Control

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers exceptional performance in Control, decisively clearing the 60 FPS threshold at every tested resolution and preset combination. The data shows that this combo is not merely playable but offers a high-refresh-rate experience even at 4K Ultra, making it an overpowered pairing for this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The benchmark results for this combination show a clear and consistent scaling pattern across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the system is heavily CPU-bound at lower presets, with the Low preset producing an average of 281.6 FPS. Moving to Medium drops the average to 200 FPS, a 29% reduction, while High yields 178.8 FPS and Ultra settles at 156.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 125 FPS, indicating that the GPU is not the limiting factor until the highest settings are applied.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain exceptionally high. The Low preset averages 216 FPS, which is a 23.3% decrease from the 1080p Low result. Medium produces 152.4 FPS, High delivers 134.1 FPS, and Ultra remains well above the 60 FPS target at 119.1 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at this resolution shows a 96.9 FPS difference, slightly less pronounced than at 1080p, suggesting the GPU begins to take on more responsibility.

The 3840x2160 results demonstrate the RTX 5090's raw power. Low settings still manage an average of 145.7 FPS, which is higher than the 1440p Ultra result. Medium drops to 100.7 FPS, High to 89.3 FPS, and Ultra to 79.9 FPS. Even at the most demanding configuration tested, the system maintains an average comfortably above 60 FPS. The transition from 1440p to 4K at Ultra settings represents a 32.9% performance hit, from 119.1 FPS to 79.9 FPS, showing that 4K resolution is the primary stressor for this combination.

The data reveals that the largest single-step performance drop occurs when moving from Low to Medium at 1080p, a 81.6 FPS reduction. In contrast, the smallest drop is from High to Ultra at 4K, a 9.4 FPS difference. This pattern indicates that the game's visual fidelity scaling has diminishing returns at higher resolutions, where pixel throughput becomes the dominant factor.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at the CPU benchmark data, the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X scores an average of 37943 across all tests, placing it in the 86th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival is the Intel Core i9-14901E, which scores 37911, a delta of just 0.1%. This means the two processors are effectively identical in overall performance for this workload. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 matches the 9700X within the same 0.1% margin, scoring 37904. The Intel Core 5 211E trails by a mere 0.3% with a score of 37829, while the AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P132 is 0.4% behind at 37804.

For the GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves an average benchmark score of 79842, ranking in the 92nd percentile of all graphics cards. The closest competitor is the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X, which scores 80959, placing it 1.4% ahead of the RTX 5090 in synthetic benchmarks. On the other side, the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB scores 79605, a 0.3% deficit, while the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB scores 79396, 0.6% behind. The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT is the furthest behind among the listed rivals at 78940, a 1.1% gap.

In practical terms for Control, any of these rival components would deliver nearly identical frame rates to the tested combo. The CPU deltas are so small that they would be imperceptible in actual gameplay, as the game is not heavily multithreaded. The GPU differences, while slightly larger, remain within a range where the 60 FPS threshold would still be easily surpassed at all resolutions and settings tested.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that maintains an average at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, which produces 79.9 FPS. This is the highest quality setting available in the test suite, and the system provides a 19.9 FPS buffer over the playability threshold. For users prioritizing maximum visual fidelity, there is no compromise needed at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset again delivers the best experience, with an average of 119.1 FPS. This is nearly double the 60 FPS target, leaving substantial headroom for demanding scenes or future driver overhead. The gap between Ultra and the next lower preset, High at 134.1 FPS, is 15 FPS, but both are so far above the threshold that the choice comes down to personal preference for maximum quality versus slightly higher refresh rates.

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset averages 156.6 FPS. This result is particularly notable because it is the highest frame rate achieved at the maximum quality settings across all three resolutions. The system is clearly not stressed at 1080p, and the Ultra preset provides a smooth experience on high-refresh-rate monitors. In all three cases, the best settings are Ultra, meaning the combination never forces a user to sacrifice quality to achieve playable performance.

The Verdict

The verdict is unambiguous: this PC can run Control with exceptional ease. According to the verdictByResolution data, all four tested settings—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—are flagged as playable at every resolution. The playable threshold is set at 60 FPS, and the lowest average frame rate recorded across the entire test matrix is 79.9 FPS at 4K Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the system clears the 60 FPS requirement by a margin of 19.9 FPS at the most demanding preset. This means users can enable every visual option without concern for performance drops below the playability threshold. At 2560x1440, the margin expands to 59.1 FPS at Ultra, and at 1920x1080, it reaches 96.6 FPS. The data shows no scenario where this combination fails to deliver a playable experience, even under the heaviest load.

The performance headroom is so large that users could potentially run the game at 4K Ultra while also enabling additional rendering features, though the data does not include such tests. The combination is effectively overkill for Control, as even the weakest result is significantly above the 60 FPS target. This is a system that will not be challenged by this title under any circumstances.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling data between resolutions and presets reveals the division of labor between the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. At 1920x1080, the CPU plays a more significant role, as evidenced by the large frame rate differences between presets. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p is 81.6 FPS, which is the largest single-step change in the dataset. This suggests that at lower resolutions, the GPU has spare capacity, and the CPU's ability to feed it becomes the limiting factor.

As resolution increases, the GPU's workload grows and the CPU's influence diminishes. From 1080p Low to 1440p Low, the frame rate drops by 65.6 FPS, a 23.3% reduction. From 1440p Low to 4K Low, the drop is 70.3 FPS, a 32.5% reduction. These larger percentage drops at higher resolutions indicate that the RTX 5090 is becoming the primary bottleneck, as the pixel processing demand outpaces the CPU's ability to supply draw calls.

When comparing the Ultra preset across resolutions, the pattern is consistent. The 1080p Ultra result of 156.6 FPS drops to 119.1 FPS at 1440p, a 23.9% decrease, and then to 79.9 FPS at 4K, another 32.9% decrease. The CPU's role is most pronounced at 1080p Low, where the 281.6 FPS result likely approaches the maximum frame rate the processor can generate for this game. At 4K Ultra, the GPU is clearly the dominant component, as the CPU has ample headroom to process the reduced frame output.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific CPU-GPU combination ranks 60th out of 3720 tested combos for Control. This places it in the top 1.6% of all configurations tested for this game, demonstrating that it is among the most capable pairings available. The rank of 60 is particularly impressive given the large number of possible combinations, which includes both more expensive and less expensive hardware pairings.

The high rank is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows no weakness at any resolution or settings level. The combination's percentile standings for the individual components support this: the CPU ranks in the 86th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. When combined, they produce a system that is better than the sum of its parts for this specific workload, likely due to the CPU's strong single-thread performance ensuring the GPU is never starved of data.

The rank of 60 indicates that only 59 other combinations deliver higher average frame rates in Control. Given the measured results, those higher-ranked combos would need to produce frame rates exceeding 281.6 FPS at 1080p Low or 156.6 FPS at 1080p Ultra, which would require even more extreme hardware. For practical purposes, the difference between rank 60 and the top ranks would be imperceptible in real-world gameplay, as all of these systems vastly exceed the 60 FPS playability threshold.