The Medium

The Medium presents an interesting stress profile for the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination. The measured frame rates reveal a title where the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, but the CPU's headroom becomes apparent at lower settings. This analysis breaks down the performance data to show exactly where this combo excels and where it leaves performance on the table.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly demonstrates that The Medium is heavily GPU-bound at the tested settings. At Medium settings, the average frame rate drops from 119 FPS at 1920x1080 to 100 FPS at 2560x1440, a 16% reduction, and then further down to 79 FPS at 3840x2160, a 21% drop from 1440p. This progressive decline is typical of a game where rendering resolution directly impacts the GPU's workload, and the RTX 4080 SUPER's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory is sufficient to handle the frame buffer requirements without hitting a capacity wall.

The scaling pattern becomes more dramatic when examining the Low preset. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 190 FPS, but this falls to 160 FPS at 2560x1440 and 126 FPS at 3840x2160. The fact that 4K Low still delivers over 120 FPS suggests the GPU has substantial headroom when pixel count is the only constraint. However, the 33% performance gap between 1080p and 4K at Low settings indicates that even a high-end card like the RTX 4080 SUPER sees a significant workload increase from the 4x pixel count jump.

At the demanding Ultra preset, the story changes. The average frame rates are 68 FPS at 1080p, 57 FPS at 1440p, and 45 FPS at 4K. The scaling here is more linear, with each resolution step costing roughly 15-20% performance. This suggests that at Ultra, the combination of higher resolution and more complex shading effects creates a more balanced load, though the GPU still remains the limiting factor. The 4K Ultra result of 45 FPS is the only measurement that falls below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that this preset at maximum resolution requires more graphics horsepower than this combo can provide.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing for The Medium. With a boost clock of 2550 MHz and 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, the GPU's raw compute capabilities are substantial. The 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for the game's texture streaming and high-resolution assets. The benchmark results show that at 4K Medium, the combo produces 79 FPS with a minimum of 67 FPS, demonstrating that the memory subsystem can keep up with the demands of the game's fixed-camera perspective and detailed environments.

The GPU's positional strength in the benchmark database is notable. It holds the 86th percentile among all tested GPUs, and its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, is just 0.1% behind in average score. This near-tie in synthetic benchmarks translates to the measured FPS data, where the RTX 4080 SUPER's performance in The Medium is consistent with its expected position. The GPU's 80 ray tracing cores and 320 tensor cores are present in the architecture, but the measured data does not isolate ray tracing performance, so the analysis focuses on the rasterization results.

The scaling from Low to Ultra at any given resolution shows the GPU's workload curve. At 1080p, the jump from Low (190 FPS) to Medium (119 FPS) is a 37% performance hit, while the jump from Medium to High (85 FPS) is another 29% reduction. This steep curve indicates that each preset level adds significant GPU work, likely from increased shadow quality, volumetric effects, and post-processing. The RTX 4080 SUPER handles these increases gracefully, maintaining playable frame rates at all settings below 4K Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X with the RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 204th out of 3,724 total combos for The Medium. This places it in the top 5.5% of all tested systems, which is a strong showing given the game's demanding nature. The ranking reflects the GPU's high percentile position (86th) combined with the CPU's equally strong standing (92nd percentile among all CPUs).

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks provide context for its contribution. The AMD EPYC 9015 scores within 0.1% of the Ryzen 9 9900X, while the Intel Core i9-14900 is 1.1% ahead in average benchmark score. These differences are negligible in gaming workloads, meaning the CPU is unlikely to be a differentiator in The Medium's measured FPS. The combo's rank is more heavily influenced by the GPU's performance tier, as the RTX 4080 SUPER's nearest rival, the RTX 4080, is separated by only 0.1% in average score.

The 204th rank out of 3,724 combos indicates that there are 203 tested systems that achieve higher frame rates in this game. These are likely combinations featuring even more powerful GPUs, such as the RTX 4090 or newer flagships, paired with similarly strong CPUs. The data does not list those specific combos, but the percentile positions of the individual components suggest that the CPU is not the limiting factor in the ranking. A system with this same CPU but a faster GPU would likely rank higher, while a system with this GPU but a slower CPU might see minimal change in rank.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rate data, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance for this combo. The 100 FPS average with a minimum of 85 FPS provides smooth gameplay that takes advantage of the GPU's capabilities without pushing into the diminishing returns of the Ultra preset. At 1440p Medium, the combo delivers a 43% higher frame rate than High settings at the same resolution, while the visual difference between Medium and High is often less noticeable in a slow-paced horror title like The Medium.

For users with 4K displays, the Medium preset at 3840x2160 is the recommended choice. The 79 FPS average with a minimum of 67 FPS stays comfortably above the 60 FPS target, and the quality jump from Low to Medium is substantial. The High preset at 4K drops to 56 FPS, which introduces noticeable stutter on standard 60Hz displays, while Ultra at 4K falls to 45 FPS, which is below the playable threshold for most users. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for 4K on this hardware.

At 1080p, the High preset at 85 FPS is a solid choice, but the Medium preset at 119 FPS provides a 40% performance boost with only a modest reduction in visual quality. The Ultra preset at 1080p (68 FPS) is playable but does not offer enough visual improvement over High to justify the 20% frame rate loss. The Low preset at any resolution is unnecessary with this hardware, as the Medium preset provides significantly better visuals while maintaining high frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset shows a clear hierarchy across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 190 FPS, Medium delivers 119 FPS (minimum 101, maximum 137), High delivers 85 FPS, and Ultra delivers 68 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 122 FPS, demonstrating the wide range of performance available depending on the quality settings chosen.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down proportionally. Low produces 160 FPS, Medium produces 100 FPS (minimum 85, maximum 115), High produces 72 FPS, and Ultra produces 57 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at each setting is consistent, with the largest absolute decrease occurring at the Low preset (30 FPS) and the smallest at Ultra (11 FPS). This pattern indicates that the GPU's workload at Ultra is already so demanding that the resolution increase has a smaller relative impact.

At 3840x2160, the measurements are 126 FPS at Low, 79 FPS at Medium (minimum 67, maximum 90), 56 FPS at High, and 45 FPS at Ultra. The 4K Medium result is particularly notable because it maintains a minimum above 60 FPS, which is the threshold for smooth gameplay on most monitors. The 4K Ultra result of 45 FPS is the only measurement that falls below this threshold, confirming that this preset is not suitable for this resolution on the RTX 4080 SUPER.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X provides ample processing power for The Medium, though the game does not appear to be CPU-limited in the measured scenarios. With 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture, the CPU has more than enough parallel processing capability for the game's logic and AI systems. The boost clock of 5.60 GHz ensures strong single-thread performance, which is often more important for game engines, and the 3DMark single-thread score of 1286 reflects this capability.

The CPU's synthetic benchmark results show it performing well above average, with a 92nd percentile ranking among all CPUs. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 32,172 and single-core score of 2,253 indicate a processor that excels in both multi-threaded and lightly-threaded workloads. However, the measured FPS data shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the bottleneck in The Medium, as evidenced by the significant frame rate drops when increasing resolution at the same settings.

The 64 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth provide a solid foundation for feeding the GPU with game data. The 4 nm process node and 16,630 million transistors result in a power-efficient design with a 120W TDP, though the system's overall power draw is dominated by the GPU's 320W TDP. The CPU's nearest rival in terms of average benchmark score, the Intel Core i9-14900, is 1.1% ahead, but this difference does not manifest in The Medium's frame rates, as the GPU is the limiting component in all tested configurations.