Control

Control is a demanding DirectX 12 action-adventure title with heavy ray-tracing-adjacent effects, and the pairing of Intel's Core i7-12700K with the Arc B580 lands it squarely in midrange territory for this game. The benchmark data measured for this combination shows a clear split: comfortably playable at 1920x1080, borderline at 2560x1440, and out of reach at 3840x2160. The analysis below walks through where this combo sits among alternatives, which component is the limiting factor, and exactly what frame rates to expect at every resolution and preset.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Starting with the processor: the Core i7-12700K is an Alder Lake-S chip built on Intel's 10 nm process, carrying 12 cores and 20 threads with a 5.00 GHz boost clock. Its aggregate benchmark average of 35287 places it in the 84th percentile of all CPUs in the database. The nearest rivals are remarkably close — the Intel Core i5-13600T scores 35305 (a delta of just -0.1%), the Core i7-12700KF sits at 35365 (-0.2%), the Core i7-13700T at 35403 (-0.3%), and the Core 5 213PE at 35428 (-0.4%). In practical terms, any of these four processors would deliver effectively identical CPU-side behavior in Control. Someone already running a 13600T or a 13700T has no processor-driven reason to expect different results from this configuration.

On the graphics side, the Arc B580 is a Battlemage-generation card on TSMC's 5 nm node, with 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus and 456.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Its average benchmark score of 23021 puts it in the 68th percentile of all GPUs. The rival list here is more eclectic: the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP averages 23061 (-0.2%), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 averages 22895 (+0.6%), the RTX 3080 averages 23172 (-0.7%), and the NVIDIA P106-100 averages 23249 (-1%). All of these cards fall within a one-percent band of the B580's aggregate score, so a system built around the RTX 2080 or RTX 3080 would be expected to produce broadly similar Control results, though per-game variance between architectures can shift individual titles.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling data tells a consistent story about where the bottleneck lives. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at the High preset drops the average from 74 FPS to 52.3 FPS — a loss of roughly 29% of the frame rate for a 78% increase in pixel count. Pushing further to 3840x2160 High costs another 16.3 FPS, landing at 36. Frame rate falling steeply as resolution rises is the signature of a GPU-bound configuration: the Arc B580 is the component doing the limiting at every tested resolution, while the i7-12700K — with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 19784 and a single-core score of 1850.5 — has ample headroom to feed it.

The preset scaling reinforces this. At 1080p, dropping from Ultra to Low nearly doubles the frame rate, from 59.4 to 111.7 FPS. At 4K the same span runs from 35.1 to 57.4. Because the CPU would show flat performance across presets if it were the constraint, and instead the data shows large swings at every resolution, the graphics card is clearly the component that matters. There is no tested resolution where the i7-12700K becomes the limiting factor for Control.

How This Combo Ranks

Against the full field of tested hardware combinations for Control, this pairing ranks 2849 out of 3720 combos. That places it in the bottom quarter of the ranking table, which reflects the game's demanding engine and the B580's midrange 68th-percentile standing among GPUs. The rank is not a verdict on the hardware in general — the i7-12700K itself sits in the 84th percentile of all CPUs — but rather on how this specific pairing handles this specific title at its tested settings. In a graphically heavy 2019 release like Control, the midrange GPU drags the combined ranking down even though the processor is a strong performer.

The Verdict

The answer is yes at two of the three tested resolutions, with an important caveat at the top end. At 1920x1080, the combo clears the 60 FPS playable threshold on Low, Medium, and High, with High delivering 74 FPS average; only Ultra falls just short at 59.4. At 2560x1440, the playable list shrinks to Low and Medium, with Medium squeaking past the line at 61.3 FPS. At 3840x2160, no preset reaches 60 FPS — the best result is 57.4 FPS on Low — so native 4K is not a playable option for this configuration in Control. In short: this PC runs Control well at 1080p on High, acceptably at 1440p on Medium, and not at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

All figures below are measured averages for the i7-12700K + Arc B580 combination in Control.

1920x1080:

• Low: 111.7 FPS average
• Medium: 81.5 FPS average
• High: 74 FPS average
• Ultra: 59.4 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 84.7 FPS average
• Medium: 61.3 FPS average
• High: 52.3 FPS average
• Ultra: 46.7 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 57.4 FPS average
• Medium: 40.2 FPS average
• High: 36 FPS average
• Ultra: 35.1 FPS average

The pattern is a steady compression as resolution climbs. The gap between Low and Ultra shrinks from 52.3 FPS at 1080p to 22.3 FPS at 4K, because at higher resolutions the card's fill-rate and bandwidth limits dominate regardless of how much detail is stripped out. Note also that at 4K, Medium (40.2) is barely faster than High (36) and Ultra (35.1) — settings tuning essentially stops working at that resolution. Minimum and maximum frame rates were not recorded for these runs, so the averages are the only measured figures available.

FAQ

Q: Can the i7-12700K + Arc B580 run Control at 60 FPS?

A: Yes, at 1920x1080 (Low, Medium, and High presets all clear 60 FPS, with High at 74) and at 2560x1440 on Low (84.7) and Medium (61.3). At 3840x2160, no preset reaches 60 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The GPU. Frame rates drop sharply as resolution rises — from 74 to 52.3 to 36 FPS on High going from 1080p to 1440p to 4K — which is the classic pattern of a graphics-limited configuration. The i7-12700K sits in the 84th percentile of all CPUs and is not the constraint at any tested resolution.

Q: What settings should I use at 1440p?

A: Medium, which averages 61.3 FPS and is the most demanding preset that stays at or above the 60 FPS threshold. High falls to 52.3 FPS.

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

A: It ranks 2849 out of 3720 tested combinations, placing it in the lower quarter of the field for this specific game.

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

A: Unlikely. The Core i5-13600T, Core i7-12700KF, Core i7-13700T, and Core 5 213PE all score within half a percent of the i7-12700K's aggregate benchmark average, so CPU-side performance would be effectively identical.

Q: Can this setup handle Control at 4K if I lower the settings?

A: No. Even at the Low preset, the average is 57.4 FPS at 3840x2160, below the 60 FPS playable threshold.

Best Settings per Resolution

• 1920x1080 — High: 74 FPS average. High is the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS; Ultra drops to 59.4 and misses the threshold by a fraction.
• 2560x1440 — Medium: 61.3 FPS average. Medium clears the line with a slim margin; the next step up, High, averages 52.3 FPS.
• 3840x2160 — Not playable: no preset reaches 60 FPS. The closest is Low at 57.4 FPS average, which still falls short, so the best playable experience for this combo tops out at 1440p Medium.