more than capable of feeding the RTX 3070 Ti in this game. The bottleneck analysis is clear: the GPU is the component that determines the framerate, especially as resolution and settings are increased. The CPU's role is to provide a stable foundation, and its high single-thread performance ensures that it does not introduce any frame pacing or stutter issues. This is a classic case of a high-end CPU paired with a mid-range GPU, where the system's overall gaming performance is dictated by the graphics card's capabilities.