The Medium

The Medium presents a heavy load for this pairing of an Intel Core i5-9400 and an AMD Radeon RX 6600, with benchmark results showing that playable frame rates are contingent on strict settings management. The data indicates that the game is demanding across all resolutions, requiring users to prioritize frame rate over visual fidelity. The measured performance places this combo in the lower tiers of tested systems, making clear that this is not a configuration for high-refresh-rate or maxed-out gaming at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data clearly shows that the Low preset is the only reliable option for achieving fluid gameplay across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 82.3 FPS, which is the only setting at this resolution that breaks the 60 FPS barrier. The Medium preset at 1080p yields an average of 54.9 FPS, which is playable but noticeably less smooth, while the High preset drops to 37.6 FPS and Ultra falls to 32.8 FPS.

Stepping up to 2560x1440, the Low preset still provides a respectable 70.2 FPS average, making it the only viable option for 1440p gaming with this hardware. The Medium preset at this resolution produces 42.1 FPS, which may be acceptable for slower-paced horror gameplay but lacks the headroom for consistent smoothness. High and Ultra at 1440p are largely impractical, with averages of 30.5 FPS and 26.2 FPS respectively.

At 3840x2160, even the Low preset struggles to maintain a solid frame rate, averaging 55.8 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K drops to 33.9 FPS, and both High and Ultra fall below 25 FPS, rendering them essentially unplayable. The recommendation is clear: for the best balance of visual quality and performance, the Low preset at 1080p is the sweet spot, as it provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. For users who prioritize resolution over smoothness, the Low preset at 1440p is the best option, offering a playable experience without the severe compromises seen at higher settings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is the primary driver of performance in this configuration, and its specifications reveal why the game scales so poorly with increased settings. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. The card's boost clock of 2491 MHz and game clock of 2044 MHz are relatively high for its class, but the memory subsystem appears to be a limiting factor in this title.

The data shows a steep performance cliff when moving from Low to Medium settings, suggesting that the game's texture and shader workloads quickly saturate the available memory bandwidth. At 1080p, the jump from Low (82.3 FPS) to Medium (54.9 FPS) represents a 33% drop, while the transition from Medium to High (37.6 FPS) incurs another 31% loss. This pattern is consistent across all resolutions, indicating that the GPU's compute capabilities are sufficient, but the memory interface becomes a bottleneck as settings increase.

The RX 6600's RDNA 2.0 architecture with 1792 shading units and 64 ROPs provides a solid foundation for 1080p gaming, but the 128-bit memory bus limits its ability to handle the high-resolution textures and effects that The Medium likely employs. The GPU's percentile ranking of 69 versus all GPUs suggests it is a mid-range part, and the benchmark results confirm that it is best suited for lower settings in demanding titles. The card's DirectX 12 Ultimate support is present, but the game's performance patterns suggest that raw memory throughput is more critical than feature support.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 6600 ranks 1356 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the bottom 20% of all systems benchmarked. This rank is notably poor, considering that the individual components have reasonable benchmark scores. The CPU's average benchmark score of 2305 places it at the 50th percentile, and the GPU's average score of 25235 places it at the 69th percentile.

The disparity between the component-level scores and the in-game rank suggests that The Medium is particularly sensitive to the combination of this CPU and GPU. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-10305 and Intel Core i3-1125G4, both with average scores within 0.2% of the i5-9400. The GPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 890M and AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP, with the RX 6600 scoring essentially identically to the 890M and 0.2% lower than the RX 580 2048SP.

The fact that the combo rank is so much lower than the individual component percentiles indicates that the pairing is suboptimal for this game. The i5-9400's 6 cores and 6 threads may struggle with the game's threading model, while the RX 6600's memory bandwidth limitations are exacerbated by the CPU's inability to feed data quickly enough. The result is a system that performs far worse than the sum of its parts would suggest.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Medium?

A: The 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings provides the highest average frame rate at 82.3 FPS, making it the most playable option. At 2560x1440, the Low preset still achieves 70.2 FPS, which is also viable.

Q: Can this system handle Ultra settings at any resolution?

A: No. The Ultra preset yields average frame rates of 32.8 FPS at 1080p, 26.2 FPS at 1440p, and 23.1 FPS at 4K. None of these are suitable for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the RX 6600 compare to its closest rivals?

A: The RX 6600 has an average benchmark score of 25235, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6700M and 0.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. It scores 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck in this game?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305, placing it at the 50th percentile. Its performance is nearly identical to the Intel Core i3-10305, which scores 2300, suggesting that the CPU is adequate but not strong.

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

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 82.3 FPS while the Medium preset averages 54.9 FPS. This represents a 27.4 FPS drop, or roughly 33% lower performance when increasing settings.

Q: Does the GPU's memory bandwidth affect 4K performance?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 55.8 FPS, but the Medium preset drops to 33.9 FPS. The 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 224.0 GB/s bandwidth, which appears insufficient for higher settings at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals significant insights about the limiting component in this system. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 82.3 at 1080p to 70.2 at 1440p, a 15% reduction, and then to 55.8 at 4K, a further 20% drop. This scaling pattern is relatively mild, suggesting that at Low settings, the CPU is able to keep up with the GPU's output, and the performance is more evenly balanced.

However, the scaling behavior changes dramatically at higher settings. At Medium, the average FPS drops from 54.9 at 1080p to 42.1 at 1440p (23% loss) and then to 33.9 at 4K (19% loss). The High preset shows a similar pattern: 37.6 FPS at 1080p, 30.5 at 1440p (19% loss), and 24.8 at 4K (19% loss). The Ultra preset exhibits the most severe absolute drops, falling from 32.8 FPS at 1080p to 26.2 at 1440p (20% loss) and 23.1 at 4K (12% loss).

The relatively consistent percentage drops across resolutions indicate that the GPU is the primary limiting factor. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller frame rate differences between resolutions, as the CPU's workload would remain constant while the GPU's workload increased. Instead, the data shows that every resolution increase results in a substantial FPS loss, particularly at higher settings, which points to the RX 6600's memory bandwidth and compute resources being saturated.

The RX 6600's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are the likely culprits for the poor scaling at 4K. The game's high-resolution textures require more memory throughput, and the 128-bit bus cannot provide it efficiently. The result is that the Low preset at 4K (55.8 FPS) is the only playable option, while all other settings at 4K fall below 34 FPS. This confirms that the GPU is the dominant bottleneck, and the CPU's role is secondary in this configuration.