Control

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 delivers a strong performance profile for Control, a 2019 Action Adventure title. The measured data indicates that this combination handles the game's demanding physics and visual effects with considerable headroom at most resolutions. Across the board, the benchmark results show a system that is capable of maintaining high frame rates, with the primary trade-off occurring at 4K resolution where the most demanding preset finally pushes the hardware below the 60 FPS threshold.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that maintains an average of at least 60 FPS is High, achieving an average of 60 FPS. The data shows that while the Medium preset is also playable at 67 FPS, the High preset pushes the RTX 3080 to its limit, hitting the 60 FPS target exactly. The Ultra preset at this resolution falls below the playable threshold with an average of 52 FPS, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor when all settings are maximized.

Moving down to 2560x1440, the situation improves significantly. The most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, delivering an average of 77 FPS. This is a substantial jump from the 4K result, showing that the RTX 3080 has enough headroom at this resolution to run the game at maximum visual fidelity. The High preset performs even better at 88 FPS, but the Ultra setting remains the highest quality option that clears the 60 FPS bar.

At 1920x1080, the system is clearly CPU-bound at higher frame rates, but the most demanding preset that stays above 60 FPS is Ultra, with an average of 101 FPS. This result shows that the combination of the Ryzen 7 9700F and RTX 3080 is more than capable of delivering a smooth experience at the most common gaming resolution, with significant headroom above the playable threshold.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested configurations, this specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 holds a rank of 1071 out of 3720 combos for Control. This places the system in the top 29% of all tested hardware pairings for this game, indicating a solidly above-average performance tier. The percentile placement suggests that while this is not an elite ultra-high-end setup, it outperforms the majority of systems that have been benchmarked against this title.

The ranking reflects a balanced pairing where the CPU's strong single-thread performance (with a passmark single-thread score of 4691) complements the GPU's raw throughput. The RTX 3080's passmark G3D score of 25086 places it at the 68th percentile among all GPUs, which, when combined with the CPU's 94th percentile ranking, creates a system that is well-matched for a game like Control that relies on both physics simulation and complex rendering.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how the system scales across different settings and resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are tightly clustered. The Low preset achieves an average of 94 FPS, which is surprisingly high for 4K. The Medium preset averages 67 FPS, with a minimum of 57 FPS and a maximum of 77 FPS. The High preset drops to exactly 60 FPS on average, while the Ultra preset falls to 52 FPS. The step from Medium to High costs 7 FPS on average, while the step from High to Ultra costs another 8 FPS. This suggests that the GPU is being saturated at this resolution, with each increase in visual complexity having a direct and measurable impact on performance.

At 2560x1440, the scaling is more linear. The Low preset produces an average of 140 FPS, which is a massive 46 FPS jump over the 4K Low result. The Medium preset averages 99 FPS (min 84, max 114), while High averages 88 FPS. The Ultra preset still manages 77 FPS, showing that the RTX 3080 has enough compute power to handle the game's full feature set at this resolution without dipping below the 60 FPS threshold. The margin between Low and Ultra here is 63 FPS, indicating that the GPU is not as heavily taxed as at 4K.

At 1920x1080, the results show a system that is hitting high refresh rate territory. The Low preset reaches an average of 185 FPS, while Medium averages 131 FPS (min 111, max 151). The High preset achieves 117 FPS, and even Ultra maintains a comfortable 101 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 84 FPS, which is the largest spread of any resolution. This indicates that at 1080p, the CPU's performance is becoming more relevant, as the GPU can render frames faster than the CPU can feed it at lower settings.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at the nearest rivals for each component provides insight into what other hardware would behave similarly in this configuration.

For the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F, the closest performance matches are the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (0.2% faster), the Intel Core i7-14700KF (0.2% slower), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (0.7% faster), and the Intel Core i7-14700K (0.9% faster). All of these CPUs are within a 1% performance delta of the 9700F in average benchmark scores. In practical terms, a system using any of these processors would show nearly identical FPS results in Control when paired with the same GPU. The differences are so small that they would be imperceptible in real-world gameplay.

For the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, the nearest rivals are the NVIDIA P106-100 (0.3% slower), the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 (0.3% slower), the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (0.4% slower), and the AMD Radeon R9 M290X (0.4% slower). It is notable that these rival GPUs have very different architectures and specifications, yet they produce nearly identical average scores in synthetic benchmarks. However, for a game like Control that supports DirectX 12 and ray tracing, the actual gaming performance could diverge more significantly than the synthetic averages suggest. The RTX 3080's dedicated RT cores (68 of them) would likely give it an advantage in Control's ray-traced effects, even if the overall compute scores are similar to those of the listed rivals.

FAQ

*Q: Can this PC run Control at 4K resolution?*

A: Yes, at 4K the system can run the game at High settings with an average of 60 FPS. The Medium preset also works at 67 FPS, but the Ultra preset drops to 52 FPS on average, which is below the playable threshold of 60 FPS.

Q: What is the best settings preset at 1440p for a smooth experience?

A: At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset is the best choice, delivering an average of 77 FPS. This is well above the 60 FPS playable threshold and provides the highest visual quality available.

Q: How does the system perform at 1080p with the lowest settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves an average of 185 FPS. This is the highest frame rate recorded in the dataset and indicates that the system is capable of high refresh rate gaming at this resolution.

Q: Is the RTX 3080 a bottleneck at 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the data shows that at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 52. This is below the 60 FPS threshold, suggesting that the GPU is the limiting factor when all settings are maxed out at 4K.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: This combination ranks 1071 out of 3720 tested combos for Control, placing it in the top 29% of all configurations in the database.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded at Medium settings in 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the minimum FPS recorded is 84, with an average of 99 FPS and a maximum of 114 FPS.

The Verdict

The verdict for this PC is clear: it can run Control with high performance at every resolution tested. At 1920x1080, all four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) are playable, with the best settings being Ultra at an average of 101 FPS. At 2560x1440, the system again clears the 60 FPS threshold on all presets, with Ultra achieving 77 FPS. At 3840x2160, only the Ultra preset falls below the playable threshold (52 FPS), while High settings still manage exactly 60 FPS.

The playable settings list for 4K includes High, Medium, and Low, with High being the best visual quality that maintains 60 FPS. For 1440p and 1080p, the system has enough headroom to run the game at maximum settings without any concern about performance drops. The data indicates that this is a versatile configuration that handles Control well at all common gaming resolutions, with the only caveat being that 4K Ultra is out of reach.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data reveals a clear shift in bottleneck behavior across resolutions. At 3840x2160, the GPU is the dominant factor. The frame rates are tightly packed between 52 FPS (Ultra) and 94 FPS (Low), a spread of only 42 FPS across all settings. This narrow band indicates that the RTX 3080 is being saturated by the rendering load, and the CPU's performance is largely irrelevant at this resolution. The fact that the High preset exactly hits 60 FPS while Ultra drops to 52 FPS suggests that the GPU's compute and memory bandwidth are the limiting resources.

At 2560x1440, the balance shifts slightly. The spread between Low (140 FPS) and Ultra (77 FPS) is much wider at 63 FPS, showing that the GPU is no longer the sole bottleneck. The CPU's ability to feed frames becomes more important, but the GPU still has enough headroom to handle the increased settings. The 88 FPS High result and 99 FPS Medium result show a more gradual scaling, typical of a system where neither component is fully maxed out.

At 1920x1080, the CPU's role becomes more pronounced. The Low preset hits 185 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's frame generation limit for this game. The fact that the gap between Low and Ultra is 84 FPS suggests that the GPU can render frames faster than the CPU can issue draw calls at lower settings. This is classic CPU-bound behavior at high frame rates. The RTX 3080's raw power is still evident, as the Ultra preset maintains 101 FPS, but the CPU's single-thread performance (passmark score of 4691) is what enables those extremely high frame rates at low settings.