Control

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and Intel Arc B390 combination delivers playable frame rates in Control only at 1920x1080 with Low settings, where the recorded average is 65 FPS. At every other resolution and preset pairing tested, the system falls short of the 60 FPS threshold, with the most demanding 4K Ultra setting producing an average of just 18 FPS. The data indicates a severe GPU bottleneck, as the Arc B390, with its modest 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 24 ROPs, is simply outmatched by the demands of this 2019 title at higher resolutions. This pairing ranks 3311 out of 3720 tested combos in the database, placing it in the lower percentile of all systems evaluated for Control. The CPU, a 16-core, 32-thread Zen 3 part with a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, is not the limiting factor in this configuration; the recorded frame rates scale almost entirely with resolution and preset, which points directly at the integrated-class GPU as the constraint.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the results are consistently below playable levels. High settings produce an average of 21 FPS, while Low settings improve the average to 33 FPS. Medium settings yield 24 FPS with a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 27, and Ultra settings drop the average to 18 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 15 FPS, which shows that even lowering the preset to its minimum does not bring the frame rate close to the 60 FPS target. The 4K Medium measurement is the only one at this resolution with a recorded minimum and maximum, indicating a relatively narrow band of 7 FPS between the lowest and highest observed frames.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates improve but remain below the playable threshold. High settings average 31 FPS, Low settings average 50 FPS, and Medium settings average 35 FPS with a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 40. Ultra settings average 27 FPS. The jump from High to Low at 1440p is 19 FPS, which is a larger improvement than the 12 FPS gain seen at 4K when dropping from High to Low. However, even the best case at this resolution, the 50 FPS Low preset, misses the 60 FPS mark by 10 FPS. The 1440p Medium data, with its 30 to 40 FPS range, shows that frame pacing is consistent but the overall performance is insufficient for smooth gameplay.

At 1920x1080, the system finally reaches a playable configuration. Low settings average 65 FPS, which clears the 60 FPS threshold by 5 FPS. High settings average 41 FPS, Medium settings average 46 FPS with a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 53, and Ultra settings average 36 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 29 FPS, the largest spread across all resolutions. The Medium preset at 1080p, with its 40 to 53 FPS range, demonstrates that the system can approach but not sustain 60 FPS in moderate scenes, while the Low preset provides the only consistent playable experience. The 1080p results show a clear progression: 36 FPS at Ultra, 41 FPS at High, 46 FPS at Medium, and 65 FPS at Low, with each step down in quality yielding a meaningful performance gain.

CPU and GPU Roles

The performance data across resolutions and presets makes the bottleneck clear: the Intel Arc B390 is the dominant limiting factor in this configuration. The Ryzen 9 5950X, with its 16 cores, 32 threads, and a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 26017, is a high-end desktop processor that ranks in the 91st percentile of all CPUs in the database. Its single-thread performance, evidenced by a Passmark single-thread score of 3470 and a 3DMark single-thread score of 944, is more than sufficient for a game like Control, which was released in 2019 and does not require the latest multi-core architectures. The GPU, however, ranks in only the 9th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. This massive disparity in relative performance, 91st percentile versus 9th percentile, indicates that the CPU is waiting on the GPU in nearly every frame.

The scaling between resolutions confirms this assessment. When moving from 1080p to 1440p at High settings, the average FPS drops from 41 to 31, a reduction of 24 percent. From 1440p to 4K at High settings, the average drops from 31 to 21, a further reduction of 32 percent. These drops are proportional to the increase in pixel count, which is the classic signature of a GPU-bound scenario. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would remain relatively flat across resolutions, as the CPU workload does not change significantly when the resolution increases. The fact that the frame rates drop consistently with each resolution step shows that the GPU is saturated at even the lowest tested settings.

The preset scaling at each resolution further supports this conclusion. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 29 FPS, and at 1440p it is 23 FPS. The GPU is so weak that changing the quality settings has a substantial impact on performance, which would not be the case if the CPU were limiting. The Ryzen 9 5950X, with its high clock speeds and large L3 cache of 64 MB, can easily feed frames to the Arc B390, but the GPU cannot render them fast enough. In practical terms, the CPU is never the constraint in this pairing for Control; the GPU is responsible for the sub-60 FPS results at all resolutions above 1080p Low.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The nearest rivals for the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, based on average benchmark scores, include the Intel Core Ultra 5 235HX with a score of 52073 and a delta of -0.2 percent, the AMD EPYC 8124P with a score of 52121 and a delta of -0.3 percent, the Intel Core i9-13900F with a score of 51730 and a delta of 0.4 percent, and the Intel Core i7-14700 with a score of 52301 and a delta of -0.7 percent. These processors all perform within 1 percent of the Ryzen 9 5950X in the database's average benchmark suite. For the purposes of Control, any of these CPUs would behave nearly identically to the 5950X, meaning the game's frame rates would be unchanged if one of these processors replaced it, assuming the same GPU. The CPU performance headroom in this pairing is so large that swapping among these rivals would produce no measurable difference in the game's 1080p, 1440p, or 4K results.

The Intel Arc B390's nearest rivals are considerably less powerful. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX scores 1463, which is 1.3 percent lower than the Arc B390's 1482. The NVIDIA GeForce 800M scores 1460, 1.5 percent lower, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM scores 1446, 2.5 percent lower, and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 scores 1443, 2.7 percent lower. These GPUs are all in the same performance class as the Arc B390, which means the recorded frame rates for Control would be very similar if any of them were installed. The GT 520MX and GT 710, both low-end parts from previous generations, would produce frame rates within a few percent of the Arc B390's results. This context explains why the combo ranks so low in the database: the GPU is competing with hardware that is not designed for modern gaming at high resolutions. For a game like Control, which features real-time ray tracing and complex physics, the Arc B390's 12 ray tracing cores and 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are insufficient to maintain playable frame rates beyond 1080p Low.

The Verdict

This PC cannot run Control at a consistently playable level at 3840x2160 or 2560x1440. The verdict data shows no playable settings at either resolution, meaning no preset combination reaches the 60 FPS threshold. At 4K, the best recorded average is 33 FPS at Low settings, which is less than 55 percent of the target. At 1440p, the best recorded average is 50 FPS at Low settings, which is 10 FPS short of the threshold. The system only achieves playable performance at 1920x1080, where the Low preset produces an average of 65 FPS, exceeding the 60 FPS mark by 5 FPS. This is the only resolution and preset combination that clears the playable threshold, and it does so by a narrow margin. The 1080p Medium preset, with an average of 46 FPS, and the 1080p High preset, with an average of 41 FPS, both fall well short of 60 FPS, so players would need to accept Low settings for a smooth experience.

The 5950X is a capable processor for this game, but the Arc B390 is not. The data shows that the GPU's performance ceiling is the deciding factor in every resolution. The recorded averages, ranging from 18 FPS at 4K Ultra to 65 FPS at 1080p Low, all fall within the expected range for a GPU that ranks in the 9th percentile of all tested GPUs. The combination rank of 3311 out of 3720 combos confirms that this is a low-performing pairing for Control. If the goal is to play at 1080p with Low settings, this system can deliver, but any attempt to increase the resolution or quality settings will result in frame rates below the playable threshold.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, there is no playable preset, so no best settings can be recommended. The highest average recorded at this resolution is 33 FPS at Low settings, which is not sufficient for smooth gameplay. At 2560x1440, there is also no playable preset, and the best average is 50 FPS at Low settings, which is below the threshold. At 1920x1080, the best playable preset is Low, with an average FPS of 65. This is the only setting that maintains an average above 60 FPS. The Low preset at 1080p represents the maximum quality that this system can handle while staying above the playable threshold. The 1080p Medium preset, at 46 FPS average, is not playable, and the High and Ultra presets are even lower at 41 and 36 FPS respectively. Players using this configuration should set the resolution to 1920x1080 and the quality preset to Low to achieve a playable frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and Intel Arc B390 combination ranks 3311 out of 3720 tested combos for Control in the database. This places it in the bottom 11 percent of all tested systems, a position that reflects the GPU's low performance relative to other graphics cards tested with this game. The rank is driven almost entirely by the Arc B390, which has an average benchmark score of 1482 and a percentile rank of 9 among all GPUs. In contrast, the Ryzen 9 5950X has a percentile rank of 91 among all CPUs, showing a stark imbalance in the pairing. The 3311 rank means that out of 3720 combinations tested, only 409 performed worse than this system. The ranking aligns with the measured FPS data: the system can only play at 1080p Low, which is a very low bar compared to the capabilities of most other tested combos. The nearest GPU rivals, such as the GT 710 and GT 520MX, are legacy low-end parts, and the fact that the Arc B390 is only 1 to 3 percent faster than them in synthetic benchmarks explains why this combo sits so low in the rankings. For Control specifically, the data shows that this is a system for 1080p Low gaming only, and even then, the 65 FPS average provides limited headroom for demanding scenes. The combination of a top-tier CPU with a bottom-tier GPU results in a configuration that cannot leverage the CPU's strengths in this game, and the overall ranking reflects that mismatch.