Control

Similar Performance Alternatives

The Ryzen 9 7900X sits in a tightly contested performance band. The recorded data places it within 0.6% of three other processors and one workstation chip. The AMD EPYC 7313P scores just 0.2% higher on average, while the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 is 0.3% behind. The Intel Xeon 634 trails by 0.6%, and the Intel Core i7-14700F is 0.6% ahead. For gaming workloads, the Core i7-14700F would behave most similarly in CPU-bound scenarios, though none of these rivals would meaningfully change frame pacing in Control given how GPU-bound this title becomes at higher settings.

On the graphics side, the RX 580's nearest rivals show a remarkably narrow spread. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is 0.1% faster, the GTX 1660 SUPER is 0.4% faster, while the AMD Radeon 740M and FirePro W5100 lag by 0.5% and 0.6% respectively. In practice, any of these four cards would deliver nearly identical frame rates at the same settings and resolution. The GTX 1660 SUPER is the most relevant desktop comparison, and its slightly higher average score translates to roughly one extra frame per second in the best case. The FirePro W5100, despite being a workstation part, lands within the same performance envelope.

What stands out is the delta between CPU and GPU percentiles. The 7900X ranks in the 91st percentile among all CPUs, while the RX 580 sits at the 53rd percentile among GPUs. This combination pairs a top-tier processor with a mid-pack graphics card, meaning the GPU will consistently be the limiting factor. Users upgrading from a slower CPU would see minimal gains in Control, while a GPU swap would produce dramatic improvements.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Control at 1080p with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings. The measured average at 1920x1080 Low is 63.2 FPS, which clears the 60 FPS playability threshold. Medium drops to 42.6 FPS, High to 38.6 FPS, and Ultra to 32.8 FPS.

Q: What is the best playable setting at 1440p?

A: None. The verdict data shows no playable settings at 2560x1440. Even at Low, the average frame rate is 49.6 FPS, below the 60 FPS threshold. Medium, High, and Ultra produce 32.8, 32.2, and 29.2 FPS respectively.

Q: How does the RX 580 compare to its closest rival, the GTX 1660 SUPER?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has an average benchmark score 0.4% higher than the RX 580. This translates to a negligible performance difference, likely within run-to-run variance. Users should expect nearly identical frame rates from both cards.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 7900X overkill for this GPU in Control?

A: The data suggests yes. The CPU sits in the 91st percentile among all processors, while the GPU is at the 53rd percentile. Given that even the fastest CPU cannot compensate for the RX 580's limits at higher settings, the processor's headroom goes unused in this game.

Q: What frame rate does the system achieve at 4K Ultra?

A: The average is 17.8 FPS, which is not playable. Even at 4K Low, the system only reaches 33.2 FPS. The RX 580 lacks the raw throughput needed for 4K rendering in Control.

Q: Does lowering settings from Ultra to Low improve performance at 1080p?

A: Yes, substantially. The average frame rate rises from 32.8 FPS at Ultra to 63.2 FPS at Low, nearly doubling performance. The jump from Medium (42.6 FPS) to Low (63.2 FPS) is the largest single-step improvement.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data reveals a clear division of labor between the Ryzen 9 7900X and the RX 580. At every resolution, the GPU is the bottleneck. The CPU's 12 cores and 24 threads, along with its 91st percentile ranking, provide far more compute headroom than Control requires. The game's Action Adventure genre typically favors single-thread performance, and the 7900X delivers a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2016.5, but this matters little when the GPU cannot keep pace.

Resolution scaling tells the story. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings drops the average frame rate from 63.2 FPS to 49.6 FPS, a 21.5% reduction. Going from 1440p to 4K at Low further drops performance to 33.2 FPS, another 33% reduction. These steep declines indicate pixel-throughput limits on the GPU rather than CPU-side stalls. If the processor were the constraint, the frame rate would stay relatively flat as resolution increases because the CPU workload remains constant.

Preset scaling reinforces this conclusion. At 1080p, the gap between Low and Ultra is 30.4 FPS (63.2 versus 32.8). At 1440p, the same gap narrows to 20.4 FPS (49.6 versus 29.2). At 4K, the gap shrinks further to 15.4 FPS (33.2 versus 17.8). As resolution rises, the GPU becomes so saturated that even reducing settings cannot recover performance. This pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound system where the RX 580's 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput and 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are simply insufficient for higher resolution rendering.

The CPU's role is therefore limited to ensuring the GPU receives data fast enough. With a boost clock of 5.60 GHz and 64 MB of shared L3 cache, the 7900X eliminates any possibility of CPU-induced stutter. The measured frame rates show no signs of CPU limitation: they scale smoothly with GPU load, and even the minimum frame rates (where CPU hiccups would appear) are absent from the recorded data. For this specific game, the processor is a non-factor.

The Verdict

This PC can run Control, but only under narrowly defined conditions. The verdict data identifies exactly one playable configuration: 1920x1080 at Low settings, producing an average of 63.2 FPS. This clears the 60 FPS threshold, but with only 3.2 FPS of headroom, there is little margin for demanding scenes.

At 2560x1440, no settings achieve playable frame rates. The best case is Low at 49.6 FPS, which falls 10.4 FPS short of the threshold. Medium, High, and Ultra all land in the 29 to 33 FPS range, which is in console-style presentation territory but below the 60 FPS target.

At 3840x2160, the situation is worse. Low settings yield 33.2 FPS, while Ultra drops to 17.8 FPS. None of these are remotely playable for a game requiring responsive controls. The RX 580's 8 GB of GDDR5 memory and 256-bit bus cannot feed enough pixels at this resolution.

The practical verdict: this system is a 1080p Low machine for Control. Users who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate could run Medium at 1080p (42.6 FPS) or High at 1440p (32.2 FPS), but these are compromises, not playable targets. The data does not support any configuration above 1080p Low as meeting the 60 FPS standard.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its best results. Low settings average 63.2 FPS, the only configuration to cross the 60 FPS mark. Medium drops to 42.6 FPS, High to 38.6 FPS, and Ultra to 32.8 FPS. The progression from Low to Medium is a 32.6% performance loss, while stepping from Medium to High costs only 9.4%, and High to Ultra costs another 15%. This non-linear scaling suggests that the Low preset removes several expensive rendering features, while the differences between Medium, High, and Ultra are less impactful.

At 2560x1440, all settings remain below playability. Low averages 49.6 FPS, Medium 32.8 FPS, High 32.2 FPS, and Ultra 29.2 FPS. Notably, Medium and High produce nearly identical results, differing by just 0.6 FPS. This indicates that the Medium preset already includes most of the GPU-intensive effects that High adds, and the RX 580's limits flatten the curve.

At 3840x2160, performance collapses. Low averages 33.2 FPS, Medium 22.7 FPS, High 22.3 FPS, and Ultra 17.8 FPS. The Medium and High results are essentially identical, differing by only 0.4 FPS. The 4K resolution demands four times the pixel throughput of 1080p, and the RX 580's fill rate of 42.88 GPixel/s cannot cope. Even the 7900X's high memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s cannot compensate, as the bottleneck resides in the GPU's rasterization pipeline.

The measured data contains only average frame rates; minimum and maximum values are absent from the record. This limits analysis of frame time consistency, but the averages alone are sufficient to determine playability. The 63.2 FPS at 1080p Low suggests the system can maintain playable performance, though users should expect some dips below 60 FPS in combat-heavy scenes given the small margin.

How This Combo Ranks

This CPU and GPU pairing ranks 3392nd out of 3720 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the 8.8th percentile. In other words, roughly 91% of tested systems deliver higher frame rates. This low ranking aligns with the GPU's 53rd percentile standing, confirming that the RX 580 drags the overall score down despite the CPU's 91st percentile performance.

The rank position reflects the GPU-bound nature of Control at the settings tested. A system with a mid-range CPU and a higher-tier GPU would likely rank far better, as the game's performance scales primarily with graphics hardware. The 7900X's contributions are invisible in this ranking because the RX 580 cannot translate CPU headroom into additional frames.

Looking at the nearest GPU rivals, the GTX 1660 SUPER's 0.4% higher score would not meaningfully change this combo's rank. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, despite being a laptop part, also falls within the same performance band. To move significantly up the rankings, a user would need a GPU several tiers higher, which the data does not include but the percentile gap implies.

The 7900X's nearest CPU rivals would also produce identical rankings in this game. The Core i7-14700F, EPYC 7313P, Xeon Phi 7290, and Xeon 634 all sit within 0.6% of the 7900X's average score. None of these processors would alter the combo's position in Control, as the game never approaches CPU saturation with this GPU. The ranking is effectively determined by the RX 580 alone.

For users considering upgrades, the data suggests prioritizing the GPU. The 7900X is not the limiting factor in any measured configuration, and replacing it would yield zero frame rate improvement in Control. Swapping the RX 580 for a significantly faster card would be the only meaningful change, though the specific performance of such an upgrade lies outside the recorded measurements.