Control

Control launched in 2019 as an Action Adventure title that quickly became a reference point for demanding rendering workloads, and the pairing of AMD's Ryzen 9 9900X3D with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070 handles it comfortably at every resolution in the database. Measured results show this combo clearing the 60 FPS threshold at 4K on High, and running away from it at lower resolutions. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D is a 12-core, 24-thread Zen 5 processor built on TSMC's 4 nm node, sitting in the 91st percentile of all CPUs tested, while the RTX 4070 is an Ada Lovelace card with 12 GB of GDDR6X and 46 RT cores, ranked in the 81st percentile of all GPUs. Together they place 904th out of 3720 tested combinations in Control — a strong showing for a game that punishes GPUs with heavy ray-traced lighting.

Best Settings per Resolution

The rule applied here is simple: pick the most demanding preset that holds at or above 60 FPS average at each resolution.

At 1920x1080, the answer is Ultra, delivering 106 FPS average. At 2560x1440, Ultra again clears the bar with 80 FPS average. At 3840x2160, Ultra drops to 54 FPS and falls short, so High becomes the best setting, averaging 62 FPS — a slim margin over the threshold, but a pass. Note the pattern: this is a GPU-limited scenario at 4K where each preset step costs meaningful frames, and the RTX 4070's 12 GB framebuffer and 504.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth are what keep the higher presets viable. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D, with a single-thread Passmark score of 4646 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6739, is nowhere near its limit feeding this game at any resolution.

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run Control at 4K?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160, High is the best playable preset with 62 FPS average, while Medium averages 70 FPS and Low averages 98 FPS. Ultra at 4K averages 54 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: Can it max out the settings at 1440p?

A: Yes. Ultra at 2560x1440 averages 80 FPS, comfortably above 60. Every preset tested at 1440p is playable, ranging from 80 FPS at Ultra up to 146 FPS at Low.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the bottleneck in Control?

A: The GPU. Frame rates scale down sharply as resolution rises — 106 FPS at 1080p Ultra becomes 80 FPS at 1440p Ultra and 54 FPS at 4K Ultra — which is the signature of a GPU-limited configuration. The 9900X3D's benchmark portfolio, including a Geekbench multi-core score of 22884 and 3DMark max-threads score of 13795, indicates substantial headroom.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested pairings in Control?

A: It ranks 904th out of 3720 combinations, putting it in the top quarter of tested hardware for this game.

Q: What frame rate should I expect at 1080p on Medium?

A: 137 FPS average, with a measured minimum of 116 and a maximum of 157 — the tightest frame-rate band in the dataset and the smoothest overall experience.

Q: Does the game ever dip below 60 FPS at playable settings?

A: The only measured minimum below the threshold is 59 FPS at 4K Medium, which averages 70 FPS and peaks at 80. That single-frame dip under 60 is marginal and does not change the playability verdict.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Starting at 1920x1080: Low averages 193 FPS, Medium averages 137 FPS with a minimum of 116 and a maximum of 157, High averages 122 FPS, and Ultra averages 106 FPS. The spread from lowest to highest preset at 1080p is 87 frames — the RTX 4070's 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is clearly not stretched at this resolution, and even the top preset leaves a 46-frame cushion over the playable threshold.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 146 FPS, Medium averages 104 FPS with a minimum of 88 and a maximum of 119, High averages 92 FPS, and Ultra averages 80 FPS. The Medium band here is worth highlighting: an 88 FPS minimum means worst-case moments stay well clear of stutter territory, and the 31-frame spread between minimum and maximum is contained. Ultra's 80 FPS average at 1440p is arguably the sweet spot for this configuration — maximum visual quality with a 20-frame margin.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 98 FPS, Medium averages 70 FPS with a minimum of 59 and a maximum of 80, High averages 62 FPS, and Ultra averages 54 FPS. The 4K results show where the ceiling sits. Medium's minimum of 59 grazes the threshold, which tells you the heaviest scenes in Control at 4K push the 4070 right to its limit even at mid-tier settings. High at 62 FPS average is playable but leaves little room for dips, so players sensitive to frame drops at 4K may prefer Medium for its higher floor and peak of 80 FPS.

Across all twelve measurements, the data shows a consistent GPU-bound profile: frame rates fall as pixel counts rise while the CPU, with its 24 threads and 5.50 GHz boost clock, idles along far below capacity.

Similar Performance Alternatives

On the CPU side, the 9900X3D's nearest rivals by aggregate benchmark score are the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF (0.6% ahead), the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K (1.3% behind), the Intel Xeon 6505P (2% behind), and the Intel Core i7-14700F (2.1% behind). All four sit within roughly 2% of the 9900X3D's average score, which means any of them would produce effectively identical Control results in this GPU-limited scenario — when the graphics card is the constraint, CPU deltas of this size vanish entirely. Since Control at these settings leans on the GPU, builders could pair the RTX 4070 with any of these processors and expect the same frame rates.

On the GPU side, the nearest rivals are an eclectic set: the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (0.1% behind in average score), the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (0.4% behind), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (1.3% ahead), and the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 (1.3% behind). The RTX 4080 Mobile is the most relevant comparison for gaming behavior — a mobile part scoring slightly higher on average, likely delivering comparable Control performance. The Tesla P4 and Radeon PRO W6400 are professional cards whose aggregate scores land nearby, though their gaming behavior in a modern DirectX 12 Ultimate title like Control is a different question than raw compute averages suggest. The practical takeaway: the RTX 4070's percentile rank of 81 against all GPUs defines the performance neighborhood, and the frame data above is what that neighborhood delivers in this game.

For a like-for-like experience, the 9900X3D plus RTX 4070 pairing sits in a band where a CPU swap among its listed rivals changes nothing, and only a meaningful GPU step up or down moves Control frame rates appreciably.

The Verdict

Yes — this PC runs Control, and runs it well. The verdict by resolution is unambiguous:

• 1920x1080: Fully playable at every preset. Best setting is Ultra at 106 FPS average; even the worst measured case, Ultra, clears 60 FPS by 46 frames.
• 2560x1440: Fully playable at every preset. Best setting is Ultra at 80 FPS average — maximum quality with a comfortable margin.
• 3840x2160: Playable at High, Medium, and Low. Best setting is High at 62 FPS average; Ultra at 54 FPS is the only preset that misses the threshold, and only by 6 frames.

The practical recommendation: play at 1440p Ultra for the best balance of image quality and headroom, or 4K High if the 60 FPS line matters more than the last increment of fidelity. At 4K, players who notice dips should consider Medium, whose 70 FPS average and 80 FPS maximum provide a sturdier floor despite the single measured minimum of 59.

How This Combo Ranks

Out of 3720 hardware combinations tested in Control, this pairing ranks 904th — comfortably inside the top quarter. That placement aligns with the component percentiles: a 91st-percentile CPU and an 81st-percentile GPU combine to beat roughly three-quarters of the field in a game that is decidely GPU-heavy. The rank also contextualizes the verdict: many of the combos above this one are presumably running higher-tier graphics hardware, while the 9900X3D's contribution here is headroom rather than frames. For a game released in 2019, this configuration's ranking confirms what the raw FPS data shows — Control is fully mastered by this pairing at mainstream resolutions and remains within reach even at 4K.