The Medium

The Medium, a horror title released on 2021-01-27, is tested with an Intel Core i5-10400F and an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. The measured FPS data spans three resolutions and four quality presets, providing a clear picture of how this combination handles the game. The combo ranks 521 out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the upper third of all tested systems.

Resolution Scaling

At High settings, the average FPS declines from 69.5 at 1920x1080 to 62.7 at 2560x1440, and further to 47.5 at 3840x2160. The decline from 1080p to 1440p is less pronounced than the decline from 1440p to 4K, indicating that the GPU's workload increases disproportionately at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the FPS remains high: 105.8 at 1080p, 98.3 at 1440p, and 92.4 at 4K. The relatively small differences between resolutions at Low suggest that the CPU is not a limiting factor when graphical settings are low. At Ultra settings, the FPS drops from 55.1 at 1080p to 46.2 at 1440p and 39 at 4K, showing a steep decline. This pattern points to the GPU as the primary bottleneck at 4K, especially with higher presets. The highest FPS recorded is 105.8 at 1080p Low, and the lowest is 39 at 4K Ultra. The scaling behavior indicates that the GPU is the dominant factor in determining frame rates at 4K, while the CPU can keep up at lower resolutions. Interestingly, the FPS at 4K Low (92.4) is higher than the FPS at 1080p Ultra (55.1), demonstrating that settings have a larger impact on performance than resolution in this game.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a 5 nm process. It features 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, delivering 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock is 1387 MHz, the boost clock is 2394 MHz, and the game clock is 2025 MHz. The memory clock is 2500 MHz, with an effective data rate of 20 Gbps. The GPU has 5376 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 192 raster operation units, along with 84 ray tracing cores. Its pixel rate is 459.6 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 804.4 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 51.48 TFLOPS, and FP16 is 103.0 TFLOPS. The GPU's TDP is 300 W, and it requires a 700 W power supply. In synthetic benchmarks, the GPU scores 29009 in Passmark G3D, 169834 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 160119 in Geekbench Vulkan. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 5623, and its Passmark DirectX 12 score is 110. The average benchmark score is 38358, placing it in the 82nd percentile. The nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile with an average score of 38349 and a deltaPct of 0, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile with 38135 and a deltaPct of 0.6. The GPU's launch MSRP is 899 USD. Its release date is 2022-11-02, and its production status is end-of-life.

In The Medium, the GPU's large VRAM and high bandwidth support high-resolution textures. At 4K Medium, the average FPS is 67.5, while at 4K High it drops to 47.5. The 20 GB VRAM ensures that memory capacity is not a limiting factor, even at 4K Ultra, which yields 39 FPS. The high memory bandwidth likely helps maintain consistent frame delivery in scenes with heavy texture streaming. The GPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks aligns with its in-game results, as it delivers playable frame rates at 4K with Medium settings, but struggles with Ultra.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best balance across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium yields 89.8 FPS, which is higher than High's 69.5 and Ultra's 55.1. At 2560x1440, Medium gives 86.2 FPS, compared to High's 62.7 and Ultra's 46.2. At 3840x2160, Medium produces 67.5 FPS, while High drops to 47.5 and Ultra to 39. Low settings provide higher frame rates, but the visual quality is reduced. For users who prioritize frame rate, Low is an option, but Medium delivers a substantial improvement in visual fidelity while maintaining playable frame rates at all resolutions. High is viable at 1080p and 1440p, but not at 4K. Ultra is only playable at 1080p, where it reaches 55.1 FPS, which is lower than Medium at 4K. The data indicates that Medium is the recommended preset for this combination, as it provides the highest FPS among the presets that offer improved visuals over Low.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured average FPS values is as follows. At 1920x1080, Low yields 105.8, Medium 89.8, High 69.5, and Ultra 55.1. At 2560x1440, Low gives 98.3, Medium 86.2, High 62.7, and Ultra 46.2. At 3840x2160, Low produces 92.4, Medium 67.5, High 47.5, and Ultra 39. The highest FPS recorded is 105.8 at 1080p Low, and the lowest is 39 at 4K Ultra. The data shows a consistent pattern: as resolution increases, the FPS decreases, and as settings increase, the FPS also decreases. The gap between Low and Ultra is larger at 4K than at 1080p, reflecting the increased GPU load at higher resolutions. This widening gap underscores the GPU's role as the primary performance limiter when both resolution and quality are pushed.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 4K Ultra?

A: The average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 39.

Q: What is the highest average FPS measured?

A: The highest average FPS is 105.8, recorded at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: How much VRAM does the GPU have?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT has 20 GB of GDDR6 memory.

Q: What is the CPU's boost clock?

A: The Intel Core i5-10400F has a boost clock of 4.30 GHz.

Q: What is the combo's rank in the game?

A: The combo ranks 521 out of 1689 tested combinations.

Q: What is the GPU's launch MSRP?

A: The launch MSRP is 899 USD.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process. Its base clock is 2.90 GHz, and its boost clock is 4.30 GHz. It has 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 256 KB of L2 cache per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel interface and a memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. It uses PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes. The CPU's TDP is 65 W. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 10297 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1453 in single-core. Its Geekbench multi-core score is 5783, and single-core is 1454. The Passmark multithread score is 12115, and single-thread is 2541. The CPU's 3DMark scores include 4748 for 16 threads, 1350 for 2 threads, 2560 for 4 threads, 3929 for 8 threads, 4735 for max threads, and 688 for single thread. The Cinebench R20 scores are 4324 multi-core and 610 single-core, while R15 scores are 1037 multi-core and 146 single-core. The CPU's average benchmark score is 14168, placing it in the 73rd percentile. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7552 with an average score of 14115 and a deltaPct of 0.4, and the Intel Core i5-8500 with 14332 and a deltaPct of -1.1. The CPU's release date is 2020-04-29, and its production status is active.

In The Medium, the CPU's performance is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the GPU at most settings. At 1080p Low, the FPS reaches 105.8, indicating that the CPU can handle the game's logic and draw calls. At 4K, the FPS is more dependent on the GPU, as seen by the drop to 39 at Ultra. The CPU's 12 threads may be utilized by the game's background processes, but the single-thread performance is likely more critical for frame pacing. The memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s is modest, but the game does not appear to be memory-bound, as the FPS scales with resolution and settings rather than CPU load. Overall, the i5-10400F provides a solid foundation for this GPU in The Medium.