Control

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers an exceptional Control experience, with benchmark data showing performance far exceeding the 60 FPS playability threshold across every tested resolution and settings combination. The combination of the 14-core Raptor Lake processor and the flagship Blackwell GPU produces average frame rates that range from a low of 79 FPS at 4K Ultra to a staggering 284.9 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating that this system is not just playable but overwhelmingly overqualified for the 2019 Action Adventure title.

Best Settings per Resolution

The data shows that this hardware combination can run Control at its maximum Ultra preset while maintaining frame rates well above the 60 FPS target at every resolution tested. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 79 FPS, which represents the most demanding setting that stays above the playability threshold. Given the substantial margin above 60 FPS, players can confidently choose the highest visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset achieves an average of 117.2 FPS, providing a comfortable buffer that suggests this resolution is the sweet spot for high-refresh-rate displays. The data indicates that even at 4K Ultra, the system maintains 79 FPS, meaning there is no scenario in the measured data where this combo fails to hit the 60 FPS target.

For 1920x1080, the Ultra preset reaches 157.2 FPS on average, which makes the maximum settings the obvious choice for competitive or fast-paced play. The lowest recorded average across all settings and resolutions is 79 FPS at 4K Ultra, so the answer to the best settings question is consistent across the board: Ultra is the only reasonable choice, with the caveat that 4K Ultra, while playable, offers less headroom than the lower resolutions.

CPU and GPU Roles

Examining the scaling between resolutions and presets reveals a system where the GPU is the dominant performance factor, though the CPU demonstrates its capability to feed the powerful graphics card effectively. The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K shows the expected GPU-bound behavior: at Ultra settings, performance drops from 157.2 FPS at 1920x1080 to 117.2 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 79 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 26% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a further 33% reduction from 1440p to 4K, indicating that resolution scaling follows a typical GPU-limited curve.

The settings scaling at each resolution reinforces the GPU-centric nature of Control. At 3840x2160, moving from Low to Ultra reduces the average frame rate from 142.4 FPS to 79 FPS, a 44% performance penalty for maximum visual quality. The same comparison at 1920x1080 shows a drop from 284.9 FPS to 157.2 FPS, a 45% reduction. This consistent percentage decrease across resolutions suggests that the graphics card is the primary bottleneck, as the CPU overhead remains relatively constant.

The CPU's role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions and settings where frame rates exceed 200 FPS. The 1080p Low result of 284.9 FPS and the 1440p Low result of 214.2 FPS demonstrate that the Core i5-14600K can sustain very high frame rates without becoming a limiting factor. The 14-core, 20-thread processor with a 5.30 GHz boost clock provides sufficient headroom to keep up with the RTX 5090's immense rendering throughput, though the data suggests that at these extreme frame rates, the CPU is beginning to approach its limits.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured averages are 284.9 FPS at Low settings, 199.5 FPS at Medium, 179.4 FPS at High, and 157.2 FPS at Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium is substantial at 85.4 FPS, while the step from Medium to High is a more modest 20.1 FPS, and the final jump to Ultra costs another 22.2 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance profile shows 214.2 FPS at Low, 154.6 FPS at Medium, 135.1 FPS at High, and 117.2 FPS at Ultra. The scaling from Low to Ultra at this resolution is a loss of 97 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium at 59.6 FPS. The Medium to High transition costs 19.5 FPS, and High to Ultra costs another 17.9 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the data records 142.4 FPS at Low, 101.5 FPS at Medium, 90.4 FPS at High, and 79 FPS at Ultra. The progression shows a 40.9 FPS loss from Low to Medium, followed by an 11.1 FPS drop to High, and a final 11.4 FPS reduction to Ultra. The 4K results demonstrate that even at the highest resolution, the system maintains more than double the 60 FPS threshold at Low settings, and Ultra still provides a 19 FPS margin above the playability cutoff.

The Verdict

The benchmark data is unambiguous: this PC can run Control at every resolution and setting combination tested, with no exceptions. The verdictByResolution field confirms that all four settings — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra — are playable at 3840x2160, 2560x1440, and 1920x1080. The best settings at each resolution are Ultra, with average FPS of 79 at 4K, 117.2 at 1440p, and 157.2 at 1080p.

The weakest performance in the entire dataset is the 4K Ultra result of 79 FPS, which still clears the 60 FPS playability threshold by a 31.7% margin. This means that users can max out the game's visual options at any resolution without experiencing frame rates below the target. The RTX 5090's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth ensure that even the most demanding textures and effects at 4K do not strain the system. The Core i5-14600K, with its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 20 threads, provides more than adequate processing power for Control's physics and AI workloads.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at the nearestRivals for the CPU and GPU provides context for how other hardware would behave in this configuration. The Intel Core i5-14600K's closest performance matches are the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, which scores 0.2% lower, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245, which scores 0.8% higher. The AMD EPYC 4345P is 0.3% faster, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX is 0.7% faster. These deltas are so small that any of these processors would produce nearly identical frame rates in Control, assuming the same GPU and system configuration.

For the GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB at 0.3% lower performance, the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB at 0.6% lower, and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT at 1.1% higher. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X is 1.4% lower. These workstation and mobile-class GPUs would deliver similar average frame rates in Control, though the RTX 5090's architectural advantages in ray tracing and DLSS would not be captured by these raw benchmark comparisons. The data suggests that swapping the CPU or GPU for any of these near-equivalent parts would result in frame rate differences of roughly one to two percent, imperceptible in actual gameplay.

How This Combo Ranks

In the comprehensive database of tested combinations, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 59th out of 3,720 combos for Control. This places the system in the top 1.6% of all tested configurations, a position that reflects the exceptional performance demonstrated in the measured FPS data. The rank is particularly notable given that the CPU's percentileVsAllCpus is 90 and the GPU's percentileVsAllGpus is 92, meaning both components are in the top decile of their respective categories.

The combination's high rank is consistent with the raw performance numbers: the system achieves 157.2 FPS at 1080p Ultra, which is more than 2.6 times the playability threshold. The 4K Ultra result of 79 FPS is also well above the 60 FPS target, giving this combo the distinction of being a true 4K Ultra-capable system for Control. The data indicates that the RTX 5090's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and the i5-14600K's 24,491 Cinebench R23 multi-core score combine to create a platform that will not encounter playability issues in this title for years to come. The 59th rank out of 3,720 combos suggests that only a handful of more exotic configurations, likely involving higher-end CPUs, would outperform this setup in Control.