Control

Control is not a demanding game for the Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 — the measured data shows this combo clears the 60 FPS playability threshold at every preset, including Ultra at native 4K. Released in August 2019 as an Action Adventure title, Control predates both pieces of hardware by years, and it shows: even the heaviest settings cannot push this configuration below 80 FPS average at 3840x2160. Every result below is measured data, not estimated.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo runs Control at 284.4 FPS average on Low, 199.8 on Medium, 178.2 on High, and 158.4 on Ultra. The spread from lowest to highest preset is roughly 126 FPS — a meaningful gap in absolute terms, but at these frame rates the difference is largely academic for anyone on a standard refresh display. Every preset sits far beyond the 60 FPS playable threshold.

At 2560x1440, averages land at 216.5 FPS on Low, 152.3 on Medium, 136.7 on High, and 118.9 on Ultra. Dropping from 1080p to 1440p costs the Ultra preset about 39.5 FPS on average, which is a modest decline relative to the pixel-count increase — a sign the RTX 5090 has substantial headroom at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, Control averages 143.3 FPS on Low, 103.9 on Medium, 90.9 on High, and 80 on Ultra. That Ultra figure is the worst-case result in the entire dataset, and it still clears the playable threshold by 20 FPS. Minimum and maximum frame rates were not recorded for these runs, so the averages are the full picture here.

The overall scaling pattern is clean: for every resolution, each step up in preset costs a progressively smaller amount of performance, and no setting choice at any resolution comes close to threatening playability.

Best Settings per Resolution

Because the playable threshold is 60 FPS and every measured combination exceeds it, the best settings at each resolution are simply the most demanding preset available:

• 1920x1080 — Ultra: 158.4 FPS average. All four presets (Low through Ultra) are playable; Ultra is the obvious pick.
• 2560x1440 — Ultra: 118.9 FPS average. Again, all presets clear 60 FPS, so there is no reason to drop below Ultra.
• 3840x2160 — Ultra: 80 FPS average. Even at native 4K, the most demanding preset stays 20 FPS above the threshold.

The practical takeaway: this pairing runs Control maxed out at any resolution a typical monitor supports. There is no settings tuning required anywhere in the stack.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling data indicates Control is GPU-bound on this configuration at higher resolutions, with the CPU becoming the more relevant limiter only at lower resolutions and lighter presets.

Look at the Low preset: 284.4 FPS at 1080p, 216.5 at 1440p, and 143.3 at 4K. At 1080p Low, the frame rate is high enough that the i5-14600KF — with 14 cores, 20 threads, a 5.30 GHz boost clock, and strong per-core results like 462 in Cinebench R15 single-core and 2445 in Geekbench single-core — is plausibly the component setting the ceiling. The GPU is barely working at that point.

At the Ultra preset the picture flips. Moving from 1440p to 4K drops the average from 118.9 to 80 FPS — a 33% decline for a 2.25× increase in pixel count. Meanwhile, raising the preset from Low to Ultra at 4K costs 63.3 FPS (143.3 down to 80). Those are substantial, resolution- and settings-driven swings, which is characteristic of GPU-limited behavior: the RTX 5090's rendering throughput — 104.8 TFLOPS FP32, 1.79 TB/s of GDDR7 bandwidth across a 512-bit bus, and 170 RT cores for Control's ray tracing workload — is the resource being consumed.

The takeaway for a builder: at 1440p and 4K, GPU power determines frame rate, and the 5090 has plenty. At 1080p, the 14600KF is more than sufficient — its 90th percentile standing against all CPUs confirms it will not be a meaningful bottleneck for a 2019 title at triple-digit frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

Among all tested hardware combinations in the Control database, the i5-14600KF + RTX 5090 ranks 51 out of 3720 — placing it in roughly the top 1.4% of tested pairings for this game. That ranking aligns with the component percentiles: the CPU sits in the 90th percentile versus all CPUs (average benchmark score 49394), and the GPU in the 92nd percentile versus all GPUs (average benchmark score 79842).

In other words, this is a high-end pairing running a game that is, by current standards, light work. Rank 51 rather than rank 1 reflects that even faster CPU/GPU pairings exist in the database, but the practical difference between this combo and the theoretical top for Control is negligible when the worst measured result is 80 FPS at 4K Ultra.

Similar Performance Alternatives

For the CPU, the i5-14600KF's average score of 49394 puts it in a near-dead heat with several rivals: the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (avgScore 49228, 0.3% behind), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49196, 0.4% behind), and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (48995, 0.8% behind), while the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 sits slightly ahead (49796, 0.8% faster). Any of these processors would deliver effectively identical Control performance alongside an RTX 5090 — the deltas are all under one percent.

For the GPU, the RTX 5090's rivals by average score are an unusual list: the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79605, 0.3% behind), the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79396, 0.6% behind), the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78940, 1.1% behind), and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80959, 1.4% ahead). On aggregate benchmark scores these parts cluster tightly, though the 5090's gaming-relevant feature set — 170 RT cores, 680 tensor cores, DirectX 12 Ultimate support, and 32 GB of GDDR7 — is what the measured Control results reflect.

The short version: if a builder swaps the 14600KF for any of its listed CPU rivals, Control performance should not measurably change. GPU-side substitutions within the listed cluster would likewise land within a couple of percent on paper.

FAQ

Q: Can the i5-14600KF + RTX 5090 run Control at 4K with max settings?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160 on Ultra, the measured average is 80 FPS — 20 FPS above the 60 FPS playable threshold. All four presets are playable at 4K.

Q: What is the highest frame rate this combo achieves in Control?

A: 284.4 FPS average, at 1920x1080 on the Low preset. At 1440p Low it reaches 216.5 FPS, and at 4K Low it reaches 143.3 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important for Control on this build?

A: The GPU. From 1440p to 4K at Ultra, average FPS falls from 118.9 to 80 — a resolution-driven decline that indicates GPU-bound behavior. The 14600KF (90th percentile among all CPUs) only becomes the likely limiter at 1080p with lighter presets, where frame rates exceed 280 FPS.

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

A: Rank 51 of 3720 tested combinations — approximately the top 1.4% for this game.

Q: Would a different CPU in the same class change the results?

A: Unlikely. The nearest rivals — Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G, Core Ultra 5 245, and Ryzen AI Max+ 388 — all sit within 0.8% of the 14600KF's average benchmark score.

Q: Were minimum frame rates recorded?

A: No. Minimum and maximum FPS are not available for these runs; the dataset contains average FPS only. Based on the averages, though, every preset and resolution combination clears the 60 FPS threshold comfortably.