The Medium

The Medium is a fixed-camera horror title that stresses both GPU and CPU through its dual-reality rendering technique, and the combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D with the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT delivers a playable but uneven experience depending on resolution and settings. Measured data shows this pairing ranks 1292nd out of 2911 tested combos for this game, placing it in the 44th percentile of all systems evaluated. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D, a 12-core, 24-thread Zen 5 part with a 4.40 GHz base and 5.50 GHz boost clock, sits in the 91st percentile among all CPUs, while the RX 6750 XT, a RDNA 2.0 GPU with 2560 shading units and a 2150 MHz base clock boosting to 2600 MHz, ranks in the 71st percentile among all GPUs. This gap between CPU and GPU percentiles hints that the graphics card is the limiting factor in most scenarios, but the game’s own demands complicate that simple conclusion.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the measured average FPS is 115. This is the highest frame rate recorded for this combination across all tested resolutions and settings.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested systems for The Medium?

A: The combination ranks 1292nd out of 2911 tested combos, meaning roughly 44% of tested systems perform better and 56% perform worse in this specific game.

Q: Does the RX 6750 XT outperform its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 6750 XT has an average benchmark score of 26011, which is 0.5% higher than the AMD Radeon R9 M395X (25891) and 1.1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile (25740). The deltaPct values show it leads all four listed nearest rivals.

Q: What is the CPU’s multithreaded performance relative to its closest competitor?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X3D scores 54762 on average across benchmarks, which is 0.6% lower than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF (55093). However, it exceeds the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K (54053) by 1.3% and the Intel Core i7-14700F (53620) by 2.1%.

Q: Are there any measured FPS values with minimum and maximum data?

A: Yes, only the Medium settings at each resolution include min and max FPS. At 3840x2160 Medium, the range is 40 to 55 FPS; at 2560x1440 Medium, 52 to 70 FPS; and at 1920x1080 Medium, 61 to 83 FPS. All other settings rows lack min and max data.

Q: How much VRAM does the GPU have, and what is its memory bandwidth?

A: The RX 6750 XT has 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock is 2250 MHz, which translates to 18 Gbps effective.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data paints a clear picture: Medium settings offer the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080 Medium, the combo delivers 72 average FPS with a minimum of 61 and maximum of 83, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Dropping to Low at 1080p raises the average to 115 FPS, but that comes at the cost of visual fidelity that a horror game like The Medium relies on for atmosphere. High settings at 1080p drop to 52 average FPS, which is still playable but loses the headroom that Medium provides. Ultra at 1080p falls to 41 average FPS, which is below ideal smoothness and only 10 FPS higher than the 4K Medium result.

At 2560x1440, Medium settings yield 61 average FPS with a 52 to 70 range, making it the only 1440p preset that maintains a playable average above 60. Low at 1440p jumps to 97 average FPS, but the visual downgrade is substantial. High at 1440p drops to 43 average FPS, which is borderline for a slow-paced horror title. Ultra at 1440p falls to 34 average FPS, which is too low for consistent enjoyment. At 3840x2160, Medium settings produce 48 average FPS with a 40 to 55 range, which is below 60 but may be acceptable for this game’s deliberate pacing. Low at 4K reaches 76 average FPS, which is the only 4K preset above 60. High at 4K drops to 34 average FPS, and Ultra at 4K bottoms out at 27 average FPS.

For the best experience per the measured rows, Medium at 1080p is the sweet spot: it keeps the average above 60, provides a minimum of 61 FPS, and preserves more visual detail than Low. Players with 1440p displays should also choose Medium, as it is the only preset at that resolution with an average above 60. At 4K, Medium is the highest preset that stays above 40 FPS average, though Low is the only one that exceeds 60. The data suggests that Medium is the default recommendation, with Low reserved for those who prioritize frame rate over visuals, and High or Ultra only for static scenes or screenshots.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 1292 out of 2911 tested systems places it in the upper-middle tier of all combinations evaluated for The Medium. This rank reflects the balance between the Ryzen 9 9900X3D’s strong synthetic performance and the RX 6750 XT’s mid-range standing. The CPU’s 91st percentile among all CPUs suggests it is not the bottleneck in most scenarios; the GPU’s 71st percentile aligns more closely with the combo’s overall rank. The data implies that upgrading the GPU would yield a larger rank improvement than upgrading the CPU, given that the CPU already outperforms 91% of tested processors.

Compared to other combos in the database, this pairing sits just below the median performance tier for The Medium. The 2911 total combos include a wide range of hardware, and being in the 44th percentile means the system is capable of running the game at playable settings but not at the highest frame rates or resolutions. The rank is consistent with the measured FPS: at 1080p Medium, the system achieves 72 FPS, which is solid but not exceptional. At 4K Ultra, the 27 FPS average is among the lower results, pulling the overall rank down. The rank also reflects the game’s demanding nature—The Medium renders two simultaneous scenes for its dual-reality mechanic, which taxes both GPU and CPU heavily.

The nearest rivals for the CPU and GPU provide context for the combo’s position. The CPU’s average benchmark score is nearly identical to the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF (0.6% difference), meaning that swapping in that Intel chip would not significantly change the game’s performance. The GPU’s closest rival, the AMD Radeon R9 M395X, is only 0.5% slower in synthetic tests, yet that mobile chip would likely perform worse in real gaming due to thermal and power constraints. The combo rank of 1292 suggests that the RX 6750 XT is the limiting component, as the CPU has headroom to drive higher frame rates if paired with a faster GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo shows a clear progression across settings. Low settings produce 115 average FPS, the highest of any resolution-preset combination. Medium drops to 72 average FPS, with a minimum of 61 and maximum of 83, indicating consistent frame times. High settings yield 52 average FPS, which is a 20 FPS drop from Medium. Ultra settings fall to 41 average FPS, a 31 FPS drop from Low. The step from Low to Medium is a 43 FPS reduction, while the step from Medium to High is 20 FPS, and High to Ultra is 11 FPS. This pattern suggests diminishing returns in frame rate cost as settings increase, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium.

At 2560x1440, the same settings ladder shows lower absolute values but a similar shape. Low settings deliver 97 average FPS, which is 18 FPS lower than 1080p Low. Medium produces 61 average FPS with a 52 to 70 range, which is 11 FPS lower than 1080p Medium. High drops to 43 average FPS, 9 FPS lower than 1080p High. Ultra falls to 34 average FPS, 7 FPS lower than 1080p Ultra. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 15-18% of performance at each settings level, but the absolute FPS loss is smaller at lower settings (18 FPS at Low) than at higher settings (11 FPS at Ultra).

At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly. Low settings produce 76 average FPS, which is 39 FPS lower than 1080p Low and 21 FPS lower than 1440p Low. Medium achieves 48 average FPS with a 40 to 55 range, which is 24 FPS lower than 1080p Medium and 13 FPS lower than 1440p Medium. High falls to 34 average FPS, 18 FPS lower than 1080p High and 9 FPS lower than 1440p High. Ultra bottoms out at 27 average FPS, 14 FPS lower than 1080p Ultra and 7 FPS lower than 1440p Ultra. The 4K resolution imposes a substantial penalty, with Low settings at 4K barely matching High settings at 1440p (76 vs 43, but the 4K Low is higher). The only setting that stays above 60 FPS at 4K is Low, which is a significant compromise.

GPU Role

The RX 6750 XT’s 12 GB of GDDR6 memory is a crucial asset for The Medium, which uses high-resolution textures and dual-scene rendering. With a memory bus of 192-bit and bandwidth of 432.0 GB/s, the GPU has enough throughput to handle 4K textures, though the measured FPS at 4K suggests the compute units are the limiting factor. The GPU’s 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units provide a theoretical FP32 performance of 13.31 TFLOPS. The boost clock of 2600 MHz and game clock of 2495 MHz indicate that the card runs near its rated speeds under load, but the 250 W TDP and dual-slot design require adequate cooling and a 600 W power supply.

The GPU’s 71st percentile among all GPUs places it below the top tier, and the measured FPS in The Medium reflects this. At 1080p Ultra, the 41 FPS average indicates that the GPU cannot sustain 60 FPS at the highest settings even at the lowest resolution. The 40 ray accelerators (RT cores) provide hardware ray tracing support, but The Medium’s implementation may not leverage this fully, as the FPS at Ultra settings drops sharply regardless of resolution. The 12 GB VRAM is not exhausted at any of the tested settings, as the game’s maximum memory usage would likely fit within this capacity, but the GPU’s raw compute power is insufficient for Ultra at 1440p or 4K.

Comparing the GPU to its nearest rivals, the RX 6750 XT leads the R9 M395X by 0.5%, the FirePro W7100 by 0.6%, the FirePro D700 by 0.7%, and the RTX 3080 Ti Mobile by 1.1% in average benchmark scores. These deltas are small, suggesting that the GPU is not dramatically faster than these competitors, and in-game performance would likely be similar. The data indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck in this combo, as the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (27) is far below what the CPU could drive if paired with a more powerful graphics card.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on Zen 5 architecture with a 4 nm process node. Its base clock of 4.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz provide strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6739 and Geekbench single-core score of 3041. The 128 MB L3 cache (80 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core) is notable for gaming, though The Medium may not heavily utilize this cache. The CPU’s DDR5 memory support with dual-channel configuration provides 89.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is ample for feeding the GPU.

The CPU’s 91st percentile among all CPUs and its average benchmark score of 54762 place it well above the GPU’s 71st percentile. In The Medium, this imbalance means the CPU is rarely the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the 115 FPS average is likely near the CPU’s maximum for this game, but at higher settings, the GPU becomes the constraint. The CPU’s multithreaded performance, shown in Cinebench R23 multicore score of 47737 and PassMark multithread score of 56154, indicates that the CPU can handle the game’s simulation and AI workloads without issue.

The nearest CPU rivals provide context: the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF is 0.6% faster on average, while the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is 1.3% slower, the Intel Xeon 6505P is 2.0% slower, and the Intel Core i7-14700F is 2.1% slower. These small deltas suggest that CPU choice within this performance tier has minimal impact on The Medium’s frame rates. The data supports the conclusion that the CPU is overqualified for this GPU pairing, and users could expect similar FPS with a less powerful CPU. The 120 W TDP and AMD Socket AM5 platform indicate this is a high-end desktop processor, but the game’s performance does not require its full capabilities.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS from 1080p to 4K reveals the scaling behavior of this combo. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 115 at 1080p to 97 at 1440p (a 15.7% decrease) and then to 76 at 4K (a 33.9% decrease from 1080p). At Medium settings, the average drops from 72 at 1080p to 61 at 1440p (a 15.3% decrease) and then to 48 at 4K (a 33.3% decrease from 1080p). At High settings, the average drops from 52 at 1080p to 43 at 1440p (a 17.3% decrease) and then to 34 at 4K (a 34.6% decrease). At Ultra settings, the average drops from 41 at 1080p to 34 at 1440p (a 17.1% decrease) and then to 27 at 4K (a 34.1% decrease).

The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is remarkably consistent across all settings, ranging from 33.3% to 34.6%. This uniformity suggests that the scaling is primarily driven by pixel count rather than settings-specific effects. From 1080p to 1440p, the pixel count increases by 77.8%, but the FPS drops by only 15-17%, indicating that the GPU is not fully pixel-bound at these resolutions. From 1440p to 4K, the pixel count increases by 125%, and the FPS drops by an additional 20-22%, showing a steeper per-pixel cost.

This scaling pattern reveals that the GPU is the limiting component across all resolutions. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS to remain nearly constant as resolution increases, because the CPU workload is resolution-independent. Instead, the FPS drops consistently with pixel count, confirming that the RX 6750 XT’s compute and memory bandwidth are the constraints. The CPU has significant headroom, as evidenced by its 91st percentile ranking, but the GPU cannot deliver higher frame rates at higher resolutions. The data implies that for this combo, 1080p and 1440p are the practical resolutions, with 4K reserved for Low settings or less demanding scenes. The 27 FPS at 4K Ultra is below playable thresholds for most users, while the 76 FPS at 4K Low shows that the GPU can handle 4K only with substantial visual compromises.