Control

Control is one of the more demanding action-adventure titles in the database, and pairing it with a mid-range combo like the Intel Core i5-10400F and the Intel Arc B580 raises a fair question: how much visual fidelity survives the trip from 1080p to 4K? The recorded data tells a clear story of a GPU-bound experience that scales steeply with resolution, with the CPU sitting comfortably enough in the background that it rarely becomes the limiting factor.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at the database's nearest rivals gives a sense of what other hardware behaves similarly in practice. On the CPU side, the Core i5-10400F carries an average benchmark score of 14185, which puts it in the 68th percentile of all tested processors. Its closest neighbors are a curious mix: the Intel Xeon 6756E (average score 14163, delta 0.2 percent), the Intel Core 7 160UL (14232, delta -0.3 percent), the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115, delta 0.5 percent), and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (14277, delta -0.6 percent). All of these sit within a fraction of a percent of the i5-10400F's aggregate performance, so in aggregate throughput terms any of them would be expected to deliver a near-identical experience in Control. The interesting implication is that the 68th percentile placement means this six-core, twelve-thread Comet Lake chip still clears two-thirds of the CPUs in the database despite its age relative to the Arc B580, which launched in December 2024.

The Arc B580 lands in the same 68th percentile among GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23021. Its nearest rivals by aggregate score are the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP (23061, delta -0.2 percent), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (22895, delta 0.6 percent), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (23172, delta -0.7 percent), and the NVIDIA P106-100 (23249, delta -1 percent). Since Control leans heavily on GPU resources at higher resolutions, systems built around any of these graphics solutions would be expected to produce frame rates close to what this pairing records. Note that these matches are based on aggregate database scores, not game-specific runs, so per-game behavior can differ, but the tight deltas suggest a very similar class of performance.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling data points firmly at the GPU as the bottleneck. Moving from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 at Low settings drops the average from 114.1 FPS to 60.2 FPS, a loss of nearly half the frame rate as pixel count quadruples. The same pattern holds at every preset: Ultra falls from 63.3 FPS at 1080p to 49.3 FPS at 1440p and 30.4 FPS at 4K. When frame rate degrades almost in lockstep with resolution, the GPU is the component doing the heavy lifting, and the CPU has headroom to spare.

The CPU-side evidence supports this. Within a fixed resolution, the frame rate responds strongly to settings changes, from 114.1 FPS at Low to 63.3 FPS at Ultra at 1080p. If the i5-10400F were the limiter, lowering settings would not recover frame rate this dramatically. The chip's multi-threaded credentials (Cinebench R23 multi-core of 10283, PassMark multithread of 12115, Geekbench multi-core of 6257) indicate enough throughput for Control's simulation and draw-call workload, and its single-thread results (Cinebench R23 single-core of 1451, Geekbench single-core of 1420, PassMark single thread of 2541) keep per-frame logic from stalling the pipeline. In short: the i5-10400F is sufficient, the B580 is the ceiling.

How This Combo Ranks

Within Control specifically, this pairing ranks 2803 out of 3720 tested combinations in the database. That places it below the median, which initially seems at odds with the 68th percentile standing of both individual components. The explanation is that Control's ranked field skews toward enthusiast pairings, and a combo can only be as strong as its weaker half at GPU-bound settings. Ranking in the lower portion of a demanding game's leaderboard is not the same as being unplayable, and the per-resolution verdicts below show the combo still clears the 60 FPS bar under several configurations.

It is also worth questioning what the rank measures: it reflects combinations tested in this game, not a global hardware hierarchy. A 2803rd-place finish in a demanding title still corresponds to playable frame rates at sensible settings, which is the metric most users actually care about.

The Verdict

Yes, this PC can run Control, with clear qualifications by resolution. At 1920x1080, every tested preset clears the 60 FPS playable threshold: Low at 114.1, Medium at 79.6, High at 70.2, and Ultra at 63.3 FPS. At 2560x1440, two presets qualify: Low at 83.8 FPS and Medium at 62.8 FPS, while High (55.7) and Ultra (49.3) fall short. At 3840x2160, only Low settings clear the bar, at 60.2 FPS, and even then only barely, with Medium at 43.3, High at 39.1, and Ultra at 30.4 FPS all well below playable.

The headline verdict: 1080p is fully playable at any quality level, 1440p is playable up to Medium, and 4K is playable only at the lowest preset with essentially no margin.

Measured FPS Breakdown

All figures below are measured averages from the database; minimum and maximum frame rates were not recorded for these runs.

1920x1080:

• Low: 114.1 FPS average
• Medium: 79.6 FPS average
• High: 70.2 FPS average
• Ultra: 63.3 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 83.8 FPS average
• Medium: 62.8 FPS average
• High: 55.7 FPS average
• Ultra: 49.3 FPS average

3840x2160:4K:

• Low: 60.2 FPS average
• Medium: 43.3 FPS average
• High: 39.1 FPS average
• Ultra: 30.4 FPS average

The pattern is consistent: each step up in resolution costs roughly 20 to 30 FPS at a given preset, while each step up in preset costs roughly 10 to 35 FPS at a given resolution. The gap between Medium and Low is the largest single settings jump at 1080p (79.6 versus 114.1), suggesting the Medium tier enables the heaviest feature set relative to Low, likely including ray-traced effects that Control is known to stress.

Best Settings per Resolution

Based on the playable threshold of 60 FPS:

• 1920x1080: Ultra, at 63.3 FPS average. Every preset clears the bar, so the most demanding preset is the correct choice, with a small margin above 60.
• 2560x1440: Medium, at 62.8 FPS average. High misses at 55.7 FPS, so Medium is the ceiling for a locked 60-target experience.
• 3840x2160: Low, at 60.2 FPS average. A razor-thin 0.2 FPS margin over the threshold makes this technically playable but fragile; any scene more demanding than the test conditions could dip below 60.

The takeaway is that quality tiers, not resolutions, are where this combo holds ground. Dropping from Ultra to Medium at 1440p buys only a modest frame rate gain, while dropping from Medium to Low at 4K is the difference between unplayable and borderline.

FAQ

Q: Can the i5-10400F and Arc B580 run Control at 60 FPS?

A: Yes, at 1080p on all presets (Ultra averages 63.3 FPS), at 1440p on Low (83.8 FPS) and Medium (62.8 FPS), and at 4K only on Low (60.2 FPS).

Q: Which resolution is the sweet spot for this combo in Control?

A: 2560x1440 at Medium, averaging 62.8 FPS, offers the best balance of image quality and playable frame rate. 1080p Ultra (63.3 FPS) is the alternative if sharper settings matter more than pixel count.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the bottleneck?

A: The GPU. Frame rates scale sharply with resolution (114.1 FPS at 1080p Low versus 60.2 FPS at 4K Low), and settings changes produce large gains, both signs of GPU limitation while the i5-10400F keeps pace.

Q: How does this pairing rank against other combos tested in Control?

A: It ranks 2803 out of 3720 tested combinations in the database, below the median for this game despite both components sitting in the 68th percentile of their respective categories.

Q: Can it run Control at 4K with high settings?

A: No. At 3840x2160, High averages 39.1 FPS and Ultra averages 30.4 FPS, both well below the 60 FPS playable threshold. Only Low settings clear the bar at 60.2 FPS.

Q: What hardware performs similarly to this combo's components?

A: By aggregate database score, the i5-10400F matches the Intel Xeon 6756E, Intel Core 7 160UL, AMD EPYC 7552, and AMD Ryzen 3 7320C within a fraction of a percent, while the Arc B580 matches the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, and NVIDIA P106-100.