The Medium

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers a compelling, if demanding, experience in The Medium. The data shows a clear pattern: the game is heavily GPU-bound at higher settings, but the CPU’s strong single-thread performance ensures headroom at lower presets. The measured frame rates across resolutions reveal that the Medium preset is the most balanced starting point, though the Low preset is the only option that consistently breaks past 60 FPS at 4K. This combination ranks 384th out of 1689 tested combos for this title, placing it in the upper quartile of systems.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to a clear hierarchy of presets, with Medium offering the best compromise between visual fidelity and playable frame rates across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 95.5 FPS, which is more than sufficient for smooth gameplay, while the High preset drops to 69 FPS and Ultra falls to 50.8 FPS. The jump from Medium to High costs 26.5 FPS at 1080p, a 27.7% reduction, which is substantial for what is likely a modest visual gain.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset produces 79.9 FPS, keeping gameplay comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold. High drops to 57.6 FPS, which is borderline, and Ultra falls to 46.1 FPS. The 4K results reinforce this recommendation: Medium achieves 64.4 FPS, while High drops to 43.9 FPS and Ultra to 35.5 FPS. Only the Low preset at 4K reaches 96.9 FPS, but that preset sacrifices too much visual quality for most users.

For users with high-refresh-rate 1080p displays, the Low preset at 147.2 FPS is the only setting that fully exploits such a monitor. However, for the majority of users, Medium is the recommended preset. It maintains playable frame rates at every resolution, from 95.5 FPS at 1080p down to 64.4 FPS at 4K. The data suggests that Ultra is only viable for users who prioritize image quality over frame rate stability and are willing to accept sub-60 FPS performance at 1440p and 4K.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for a 1440p monitor with this hardware?

A: The Medium preset is the strongest choice, delivering 79.9 FPS at 2560x1440. The High preset drops to 57.6 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay, while the Low preset reaches 128.3 FPS but with reduced visual detail.

*Q: Can this system run The Medium at 4K with playable frame rates?*

A: Yes, but only at Medium settings, which produces 64.4 FPS at 3840x2160. The High preset falls to 43.9 FPS and Ultra to 35.5 FPS, both of which are below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play. The Low preset reaches 96.9 FPS at 4K.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings?

A: At Medium settings, the frame rate drops from 95.5 FPS at 1920x1080 to 64.4 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of 31.1 FPS. At Low settings, the drop is from 147.2 FPS to 96.9 FPS, a 50.3 FPS reduction. This indicates a significant scaling penalty at higher resolutions.

Q: Is the Ultra preset ever viable with this GPU?

A: The Ultra preset produces 50.8 FPS at 1080p, 46.1 FPS at 1440p, and 35.5 FPS at 4K. These results are all below 60 FPS, making the preset viable only for users who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate smoothness, or for those using adaptive sync technology.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's performance influence the frame rates?

A: The CPU's single-thread score of 1292 in 3DMark indicates strong per-core performance, which helps maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions. The data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the system reaches 147.2 FPS, suggesting the CPU is not the limiting factor in most scenarios.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between High and Medium settings at 1080p?

A: The High preset produces 69 FPS, while Medium produces 95.5 FPS, a difference of 26.5 FPS. This is a significant drop of 27.7% from Medium to High, suggesting that the High preset introduces a substantial rendering load.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070's role in The Medium is defined by its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and a 192-bit memory bus delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's boost clock of 2475 MHz and 5888 shading units provide the raw compute throughput needed for the game's fixed-camera horror rendering. The data shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher settings, as evidenced by the steep frame rate drops when enabling High or Ultra presets.

The GPU's 12 GB memory capacity is sufficient for the game at 4K, but the bandwidth becomes a limiting factor at higher resolutions. The measured frame rates show a clear pattern: at 3840x2160, the Ultra preset produces only 35.5 FPS, while the Low preset reaches 96.9 FPS. This 61.4 FPS spread indicates that the GPU's shading units and memory subsystem are heavily taxed by the game's visual effects at ultra settings.

The RTX 4070's 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores suggest the hardware is prepared for ray-traced workloads, but the measured data does not isolate ray tracing performance. The GPU's 81st percentile ranking versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37283, places it in a competitive position. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, scores 37507, a delta of -0.6%, indicating the RTX 4070 is essentially on par with that older card in synthetic benchmarks.

In practical terms, the GPU's performance in The Medium is consistent with its synthetic benchmark standing. The 4K Medium result of 64.4 FPS represents a playable experience, but the drop to 35.5 FPS at Ultra shows that the GPU's 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is insufficient for maximum settings at high resolutions. The 200 W TDP and 550 W suggested PSU indicate a power profile that is reasonable for the performance delivered.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the frame rates range from 147.2 FPS at Low to 50.8 FPS at Ultra. The Medium preset produces 95.5 FPS, while High reaches 69 FPS. This represents a 96.4 FPS spread between the lowest and highest settings, demonstrating the game's sensitivity to graphics options.

At 2560x1440, the results show a similar pattern but with lower absolute values. The Low preset achieves 128.3 FPS, Medium produces 79.9 FPS, High drops to 57.6 FPS, and Ultra falls to 46.1 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 82.2 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings results in a 15.6 FPS drop, from 95.5 to 79.9 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the game becomes significantly more demanding. The Low preset produces 96.9 FPS, which is still playable, but Medium drops to 64.4 FPS, and High falls to 43.9 FPS. The Ultra preset manages only 35.5 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is 61.4 FPS, narrower than at lower resolutions, indicating that the GPU is nearing its limits even at Low settings.

The data reveals a consistent scaling pattern: moving from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 51.7 FPS, while moving from Medium to High costs 26.5 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs 18.2 FPS. This suggests diminishing returns in frame rate impact as settings increase, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of The Medium on this hardware. At Medium settings, the system produces 95.5 FPS at 1080p, 79.9 FPS at 1440p, and 64.4 FPS at 4K. This represents a 32.6% reduction from 1080p to 4K, which is relatively modest for a resolution that quadruples the pixel count. This suggests that the game's rendering pipeline is not purely pixel-bound, and other factors such as memory bandwidth play a role.

At Low settings, the scaling is more pronounced: 147.2 FPS at 1080p drops to 128.3 FPS at 1440p and then to 96.9 FPS at 4K. The 34.2% drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is similar to the Medium preset, indicating that the relative performance penalty is consistent across presets. However, the absolute frame rates at 4K Low (96.9 FPS) remain high enough to suggest the CPU is still providing sufficient headroom.

The High preset shows a different scaling pattern: 69 FPS at 1080p, 57.6 FPS at 1440p, and 43.9 FPS at 4K. This represents a 36.4% reduction from 1080p to 4K, the largest percentage drop of all presets. This indicates that the High preset introduces rendering effects that are particularly sensitive to resolution scaling, likely related to the GPU's memory bandwidth constraints.

The Ultra preset exhibits the least scaling efficiency: 50.8 FPS at 1080p, 46.1 FPS at 1440p, and 35.5 FPS at 4K, a 30.1% reduction. The relatively small drop from 1080p to 1440p (4.7 FPS) suggests the GPU is already bottlenecked at 1080p Ultra, and the additional resolution has less impact. Overall, the scaling data indicates that the RTX 4070 is the limiting component at higher settings, while the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's strong single-thread performance ensures the CPU is not a constraint at any tested resolution.