The Medium

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 + AMD Radeon RX 7700 combo occupies rank 1738 out of 3724 measured combos in The Medium, placing it near the middle of the database. The frame-rate data is measured, not estimated, and covers four settings presets across three resolutions. The CPU's benchmark percentile (85th) is notably higher than the GPU's (58th), yet the game's performance profile is overwhelmingly GPU-limited, as the resolution scaling clearly demonstrates.

How This Combo Ranks

With a composite rank of 1738 among 3724 tested combinations, this pairing lands roughly halfway up the field. The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a strong chip by itself: its average benchmark score of 36938 places it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs. In the nearest-rival comparison, it sits statistically level with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (deltaPct 0%) and trails the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D by only 0.2%, while the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 is 0.4% behind and the Intel Core i9-12900T 0.5% behind. That close clustering shows the Ultra 5 225 is a high single-thread performer with excellent multi-core headroom.

The AMD Radeon RX 7700, by contrast, has a percentile of 58 and an average benchmark score of 15852. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon R9 370X (deltaPct -0.1%), the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (-1%), the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (+1.1%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (-1.7%). The GPU is by no means a top-tier part, which is why the whole combo ranks so far below what the CPU's raw computing would suggest. In The Medium, the GPU carries most of the workload, and the measured frames per second confirm that the graphics card is the limiting factor at every resolution and settings level.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7700 features a 16 GB GDDR6 memory pool over a 256-bit interface, yielding a memory bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s. The GPU has 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, 96 raster operators, and 40 ray-tracing cores. Core clocks are listed at 1900 MHz base, 2459 MHz boost, and a 2041 MHz game clock. These specifications place it in the higher end of the RX 7000 family, but with a keeper footprint in the mid-range segment.

That 16 GB VRAM is more than enough for The Medium, a title that does not push memory capacity extremes. The memory bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s also holds up well, allowing smooth texture streaming even at 4K. What limits the card is raw fill and compute throughput, as reflected in the 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12) score of 2865 and the PassMark G3D score of 20974. With a 25.18 TFLOPS FP32 compute rating, the GPU can handle fixed‑cost scene rendering, but it starts to struggle when pixel count climbs. The measured results in The Medium show this: the 4K Ultra preset averages a mere 27 FPS, while the 4K High preset runs at 34 FPS. The game is not heavy on ray-tracing; even so, the card’s 40 RT cores are not fully exercised.

For comparison in the synthetic world, the GPU’s average score is essentially identical to the Radeon R9 370X (deltaPct -0.1) and sits about 1% below the Radeon RX 9060, which shows that the RX 7700 is firmly in the mainstream GPU league. The combination of a high‑end CPU and a mid‑tier GPU is the classic formula for a system liable to be limited by the graphics adapter in modern titles.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling with resolution is the key indicator of where the bottleneck lies. For a balanced system, FPS typically falls roughly linearly with the number of pixels, but here the drop is more pronounced.

• At Low settings: the frame rate goes from 115 FPS at 1920×1080, to 97 FPS at 2560×1440, and finally to 76 FPS at 3840×2160. The 1080p→1440p reduction is about 18 FPS, while the 1440p→4K reduction is 21 FPS. Even at the most forgiving preset, the card loses more than a third of its 1080p performance when jumping to 4K.
• At Medium settings: 72 FPS at 1080p → 61 FPS at 1440p → 48 FPS at 4K. The 1440p to 4K step drops 13 FPS, showing that the GPU is heavily stressed at 4K.
• At High settings: 51 → 43 → 34 FPS. Here, the 1080p to 4K falloff brings the average under 35 FPS, which is below typical playable thresholds.
• At Ultra settings: 41 → 34 → 27 FPS. The 4K result of 27 FPS is essentially a slideshow.

These numbers indicate that beyond 1440p, the RX 7700 cannot maintain smooth playback even on Medium. The scaling pattern is classic GPU-bound behavior; the CPU’s single-thread capabilities (boost up to 4.9 GHz) are not the constraint. For the same settings, the relative difference between 1080p and 1440p is small (within 23% of the 1080p figure), but the 4K step demands nearly double the pixel count and the GPU repays this by serving up noticeably lower average FPS.

Settings Recommendations

For a playable but visually acceptable experience, the data points to a specific sweet spot.

• 1920×1080 – Ultra (41 FPS) and High (51 FPS) are below the 60 FPS threshold. Medium gives 72 FPS with a valid range of 61–83 FPS (min–max), which is smooth and stable. If you prefer more visual quality, High still averages 51 FPS, but at that preset the camera may feel somewhat slower during heavy scenes.
• 2560×1440 – The same pattern: High (43) and Ultra (34) are not smooth. Medium at 1440p yields 61 FPS (min 51, max 70), which is exactly at the edge of real‑time playability. Low is a comfortable 97 FPS, but that requires sacrificing effects and shading.
• 3840×2160 – Only Low at 76 FPS and Medium at 48 FPS are worth considering. Low is the only preset to break 60 FPS at 4K; Medium at 4K gives 48 FPS with a minimum of 40, so it’s playable but hesitant. High (34) and Ultra (27) are effectively unplayable.

Thus, Medium at 1440p is the best balanced choice for a 60 FPS target with decent visual quality. For 4K, Medium is the highest preset that remains usable, but you’ll need to accept a lower refresh or cap the frame rate. If a 60 FPS minimum is a must, stick to 1440p Medium or 1080p Medium. The data imply that the GPU’s memory bandwidth is enough for higher quality textures but the core count simply cannot chew through the pixel shader load at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following table lists the exact measured average (and where available, min–max) for every configuration in the set.

| Resolution | Settings | Avg FPS | Min FPS | Max FPS |

|-----------|----------|--------|--------|--------|

| 1920×1080 | Low | 115 | – | – |

| 1920×1080 | Medium | 72 | 61 | 83 |

| 1920×1080 | High | 51 | – | – |

| 1920×1080 | Ultra | 41 | – | – |

| 2560×1440 | Low | 97 | – | – |

| 2560×1440 | Medium | 61 | 51 | 70 |

| 2560×1440 | High | 43 | – | – |

| 2560×1440 | Ultra | 34 | – | – |

| 3840×2160 | Low | 76 | – | – |

| 3840×2160 | Medium | 48 | 40 | 55 |

| 3840×2160 | High | 34 | – | – |

| 3840×2160 | Ultra | 27 | – | – |

Note that the data include min–max ranges only for the Medium preset at each resolution—this reflects where the game’s performance fluctuations were significant enough to track. In every case, the minimum values are 12–20% lower than the average, which indicates that the game occasionally drops into the “not smooth” zone even at Medium. For example, at 4K Medium the average is 48 FPS, but the minimum is 40 FPS, which will manifest as noticeable hitches during choreographed scenes.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10‑core, 10‑thread processor based on Arrow Lake‑S (Intel Socket 1851) with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. It contains 20 MB of shared L3 cache and has a TDP of 65 W. Its single‑thread performance is excellent: Cinebench R20 single‑core scores 891, R23 single 3655, and PassMark single‑thread 4412. Multi‑core results (Cinebench R23 multicore 25891) are also strong, fully handling today’s well‑threaded games. The CPU’s 3‑nm..........

In The Medium, the CPU’s role is mostly limited to geometry preparation, physics, and the game’s unidirectional loading. The data show that at 1080p Low, the combination reaches 115 FPS, which indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU well above what most monitors can display. With 20 MB L3 and 10 high‑clocked cores, the system is far from being starved. The CPU’s relative peak benchmark shows it vs. rivals: its average score (36938) is 0% against the Ryzen 5 5600F, -0.2% vs the 5500X3D, -0.4% vs the Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450, and -0.5% vs the Core i9-12900T. These close deltas mean the choice among these CPUs yields nothing in gaming performance within The Medium.

The CPU also secured a dedicated 85th percentile in global performance, so in a hypothetical CPU‑only test, this chip is well above average. However, with the slowest GPU in the mix, the overall combo rank of 1738/3724 is dominated by the GPU card. If the system were to be paired with a more powerful graphics card, the CPU’s headroom would allow higher frame rates once the GPU load is reduced. For example, lowering settings from Ultra to Low at 1080p increases the average almost 3 times (from 41 to 115 FPS), proving that the CPU is not the constraining element at low resolutions, while at 4K Ultra the card’s ceiling holds back the card.

The measured results consistently indicate a 60‑FPS barrier for 1440p Medium and a playable but not fluid 4K Medium at ~48 FPS. The Ultra 5 225 provides a solid foundation with its 10 “Performance” cores that clock up to 4.9 GHz, but in this title, no generation of CPU cores can compensate for the GPU’s 96 ROPs and 40 RT cores when those ROPs are fed four times as many pixels at 2160p. The result is a system that is well‑balanced for 1080p–1440p gaming, where (at Medium) the frame rate remains above 60, but it falls short of a 60‑FPS 4K experience in The Medium.

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Launch MSRP for the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is $246.