The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding fixed-camera horror experience, and the combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT produces a set of results that clearly illustrate where the system’s limits lie. The data shows a consistent pattern: this pairing is capable of smooth frame rates at lower resolutions and settings, but it struggles to maintain playable performance at the highest visual presets and 4K resolution. The measured FPS values reveal a system that is primarily constrained by the graphics card, with the CPU providing ample headroom across all tested configurations. This analysis breaks down the measured performance, the implications for settings, and how this specific combination ranks against other tested hardware pairings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a steep and predictable decline as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At the Low settings preset, the average frame rate drops from 89 FPS at 1080p to 75 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 59 FPS at 4K. This represents a 34% reduction in average FPS from the lowest to the highest resolution, a significant but not catastrophic loss. The transition from 1080p to 1440p costs 14 FPS, while the step from 1440p to 4K costs another 16 FPS, indicating that the scaling is relatively consistent, though the 4K step is slightly more punishing.

Looking at the Medium preset, the same trend is visible but with a steeper drop. The average FPS falls from 56 at 1080p to 47 at 1440p, and then down to 37 at 4K. This is a 34% reduction from 1080p to 4K as well, but the absolute numbers are lower, making the 4K result (37 FPS) marginal for smooth gameplay. The High preset shows an even more pronounced decline: 40 FPS at 1080p drops to 34 FPS at 1440p and then to 26 FPS at 4K. This 35% reduction from 1080p to 4K places the 4K High experience firmly in unplayable territory.

The Ultra preset, which is the most demanding, shows the worst scaling. The average FPS is already low at 32 at 1080p, falls to 27 at 1440p, and bottoms out at 21 at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is 34%, similar to other presets, but the starting point is so low that even the 1080p result is below the threshold for smooth play. This consistent percentage drop across all settings suggests that the scaling behavior is resolution-bound rather than settings-bound; the GPU is the limiting factor at every preset, and increasing resolution simply puts more strain on the same bottleneck.

The data implies that the RX 5700 XT’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 256-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s, are being saturated as resolution climbs. The pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 304.8 GTexel/s are fixed hardware limits, and the increasing number of pixels at 1440p and 4K directly translates to more work for the GPU. The fact that the FPS drops are nearly linear with resolution, rather than showing a sudden cliff, indicates that the GPU is running out of raw compute and fillrate capacity, not hitting a memory capacity wall at these settings. If it were a VRAM capacity issue, the scaling would likely show a more abrupt drop at 4K, but the consistent 34% decline suggests a steady compute-bound progression.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear hierarchy for settings selection, with the Low preset offering the only consistently high frame rates. At 1080p, Low settings deliver an average of 89 FPS, which is more than sufficient for smooth gameplay. At 1440p, the Low preset still provides a solid 75 FPS average, indicating that this is a viable configuration for higher-resolution monitors. Even at 4K, the Low preset manages 59 FPS, which is just above the standard 60 FPS target, though it may dip below in more intense scenes given the lack of a recorded minimum FPS.

The Medium preset is the best compromise for visual quality and performance, but only at 1080p. The 56 FPS average at 1080p is playable, and the recorded minimum of 48 FPS and maximum of 64 FPS show a reasonable frame time distribution. At 1440p, the Medium preset’s 47 FPS average is borderline, and the 40 FPS minimum suggests noticeable stuttering in demanding scenes. At 4K, the Medium preset drops to 37 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth play.

The High preset is only usable at 1080p, where it averages 40 FPS. This is a playable but not ideal frame rate, and the lack of minimum FPS data means there could be significant dips. At 1440p, the High preset’s 34 FPS average is too low for a smooth experience, and at 4K, the 26 FPS average is effectively a slideshow. The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution, as its 32 FPS average at 1080p is below the playability threshold, and the 21 FPS at 4K is unusable.

Based on the data, the optimal experience is to run the game at 1080p with Medium settings, which yields an average FPS of 56 and a minimum of 48. This provides a balance between visual fidelity and smoothness. For players prioritizing frame rate over visuals, the Low preset at 1080p offers the highest headroom at 89 FPS, which would allow for a more stable experience on a high refresh rate display. At 1440p, the Low preset is the only viable option, with its 75 FPS average. The data suggests that the RX 5700 XT is not capable of delivering a consistently playable experience at 4K with any preset above Low, and even the Low preset’s 59 FPS average leaves little margin for error in more demanding areas.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the dominant performance limiter in this configuration, as evidenced by the resolution scaling behavior. The GPU’s specifications, including its 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, are fixed resources that determine its maximum output. The boost clock of 1905 MHz and game clock of 1755 MHz provide the operating frequency, but the overall throughput is capped by these hardware units. The FP32 performance of 9.754 TFLOPS is a key indicator of its compute capability, and the measured FPS results align with a GPU of this class.

The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth is sufficient for The Medium at the tested settings, as the scaling pattern does not show a sudden drop that would indicate memory capacity exhaustion. However, the bandwidth is a critical factor at higher resolutions, where the GPU must access more texture data and frame buffer memory. The pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 304.8 GTexel/s are the hard limits for fillrate, and the 4K results suggest that these resources are being fully utilized, resulting in the low 26 FPS average at High settings.

Comparing the RX 5700 XT to its nearest rivals in the benchmark database, its average benchmark score of 16361 places it just below the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M, which scores 16351, a delta of 0.1%. It also sits close to the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (16408, -0.3% delta), the AMD Radeon PRO W7500 (16415, -0.3% delta), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D V2 (16504, -0.9% delta). This indicates that the RX 5700 XT’s raw compute performance is on par with these other GPUs, despite being an older RDNA 1.0 architecture. The percentile ranking of 59 for this GPU means it outperforms 59% of all GPUs in the database, confirming that it is a mid-range part, not a high-end one.

The GPU’s role in this game is to render the fixed-camera scenes with their complex lighting and shadow effects. The data shows that at 1080p Medium, the GPU can handle the load, but at 4K Ultra, it is overwhelmed. The lack of recorded minimum FPS for most presets, except Medium, makes it difficult to assess frame time consistency, but the average FPS values alone are enough to show the GPU is the binding constraint.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is ranked 2161 out of 2911 tested combos for The Medium. This places the system in the bottom 26% of all tested combinations, indicating that it is a below-average performer for this specific game. The rank reflects the GPU’s limitations, as the CPU is capable of much higher performance, but the overall frame rates are dictated by the graphics card.

This ranking is consistent with the GPU’s percentile of 59, which shows that while the RX 5700 XT is not a bottom-tier part, it is not a strong performer either. The CPU’s percentile of 90, on the other hand, indicates that the Core Ultra 5 245 is a high-performing processor, outperforming 90% of all CPUs. This mismatch between CPU and GPU capability is a classic bottleneck scenario, where the CPU is waiting for the GPU to finish rendering each frame.

The combo rank of 2161 suggests that there are 750 other combinations that perform worse, but also that the vast majority of tested systems deliver better frame rates in The Medium. This is not surprising given the game’s release date of 2021 and the GPU’s 2019 release date; the RX 5700 XT was already a mid-range card when the game launched, and it is now several generations old. The ranking effectively tells users that this system is on the lower end of the performance spectrum for this title, and that significant settings compromises are required to achieve playable frame rates.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this system?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 with Medium settings yields an average FPS of 56 with a minimum of 48, which is the best balance of visual quality and smoothness. The Low preset at 1080p offers higher performance at 89 FPS, but with reduced visual fidelity.

Q: Can this system run The Medium at 4K?

A: At 4K, the Low preset achieves an average FPS of 59, which is just above the 60 FPS target. However, the Medium preset drops to 37 FPS, and High and Ultra presets fall to 26 FPS and 21 FPS respectively, making them unplayable.

Q: How does the RX 5700 XT compare to its closest rivals in terms of raw GPU score?

A: The RX 5700 XT has an average benchmark score of 16361. It is 0.1% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (16351), 0.3% behind the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (16408), 0.3% behind the AMD Radeon PRO W7500 (16415), and 0.9% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D V2 (16504).

Q: What is the CPU’s performance ranking relative to other processors?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 has a percentile ranking of 90, meaning it outperforms 90% of all CPUs. Its average benchmark score is 48995, which is 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49196, -0.4% delta) and 0.5% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228, -0.5% delta).

Q: Is there a significant frame rate difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1080p?

A: Yes, the Low preset at 1080p averages 89 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages only 32 FPS. This is a 57 FPS difference, or roughly 64% lower performance at Ultra, making the Ultra preset less than half as fast as Low.

Q: Does the system have enough VRAM for this game at high resolutions?

A: The RX 5700 XT has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The measured FPS scaling shows a consistent drop from 1080p to 4K across all presets, with no sudden cliff that would indicate VRAM capacity being exceeded. The bottleneck appears to be compute performance rather than memory capacity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across all tested resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers the highest average FPS of 89, followed by Medium at 56 (with a minimum of 48 and maximum of 64), High at 40, and Ultra at 32. The 1080p results show a clear hierarchy, with each step up in settings costing roughly 10-16 FPS on average.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 75 FPS, Medium drops to 47 (with a minimum of 40 and maximum of 54), High falls to 34, and Ultra bottoms out at 27. The 1440p results show a similar pattern to 1080p, but with lower absolute values. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 48 FPS, which is a 64% reduction from Low to Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 59 FPS, Medium falls to 37 (with a minimum of 31 and maximum of 43), High drops to 26, and Ultra is at 21. The 4K results are the most challenging, with only the Low preset approaching playable territory. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 38 FPS, representing a 64% reduction, which is consistent with the percentage drops at lower resolutions.

The Medium preset is the only one that has recorded minimum and maximum FPS values across all three resolutions, allowing for a more detailed analysis. At 1080p, the Medium preset’s 48-64 FPS range shows a 16 FPS variance, which is acceptable. At 1440p, the range is 40-54 FPS, a 14 FPS variance, and at 4K, the range is 31-43 FPS, a 12 FPS variance. This narrowing range at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU is becoming more consistently loaded, with less headroom for spikes in complexity.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is a high-performance processor that is not the limiting factor in this system. Its 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, provide substantial processing power. The CPU’s benchmark scores are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32924 and a single-core score of 4648. The Passmark multithread score of 38706 and single-thread score of 4394 further confirm its capability.

The CPU’s percentile ranking of 90 indicates that it outperforms 90% of all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 48995 places it in the top tier. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49196, -0.4% delta), AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228, -0.5% delta), Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48698, 0.6% delta), and Intel Core i5-14600K (48618, 0.8% delta). These deltas are all within 1% of the Core Ultra 5 245’s score, showing that it is competitive with other high-end desktop processors.

In the context of The Medium, the CPU’s role is to handle game logic, AI, and scene management. The fixed-camera design of the game likely puts a moderate load on the CPU, but the measured FPS data shows that the GPU is the bottleneck. The fact that the FPS scales consistently with resolution, rather than being limited by CPU performance, confirms this. At 1080p Low, the 89 FPS average is likely near the upper limit of what the GPU can render, and the CPU is not holding it back. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar FPS values across different resolutions, but the data shows a clear decline with each resolution increase, which is a GPU-bound signature.

The CPU’s 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache provide fast access to frequently used data, and its support for DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s ensures that memory bandwidth is not a constraint. The 3 nm process node and 17,800 million transistors indicate a modern, efficient design, but these factors do not translate into higher FPS in this game because the GPU is the limiting component. The CPU’s high performance is effectively wasted in this configuration, as the RX 5700 XT cannot keep up with the processor’s output. This is a classic case of a high-end CPU paired with a mid-range GPU, where the system’s overall gaming performance is capped by the weaker component.