Control

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers an average of 87.5 FPS on High settings. Dropping to Medium raises the average to 101.9 FPS, while Low settings push the average to 135.6 FPS. The most demanding preset, Ultra, still holds an average of 77.4 FPS. No minimum or maximum frame time values were recorded in the database for this resolution, so the analysis relies on average frame rates alone.

Moving to 2560x1440, the same combo produces 130.5 FPS on High, 134.9 FPS on Medium, and 156.4 FPS on Low. Ultra settings yield 112 FPS on average. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 44.4 FPS, which indicates that the GPU has substantial headroom even when the preset is pushed to its maximum. The step from High to Ultra costs 18.5 FPS, while the step from Low to Medium costs 21.5 FPS in the opposite direction.

At 1920x1080, the results show 144.2 FPS on High, 146.9 FPS on Medium, 169.7 FPS on Low, and 136.9 FPS on Ultra. The spread between the slowest and fastest presets is 32.8 FPS, narrower than at 2560x1440. Notably, the difference between High and Medium at 1080p is only 2.7 FPS, which suggests that the rendering workload is not heavily influenced by the medium preset’s added effects at this resolution. Ultra remains the most demanding, but it still clears 136.9 FPS, far above the 60 FPS playability threshold.

Across all three resolutions, every recorded preset average exceeds 77 FPS. The lowest figure in the entire dataset is the 77.4 FPS at 4K Ultra, meaning that no tested configuration dips below the playable threshold. The highest figure is 169.7 FPS at 1080p Low, showing that the combination can drive very high refresh rates when visual fidelity is reduced.

The database does not include min or max FPS values for any of these measurements, so frame pacing and transient drops cannot be quantified. However, the average figures alone suggest that the system maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS in every scenario tested.

CPU and GPU Roles

The recorded data shows a clear pattern: resolution scaling has a strong effect on performance, while preset scaling has a more moderate effect. At 1920x1080, the average FPS across presets ranges from 136.9 to 169.7. At 2560x1440, the range shifts to 112 to 156.4. At 3840x2160, the range drops to 77.4 to 135.6. This consistent downward shift with increasing resolution indicates that the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck as pixel count rises.

The RTX 4090 is a top-tier graphics card with a passmark G3D score of 38194 and a percentile rank of 88 among all GPUs. Its memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s and 24 GB of GDDR6X memory are more than sufficient for Control’s rendering demands. At 4K, the GPU’s raw throughput determines the frame rate, and the data confirms that the 4090 is still capable of producing 77.4 FPS at the highest preset.

The Intel Core i5-10400F, by contrast, is a mid-range CPU from the Comet Lake generation. It has 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 10283, and its single-core score is 1451. The CPU’s percentile rank is 68 among all CPUs. At 1080p, where the GPU has less work per frame, the CPU is more likely to influence the upper bound of performance. Yet the data shows that even at 1080p Low, the average FPS reaches 169.7, which is far beyond typical display refresh rates and indicates that the CPU is not a limiting factor in this game.

The scaling between presets provides additional evidence. At 1080p, moving from High to Ultra costs only 7.3 FPS (from 144.2 to 136.9). At 4K, the same preset step costs 10.1 FPS (from 87.5 to 77.4). The larger absolute drop at higher resolution is consistent with the GPU bearing more of the workload when the pixel count rises. Conversely, at 1080p, the difference between Low and Medium is 22.8 FPS (from 169.7 to 146.9), while at 4K, the same step is 33.7 FPS (from 135.6 to 101.9). This larger delta at 4K reinforces that the GPU is the dominant factor at higher resolutions.

The CPU’s role is thus secondary. The i5-10400F provides sufficient single-thread and multi-thread performance to keep up with the RTX 4090 at all tested settings, but it does not add meaningful constraints. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller FPS differences between 1080p and 1440p, or between 1440p and 4K. The recorded data shows the opposite: the FPS drops are substantial at every resolution step, which is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that remains at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, with an average of 77.4 FPS. This is the highest quality setting available in the measured data, and it clears the playability threshold by 17.4 FPS. The database’s verdict for 4K lists all four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) as playable, with Ultra as the best setting.

At 2560x1440, the best setting is also Ultra, with an average of 112 FPS. This is 52 FPS above the 60 FPS threshold, leaving substantial room for frame time spikes or demanding scenes. The verdict for this resolution confirms that all presets are playable and Ultra is the recommended choice.

At 1920x1080, Ultra is again the best setting, delivering 136.9 FPS on average. This is 76.9 FPS above the threshold, which means the system can handle the highest preset while still supporting high refresh rate displays. The verdict lists all presets as playable at this resolution.

In all three cases, the best settings are the maximum preset available. This is an unusual outcome for a mid-range CPU paired with a top-tier GPU, but the data supports it. The RTX 4090’s compute resources are so abundant that even the heaviest preset at 4K does not bring the average below 77 FPS.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at the CPU’s nearest rivals in the database, the Intel Core i5-10400F sits close to several other processors. The Intel Xeon 6756E has an average benchmark score of 14163, which is 0.2 percent lower than the i5-10400F’s 14185. The Intel Core 7 160UL scores 14232, 0.3 percent higher. The AMD EPYC 7552 scores 14115, 0.5 percent lower. The AMD Ryzen 3 7320C scores 14277, 0.6 percent higher. These deltas are all within one percent, so any of these CPUs would produce nearly identical frame rates in Control when paired with the same GPU. The Ryzen 3 7320C and Core 7 160UL are marginally faster in synthetic benchmarks, while the Xeon 6756E and EPYC 7552 are marginally slower, but the differences are negligible for gaming.

For the GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 has an average benchmark score of 60347. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Arc Pro A60 with a score of 60326 (0 percent delta), the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 with 60140 (0.3 percent lower), the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M with 61896 (2.5 percent higher), and the AMD Radeon PRO V710 with 58657 (2.9 percent lower). The Arc Pro A60 is essentially identical in synthetic performance, so it would deliver nearly the same FPS in Control. The Radeon Pro Vega 48 is slightly slower, while the W6600M is slightly faster. The PRO V710 is the slowest of the group, but the 2.9 percent gap would translate to a few frames per second at most.

In practical terms, a system with the i5-10400F and any of these GPUs would land within a small FPS band of the measured results. The RTX 4090’s dominance in the database is clear, with a percentile rank of 88, but the rival GPUs are close enough in aggregate score that Control’s frame rates would be similar, especially at 1080p and 1440p where the CPU plays a larger role.

The Verdict

The data shows that this PC can run Control with a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold at every resolution and preset tested. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages 77.4 FPS, and all other presets exceed that. At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 112 FPS, and the lowest preset (Low) reaches 156.4 FPS. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset averages 136.9 FPS, and the highest recorded average is 169.7 FPS on Low.

The verdict by resolution is unequivocal: all three resolutions are marked as playable with all four presets. The best settings are Ultra at each resolution, with the corresponding averages of 77.4 FPS at 4K, 112 FPS at 1440p, and 136.9 FPS at 1080p. There is no scenario in the dataset where the system falls below 60 FPS.

This outcome is driven by the RTX 4090’s enormous graphics horsepower. The i5-10400F, while not a top-tier CPU, provides enough performance to avoid becoming a bottleneck in Control. The game’s action-adventure nature, with its physics-heavy combat and destructible environments, does not appear to place unusual demands on the CPU beyond what the 6-core, 12-thread design can supply.

For users with a 60 Hz display, the system can run the game at maximum settings at any resolution. For users with high refresh rate monitors, the 1440p and 1080p results offer headroom for 120 Hz or even 144 Hz displays, particularly at Medium or High settings. At 4K, the 77.4 FPS average on Ultra is suitable for 60 Hz displays, but not for 120 Hz panels.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 383 out of 3720 tested combos in the database for Control. This places it in the top 10.3 percent of all configurations. The rank reflects the fact that the RTX 4090 is one of the fastest GPUs available, with a percentile rank of 88 against all GPUs, while the i5-10400F is a more modest processor with a percentile rank of 68.

The high rank is primarily attributable to the GPU. The RTX 4090’s average benchmark score of 60347 is more than four times higher than the CPU’s average benchmark score of 14185. In a game like Control, where the GPU handles the bulk of the rendering work, this imbalance yields excellent results. The CPU’s lower rank does not drag the combo down significantly because the game is not CPU-bound at the tested resolutions.

Compared to other combos in the database, the 383rd position out of 3720 means that only a small fraction of tested systems outperform this pairing. Those that do are likely to feature even newer or more powerful CPUs, such as high-core-count Ryzen or Intel processors, but the frame rate differences in Control would be minimal. The data suggests that the i5-10400F and RTX 4090 are well matched for this game, with the GPU doing the heavy lifting and the CPU providing adequate support.

The rank also indicates that the combination is more capable than the vast majority of systems in the database. For a game released in 2019, this pairing is overqualified, as evidenced by the 4K Ultra average of 77.4 FPS. The recorded data confirms that this is a high-performing combination, and the rank reflects that standing.