Mechanical, technological and operational properties of metal materials are largely influenced by changes of concentrations, morphology, dimensions, localization, elemental and phase composition of dispersed precipitates. This paper is devoted to a study of dispersed carbides of submicron size at tempering of high-strength medium-carbon steel. The main emphasis is on comparing the data obtained by small-angle neutron scattering and transmission electron microscopy. As a result of the analysis, it was found that carbide growth begins in the investigated steel immediately after quenching when the tempering temperature increases. First, it is fixed by a transmission electron microscopy and a small-angle neutron scattering and then above ~ 300 ° C carbide growth is fixed by neutron diffraction. The residual austenite is also completely dissolved by the time the temperature reaches ~ 300 °C. A good matching has been reached for the methods used. It has been shown that a complex use of integral and local methods allows to obtain fully information about the structure and properties of the investigated material.