The Medium

The Medium presents a significant challenge for the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H and AMD Radeon 890M combination. The benchmark data shows this pairing is positioned at the bottom of the performance hierarchy for this title, ranking 2755th out of 2911 tested combos. This places it in the 5th percentile of all systems tested, indicating that the experience will be severely constrained regardless of settings. The data reveals a clear pattern: the integrated GPU is the primary bottleneck, and users must make substantial sacrifices in resolution and visual fidelity to achieve playable frame rates.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is stark and consistent across all settings, demonstrating the extreme pressure placed on the AMD Radeon 890M. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 45 FPS at 1920x1080 to 38 FPS at 2560x1440, a 15.6% reduction, and then drops further to 30 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a 33.3% decrease from the 1080p baseline. This scaling pattern indicates that even at the lowest graphical preset, the GPU is still the limiting factor, as the frame rate does not scale linearly with pixel count.

The Medium preset shows a similar trajectory. At 1920x1080, the average is 28 FPS, which falls to 24 FPS at 2560x1440 (a 14.3% drop) and then to 19 FPS at 3840x2160 (a 32.1% drop from 1080p). The High settings row reveals even more severe scaling: 20 FPS at 1080p, 17 FPS at 1440p, and 13 FPS at 4K. This represents a 35% performance loss when moving from 1080p to 4K. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, starting at a meager 16 FPS at 1080p and collapsing to 14 FPS at 1440p and 11 FPS at 4K.

These numbers paint a clear picture of a system that is fundamentally underpowered for this game at higher resolutions. The 4K results are uniformly below 30 FPS across all settings, with the Ultra preset achieving only 11 FPS, which is essentially a slideshow. Even at 1440p, only the Low preset manages to break the 30 FPS threshold, hitting 38 FPS. The data suggests that the Radeon 890M's memory bandwidth and compute resources are simply insufficient for the pixel throughput required at 4K, and the scaling between resolutions is far from ideal, indicating a hard architectural limit rather than a software optimization issue.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 2755 out of 2911 places this system in the bottom 5.4% of all tested configurations for The Medium. This is a decisive verdict: the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H paired with the AMD Radeon 890M is one of the weakest combinations for this title. The GPU's individual benchmark percentile of 45 against all GPUs is misleading in this context, as the integrated graphics solution struggles specifically with the demands of this horror title.

When examining the GPU's nearest rivals, the data shows the Radeon 890M is nearly identical in average benchmark score to the AMD Radeon Vega 8, which is only 0.1% behind. It also trails the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 by 0.7% and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 by 0.9%. These comparisons highlight that while the 890M is a modern integrated solution with RDNA 3.5 architecture, its raw performance in synthetic benchmarks places it alongside older discrete GPUs from nearly a decade ago. The GTX 960, for instance, was a mid-range desktop card from 2015, and the 890M is competitive with it only in aggregate scores, not necessarily in real-world gaming scenarios like The Medium.

The CPU, by contrast, is a much stronger component. The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H holds an 84th percentile ranking against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 34083. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 338H (0.3% higher), the AMD EPYC 4244P (0.4% lower), and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (0.4% lower). This indicates the CPU is well above average, but its capabilities are wasted in this gaming context, as the GPU cannot keep pace. The massive gap between the CPU's strong synthetic performance and the combo's terrible game rank underscores that the graphics solution is the definitive limiting factor.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the only viable path to a playable experience is to use the Low preset at 1920x1080, which achieves an average of 45 FPS. This is the sole configuration in the entire dataset that approaches smooth gameplay, and even then, it may not be consistently fluid in demanding scenes. The Medium preset at 1080p produces 28 FPS, which is borderline but likely too stuttery for a game that relies on atmospheric tension and timing. All other settings and resolution combinations fall below 30 FPS, with the majority languishing in the teens or low twenties.

The 1440p Low setting offers 38 FPS, which is technically above the 30 FPS playability threshold, but the drop from 45 to 38 FPS (a 15.6% reduction) may not be worth the resolution increase, especially given that the game will still experience frequent dips. The 4K Low setting at 30 FPS is the absolute floor for playability, but the data suggests this is a marginal experience at best, with the frame rate likely to fluctuate significantly in complex scenes.

For users prioritizing frame rate over visual quality, the recommendation is unambiguous: 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only preset that provides a comfortable margin above 30 FPS. The Medium preset at 1080p is the best compromise if visual fidelity is slightly more important, but the 28 FPS average is a gamble. The Ultra and High presets should be avoided entirely at any resolution, as they consistently produce unplayable results, ranging from 20 FPS down to 11 FPS. The data does not support any configuration above Medium at 1080p for a satisfactory experience.

FAQ

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

A: Technically yes, but not playably. The best 4K result is 30 FPS on Low settings, which is exactly at the edge of playability. All other 4K presets fall between 11 and 19 FPS, which is far too low for a smooth experience. The 4K Medium preset averages 19 FPS with minimums of 16 FPS, indicating significant stuttering.

Q: What is the best settings configuration for this combo?

A: The data clearly shows that 1920x1080 with Low settings is the optimal configuration, producing an average of 45 FPS. This is the only setting that provides a comfortable frame rate buffer. The Medium preset at 1080p (28 FPS) is a secondary option for those willing to sacrifice smoothness for slightly better visuals.

Q: How does the AMD Radeon 890M compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The 890M's average benchmark score of 9210 is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon Vega 8 (9221, 0.1% difference). It trails the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (9273) by 0.7% and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 (9294) by 0.9%. This places it in direct competition with older discrete GPUs, despite being a modern integrated solution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The GPU is overwhelmingly the bottleneck. The CPU ranks in the 84th percentile with an average score of 34083, while the combo ranks in the bottom 5.4% for this game. The Radeon 890M's 45th percentile GPU ranking and the severe frame rate drops at higher resolutions confirm that the integrated graphics cannot handle the game's demands.

Q: What frame rates can be expected at 1440p?

A: At 1440p, only the Low preset achieves a playable frame rate of 38 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 24 FPS, High to 17 FPS, and Ultra to 14 FPS. These results indicate that 1440p is only viable with the lowest graphical settings and even then, the experience will be less smooth than at 1080p.

Q: Does the Radeon 890M have dedicated VRAM?

A: No. The GPU uses System Shared memory, meaning it relies on the system's main RAM. The memory bus width and bandwidth are also listed as "System Shared" and "System Dependent," respectively, which means performance is heavily reliant on the system's memory configuration and speed.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 890M is the decisive factor in this system's poor performance in The Medium. Its specifications reveal an integrated graphics processor with 1024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output pipelines. The architecture is RDNA 3.5, built on a 4 nm process at TSMC, and the chip is designated "Strix Point." The GPU operates with a base clock of 400 MHz and a boost clock of 2900 MHz, but these clocks are insufficient to overcome the fundamental memory bandwidth limitations of a shared memory architecture.

The GPU's memory configuration is system-dependent, with no dedicated VRAM. This is a critical weakness for a game like The Medium, which likely requires substantial texture memory and bandwidth. The pixel rate is listed at 92.80 GPixel/s and the texture rate at 185.6 GTexel/s, but these theoretical figures do not translate into playable performance. The FP32 compute is rated at 5.939 TFLOPS, which is respectable for an iGPU, yet the measured frame rates tell a different story.

The benchmark data for the GPU shows a Passmark G3D score of 8076, which places it in the 45th percentile. Its Passmark DirectX 11 score is 73, DirectX 12 is 37, and DirectX 9 is 97. These scores indicate that the GPU is more capable in legacy APIs but struggles with modern DirectX 12 workloads, which The Medium likely utilizes. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 590 is particularly telling, as it suggests very low performance in a modern, demanding benchmark. The GPU's nearest rival, the Radeon Vega 8, is nearly identical in average score, confirming that the 890M does not offer a generational leap in raw gaming performance despite its newer architecture.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H is a powerful mobile processor that is severely underutilized in this gaming configuration. It features 16 cores and 22 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The architecture is Meteor Lake, built on Intel's 7 nm process, and the processor has a 24 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, which is the same memory channel that the GPU must share for its frame buffer.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU demonstrates strong performance. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 14551, and the single-core score is 1759. The Passmark multithread score is 25933, and the single-thread score is 3509. These results place the CPU in the 84th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 34083. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 338H (0.3% faster) and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (0.4% slower), indicating that the 165H is competitively positioned in the mobile processor market.

However, this CPU power is irrelevant in The Medium because the GPU cannot translate it into frame rate. The game's performance is bottlenecked by the graphics solution, not the processor. The CPU's high multi-threading capabilities, with a Passmark physics score of 1806, would be beneficial for CPU-intensive simulation games, but The Medium's demands are primarily graphical. The data shows that even with a top-tier mobile CPU, the integrated GPU limits the system to 45 FPS at best, and only at the lowest settings. This is a classic case of a mismatch between CPU and GPU capabilities, where the processor is overqualified for the task at hand.