The Medium

The Medium is exceptionally demanding on the AMD Radeon 760M integrated graphics, with the benchmark data showing this combination ranks 2900th out of 2911 tested combos in the game. The measured frame rates reveal a system that struggles to maintain playable performance even at the lowest settings, with the integrated GPU acting as the primary bottleneck across all tested resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data shows a predictable but severe collapse in performance as pixel count increases. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 31 FPS, which is the only measured configuration that approaches playability. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same Low settings drops the average to 26 FPS, a reduction of approximately 16%. At 3840x2160, the Low preset manages just 21 FPS average, representing a 32% drop from the 1080p result.

The scaling pattern becomes more extreme at higher quality presets. At 1080p High, the average is 14 FPS, while 1440p High yields 12 FPS and 4K High falls to 9 FPS. This indicates that the GPU is heavily saturated at every resolution, with the frame rate differences between resolutions being relatively modest in absolute terms. The data suggests that the Radeon 760M's compute resources are exhausted even at 1080p, so increasing resolution adds only marginal additional load on the already-overwhelmed rendering pipeline.

The Ultra preset tells a similar story with even lower absolute numbers. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 11 FPS, dropping to 9 FPS at 1440p and 7 FPS at 4K. The delta between 1080p and 4K at Ultra is only 4 FPS, which indicates that the game is not primarily resolution-limited at these settings. Instead, the GPU's shading units and texture units are the limiting factors, as the 512 shading units and 32 TMUs cannot handle The Medium's visual effects workload at any resolution.

The Medium's fixed camera angles and pre-rendered elements do not appear to reduce the GPU load enough to help this integrated solution. The data shows that the scaling from 1080p to 4K is relatively shallow in percentage terms at high presets, whereas the gap between Low and Ultra settings at the same resolution is much larger. This points to a GPU that is bound by its raw compute throughput rather than memory bandwidth or pixel fill rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 2900 out of 2911 places this system in the bottom 0.4% of all tested configurations for The Medium. This is a catastrophic result that puts the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H and AMD Radeon 760M pairing among the worst-performing setups in the database for this title. Only 11 other combinations perform worse, which suggests that this integrated graphics solution is fundamentally inadequate for the game's requirements.

The ranking context becomes clearer when examining the GPU's overall percentile. The Radeon 760M sits at the 35th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 6019. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6400 at 6001 (0.3% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M at 6000 (0.3% higher), and the NVIDIA Quadro P2000 at 6049 (0.5% higher). These close scores indicate that the 760M is a low-end performer even among its direct competitors, and The Medium's demanding rendering requirements push it to the very bottom of the performance stack.

The CPU component of this combo does not rescue the overall ranking. While the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H achieves an 84th percentile ranking among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 34083, the GPU bottleneck dominates the gaming experience. The nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 338H at 33989 (0.3% higher), the AMD EPYC 4244P at 34220 (0.4% lower), and the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X at 34260 (0.5% lower). This shows that the processor is competitive with mid-range desktop and mobile chips, but that strength is irrelevant when the GPU cannot maintain even 20 FPS at any resolution.

The rank data reveals that this combo is not merely below average but is in the extreme tail of the distribution. For a game released with a horror genre focus that relies on atmospheric rendering and dual-world mechanics, the inability to maintain minimum frame rates makes the experience fundamentally compromised. The data shows no configuration in the measured set exceeds 31 FPS, which means the game never reaches a smooth frame rate on this hardware.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 760M is an integrated graphics processor based on the RDNA 3.0 architecture, built on TSMC's 4nm process. It features 512 shading units, 32 texture mapping units, and 16 raster output units, with 8 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 800 MHz and boosts up to 2599 MHz, which provides a theoretical FP32 performance of 5.323 TFLOPS. The memory configuration is system shared, meaning the GPU uses the same DDR5 memory as the CPU with bandwidth described as system dependent.

In The Medium, the GPU's performance is consistently poor across all measured configurations. The PassMark G3D score of 5310 places the GPU at the 35th percentile, and the DirectX 11 score of 52 indicates limited capability with modern graphics APIs. The DirectX 12 score of 25 is even lower, which is particularly relevant for The Medium as it likely uses DX12 features. The GPU's pixel rate of 41.58 GPixel/s and texture rate of 83.17 GTexel/s are theoretically sufficient for 1080p gaming, but the measured results show that the actual workload exceeds these capabilities.

The ray tracing cores are present but do not provide meaningful assistance in this title based on the frame rate data. The 8 RT cores might be used for specific effects, but the overall performance suggests that the GPU is overwhelmed by the game's rendering requirements. The 15W TDP of the integrated GPU is a critical constraint, as thermal and power limits prevent the silicon from sustaining high clock speeds under sustained gaming load.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include discrete mobile and desktop parts. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M scores 6000, just 0.3% below the 760M's 6019 average, while the AMD Radeon RX 6400 scores 6001, also 0.3% higher. These comparisons show that the 760M performs at the level of older discrete GPUs, but The Medium's requirements are clearly beyond what these mid-range parts can deliver. The Radeon 760M's 512 shading units are insufficient for a game that demands high fill rates and complex shader work.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four quality settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 31 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. The Medium preset at 1080p averages 19 FPS with a minimum of 17 and maximum of 22, while the High preset drops to 14 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages just 11 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 26 FPS, representing a 5 FPS drop from 1080p Low. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 16 FPS with a range of 14 to 19, while High averages 12 FPS and Ultra averages 9 FPS. The pattern continues at 3840x2160, where Low averages 21 FPS, Medium averages 13 FPS with a range of 11 to 15, High averages 9 FPS, and Ultra averages just 7 FPS.

The minimum FPS data for Medium settings shows that frame times are relatively consistent. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 17 FPS, which is 89% of the average. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 14 FPS, or 87.5% of the average. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 11 FPS, or 84.6% of the average. This consistency suggests that the GPU is not experiencing sudden spikes in load but rather a sustained inability to render frames at acceptable rates.

The differences between Low and Medium settings are substantial, with Low providing roughly 63% higher FPS than Medium at the same resolution. The gap between Medium and High is smaller, and the gap between High and Ultra is smaller still. This indicates that the Low preset disables or significantly reduces the most demanding visual effects, while the higher presets incrementally add workload that the GPU cannot absorb.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H is a 16-core, 22-thread processor based on the Meteor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 7nm process. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 28W TDP. The CPU features 24 MB of shared L3 cache, with 112 KB of L1 and 2 MB of L2 per core. It supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and 89.6 GB/s bandwidth.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU bottleneck. The benchmark results show that the CPU is capable of high multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14551 and a single-core score of 1759. The PassMark multi-thread score of 25933 and single-thread score of 3509 further demonstrate that the processor is not the limiting factor in this game.

The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the GPU is least stressed, the frame rate is only 31 FPS. The CPU has 16 cores and 22 threads available, and The Medium's horror genre typically relies on complex AI and physics calculations. However, the measured performance indicates that the game engine cannot take advantage of the CPU's capabilities because the GPU cannot deliver frames fast enough to saturate the processor's potential.

The combination of a strong CPU and weak GPU creates a significant imbalance. The Core Ultra 7 165H's 84th percentile ranking among CPUs contrasts sharply with the Radeon 760M's 35th percentile GPU ranking. This suggests that for gaming workloads, the system would benefit from a more powerful discrete GPU, but the integrated nature of the 760M means this is not possible without external hardware.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s is shared with the GPU, and The Medium's data streaming requirements may be affected. However, the consistent frame times observed in the Medium preset measurements suggest that memory bandwidth is not causing stuttering or irregular frame delivery. The bottleneck is clearly in the GPU's compute and shading capabilities rather than the memory subsystem.

FAQ

Q: What is the best frame rate this combo can achieve in The Medium?

A: The highest average FPS measured is 31 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only configuration that reaches above 30 FPS, and it does so narrowly.

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H or the AMD Radeon 760M the limiting factor?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU ranks at the 84th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU ranks at the 35th percentile. The frame rates remain low even at 1080p Low, indicating the GPU cannot process frames fast enough.

Q: How does the Radeon 760M compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Radeon 760M has an average benchmark score of 6019. The AMD Radeon RX 6400 scores 6001, which is 0.3% higher, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M scores 6000, also 0.3% higher. The NVIDIA Quadro P2000 scores 6049, which is 0.5% higher.

Q: What happens to performance when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At Low settings, performance drops from 31 FPS at 1080p to 21 FPS at 4K, a 32% reduction. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 11 FPS at 1080p to 7 FPS at 4K, a 36% reduction. The absolute differences are small because the GPU is already saturated at 1080p.

Q: Does the game run better with ray tracing enabled?

A: The GPU has 8 ray tracing cores, but the measured frame rates do not indicate any ray tracing configuration that achieves playable performance. The highest FPS recorded is 31 at 1080p Low, which likely does not engage heavy ray tracing effects.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems for The Medium?

A: This combo ranks 2900th out of 2911 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 0.4% of all systems. Only 11 other combos perform worse in this game.