The Medium

The Medium is a fixed-camera horror title that stresses the GPU heavily, and the measured data for the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT shows a wide performance spread across its four settings presets and three resolutions. The benchmark results indicate that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience, providing a substantial jump in frame rate over High while maintaining visual fidelity, whereas the Ultra preset demands a heavy toll on performance that may not be justifiable for the visual gain. The data shows a clear pattern of diminishing returns as settings increase, with the gap between Medium and High being smaller than the gap between High and Ultra at every resolution tested.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows reveal that the Medium preset is the optimal choice for this hardware combination across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers an average of 101 FPS, which is 29 FPS higher than the High preset’s 72 FPS, while the jump from Medium to Low only adds 60 FPS (to 161). The Ultra preset, by contrast, drops to 57 FPS at 1080p, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that many users consider the baseline for smooth gameplay. At 2560x1440, the pattern holds: Medium averages 85 FPS, High drops to 61 FPS, and Ultra falls to 48 FPS. The Low preset at 1440p reaches 136 FPS, but the visual compromise is likely too severe for a game that relies on atmospheric detail.

At 3840x2160, the choice becomes more critical. Medium is the only preset that maintains a playable average above 60 FPS, hitting 67 FPS, while High drops to 48 FPS and Ultra plummets to 38 FPS. The Low preset at 4K averages 107 FPS, but this comes at the cost of the game’s intended visual presentation. The data strongly suggests that Medium is the sweet spot: it provides a 39.6% improvement over High at 4K (67 vs 48 FPS) and a 76.3% improvement over Ultra (67 vs 38 FPS), while the visual difference between Medium and High in a fixed-camera horror game is often less perceptible than the frame rate gain. For users with high-refresh-rate 1080p displays, Low at 161 FPS might be tempting, but the Medium preset’s 101 FPS still offers a smooth experience with better shadows and textures.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. Its benchmark scores show strong single-thread performance, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3655 and a Passmark single-thread score of 4412. The CPU’s multi-threaded capabilities are also solid, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 25891 and a Passmark multithread score of 30459. The data suggests that this processor is not the bottleneck in The Medium, as the game’s performance scales more dramatically with GPU settings changes than with CPU-bound tasks.

The game’s fixed-camera perspective often limits the number of on-screen entities, reducing CPU load compared to open-world titles. The Core Ultra 5 225’s 20 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (102.4 GB/s bandwidth) provide sufficient memory bandwidth for the game’s streaming requirements. The processor’s 85th percentile ranking against all CPUs indicates it is a high-end part, and its nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (0% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (-0.2% delta), show that it performs competitively. The 3 nm process node from TSMC with 17,800 million transistors contributes to its efficiency, though the 65W TDP suggests it is not a power-hungry part. In The Medium, the CPU’s role appears to be secondary, as the frame rate differences between settings presets are almost entirely attributable to GPU workload.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the measured FPS patterns. With 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, the GPU has an 800.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is crucial for high-resolution textures in The Medium. The GPU’s boost clock of 2394 MHz and game clock of 2025 MHz, combined with 5376 shading units, deliver substantial compute throughput (51.48 TFLOPS FP32). The 192 ROPs handle pixel output at a rate of 459.6 GPixel/s, which is directly relevant to the game’s fixed-camera rendering style that often fills the screen with detailed backdrops.

The data shows that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher settings and resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 38, while at 4K Low it reaches 107, a 181.6% increase. This massive swing indicates that the GPU is fully utilized at Ultra, and the 20 GB VRAM is likely being stressed by the game’s high-resolution textures and effects. The GPU’s 55th percentile ranking against all GPUs is modest, but this is skewed by the inclusion of many lower-end parts; its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (1.5% delta) and the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (-0.5% delta), which are not direct competitors in raw performance. The RX 7900 XT’s 84 RT cores support the game’s ray-traced effects if enabled, though the measured data does not specify RT settings. The GPU’s 300W TDP and dual-slot design indicate it is a high-performance part, and the benchmark results confirm that it can deliver 4K Medium at 67 FPS, which is a respectable outcome for a horror title with demanding visual effects.

FAQ

Q: Why does the Ultra preset perform so much worse than Medium at all resolutions?

A: The measured data shows an average FPS drop of 43.6% from Medium to Ultra at 1080p (101 to 57), 43.5% at 1440p (85 to 48), and 43.3% at 4K (67 to 38). This consistent ~43% reduction suggests that Ultra enables effects that are disproportionately expensive on the GPU, likely related to shadow quality, reflections, or post-processing that tax the RX 7900 XT’s compute units heavily.

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 strong enough for this game?

A: Yes, the data indicates no CPU bottleneck. The processor’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 25891 and single-core score of 3655 place it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, shows a 0% performance delta. The game’s frame rates scale predictably with GPU settings, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound title.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo if I want to stay above 60 FPS?

A: At Medium settings, all three resolutions exceed 60 FPS: 1080p averages 101 FPS, 1440p averages 85 FPS, and 4K averages 67 FPS. At High settings, only 1080p (72 FPS) and 1440p (61 FPS) stay above 60, while 4K drops to 48 FPS. For a consistent 60+ FPS experience, Medium at 4K or High at 1440p are the safest choices.

Q: How does the RX 7900 XT’s 20 GB VRAM affect performance?

A: The 20 GB GDDR6 memory with 800.0 GB/s bandwidth is likely sufficient for The Medium’s highest texture settings at 4K, as the game’s fixed-camera scenes require large texture loads. The fact that 4K Medium (67 FPS) still outperforms 4K High (48 FPS) suggests that the VRAM is not the limiting factor; rather, the GPU’s compute throughput is the constraint at higher settings.

Q: Is there a big difference between Low and Medium settings?

A: Yes, the FPS gap is substantial. At 1080p, Low averages 161 FPS versus Medium’s 101 FPS (a 59.4% increase). At 1440p, the gap is 136 vs 85 FPS (60.0% increase). At 4K, Low hits 107 FPS versus Medium’s 67 FPS (59.7% increase). The consistent ~60% improvement from Medium to Low suggests that Medium adds significant visual effects that heavily impact GPU load.

Q: Does the game scale well with resolution on this hardware?

A: The data shows a predictable scaling pattern. From 1080p to 1440p, the FPS drops by 15.8% on Medium (101 to 85) and 15.3% on High (72 to 61). From 1440p to 4K, the drop is 21.2% on Medium (85 to 67) and 21.3% on High (61 to 48). This indicates that the GPU has enough bandwidth to handle 4K, but the pixel fill rate becomes a factor at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling across resolutions reveals important insights about what limits this system in The Medium. From 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, the average FPS drops by approximately 15-16% across all settings presets. For example, Medium falls from 101 FPS at 1080p to 85 FPS at 1440p, and High falls from 72 to 61 FPS. This relatively mild drop suggests that the GPU has ample headroom at 1080p and is not yet pixel-bound. The scaling from 1440p to 3840x2160 is steeper, with Medium dropping from 85 to 67 FPS (a 21.2% reduction) and High dropping from 61 to 48 FPS (a 21.3% reduction). The Low preset shows a similar pattern: 161 to 136 FPS (15.5% drop) from 1080p to 1440p, then 136 to 107 FPS (21.3% drop) from 1440p to 4K.

This scaling behavior indicates that the RX 7900 XT’s 192 ROPs and 459.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but become a bottleneck at 4K, especially at higher settings. The consistent ~21% drop from 1440p to 4K across all presets suggests that the resolution increase imposes a fixed overhead that is independent of settings, likely related to the fixed-camera rendering technique that requires full-screen passes. The game’s use of fixed cameras means that each resolution requires rendering the entire scene, and the pixel fill rate becomes the limiting factor at 4K. The data implies that if a user wants to play at 4K, they should consider the Medium preset (67 FPS) as the maximum playable option, as High (48 FPS) and Ultra (38 FPS) both fall below the 60 FPS threshold.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low delivers 161 FPS, Medium delivers 101 FPS (with a minimum of 86 and maximum of 116), High delivers 72 FPS, and Ultra delivers 57 FPS. The 1080p results show a clear hierarchy where each settings increase costs roughly 30-40 FPS, with the exception of the Medium to High step, which costs 29 FPS. The minimum FPS at Medium (86) is still above the 60 FPS target, indicating stable performance, while the maximum of 116 shows that the system can burst well above the average.

At 2560x1440, the measured results are: Low at 136 FPS, Medium at 85 FPS (with a minimum of 72 and maximum of 98), High at 61 FPS, and Ultra at 48 FPS. The 1440p data shows a similar pattern to 1080p, but with tighter margins. The Medium preset’s minimum of 72 FPS is still playable, but the High preset’s average of 61 FPS leaves little headroom for demanding scenes, and Ultra’s 48 FPS average is below the 60 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low at 107 FPS, Medium at 67 FPS (with a minimum of 57 and maximum of 77), High at 48 FPS, and Ultra at 38 FPS. The 4K data reveals that only Low and Medium provide averages above 60 FPS, and even Medium’s minimum of 57 FPS dips below that threshold, suggesting potential stutter in heavy scenes. The High and Ultra presets at 4K are effectively unplayable for smooth gameplay, with averages of 48 and 38 FPS respectively. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 69 FPS, which is narrower than the 104 FPS spread at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is more consistently saturated at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks 451st out of 2911 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 15.5% of all systems tested. This ranking is notable because the GPU’s individual percentile ranking is only 55th (against all GPUs), while the CPU ranks in the 85th percentile. The combo’s strong overall rank suggests that the pairing is well-balanced for this specific game, with the CPU providing enough single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3655) to avoid bottlenecking the GPU, which is the primary driver of frame rates.

The ranking position of 451 out of 2911 indicates that this system outperforms the vast majority of tested configurations, but it is not at the very top. The data implies that there are roughly 450 combos that achieve higher frame rates in The Medium, likely featuring more powerful GPUs such as the RX 9070 XT (which is 1.5% ahead of the RX 7900 XT in average benchmark score) or higher-tier CPUs. However, the combo’s rank is respectable given that the RX 7900 XT is not a flagship GPU. The rank also reflects the game’s optimization: The Medium is a horror title with a fixed camera, which tends to favor higher-end GPUs for the complex pre-rendered backgrounds and lighting effects. The combo’s ability to maintain 4K Medium at 67 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold, validates its position in the upper quartile of the rankings. The 451st rank out of 2911 combos means that this system would be suitable for players who want to experience The Medium at high settings without compromising on resolution, as long as they stick to the Medium preset for 4K or High for 1440p.