Control

Pairing a high-percentile Alder Lake CPU with a mid-tier Polaris-era GPU creates a pronounced imbalance for Control, a DirectX 12 action adventure released in 2019. The Intel Core i7-12700KF sits in the 85th percentile of all CPUs in the database, with 12 cores, 20 threads, a 5.00 GHz boost clock, and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28838. The AMD Radeon RX 580, by contrast, lands in only the 53rd percentile of all GPUs, delivering 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput through its Polaris 20 chip on a 14 nm GlobalFoundries process. Benchmark results indicate that this pairing is decisively GPU-limited in Control at every tested resolution, with only a single configuration clearing the 60 FPS playability threshold.

Best Settings per Resolution

The database records a playable threshold of 60 FPS, and the measured data shows exactly one combination that meets it. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 65.3 FPS, which makes Low the best settings recommendation for full HD. Every other preset at 1080p falls short: Medium averages 46.7 FPS, High averages 42.8 FPS, and Ultra averages 34.2 FPS.

At 2560x1440, no preset reaches 60 FPS. The best result is Low at 49.6 FPS, followed by Medium at 32.1, High at 28.4, and Ultra at 25.2. The verdict data confirms this: the playableSettings list for 1440p is empty.

At 3840x2160, the situation is worse. Low manages only 32.8 FPS, Medium 23.2, High 20.7, and Ultra 17.1. Again, no preset qualifies as playable, and the recorded verdict for 4K lists no viable settings at all. In short, 1080p Low is the only measured configuration that satisfies the 60 FPS standard.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling data points to a clear conclusion: the RX 580 is the bottleneck, and the i7-12700KF is never the limiting factor. The strongest evidence comes from how frame rates collapse as resolution rises while the CPU stays constant. At the Low preset, moving from 1920x1080 (65.3 FPS) to 2560x1440 (49.6 FPS) costs roughly a quarter of the frame rate, and moving to 3840x2160 (32.8 FPS) roughly halves the 1080p result. Pixel count is driven almost entirely by the GPU, so this resolution-driven falloff is the signature of a graphics-limited configuration.

Preset scaling tells the same story. At 1080p, dropping from Ultra (34.2 FPS) to Low (65.3 FPS) nearly doubles performance, a swing the CPU cannot produce on its own given its headroom. The i7-12700KF posts a single-thread Cinebench R23 score of 4071 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2255, placing it well above what Control's 2019-era engine demands for simulation and draw-call work. Its multi-threaded credentials (a Passmark multithread score of 34092 and a 3DMark max-threads score of 9983) go largely unused here. A weaker processor would likely produce similar frame rates in this pairing at 1440p and 4K; the RX 580's 53rd percentile standing among all GPUs is the ceiling on performance in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

All figures below are measured average frame rates recorded by the database; per-run minimum and maximum values were not captured for these configurations.

At 1920x1080:

• Low: 65.3 FPS average, the only playable result in the entire dataset
• Medium: 46.7 FPS average, a drop of roughly 29 percent relative to Low
• High: 42.8 FPS average
• Ultra: 34.2 FPS average, about 48 percent below the Low preset

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 49.6 FPS average, the closest any non-1080p configuration gets to the threshold
• Medium: 32.1 FPS average
• High: 28.4 FPS average
• Ultra: 25.2 FPS average

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 32.8 FPS average
• Medium: 23.2 FPS average
• High: 20.7 FPS average
• Ultra: 17.1 FPS average, the slowest recorded result

Two patterns stand out. First, the gap between Medium and High is consistently small (46.7 versus 42.8 at 1080p, 32.1 versus 28.4 at 1440p), which suggests the heavier presets tax the same limited resource pool. Second, the Low preset holds up comparatively well at 4K, delivering 32.8 FPS, exactly half of its 1080p figure, indicating the RX 580's 256-bit GDDR5 bus with 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth keeps feeding the chip even as resolution quadruples the pixel load.

How This Combo Ranks

Within Control specifically, the i7-12700KF plus RX 580 combination ranks 3386 out of 3720 tested configurations in the database. That places it in the bottom tenth of the field for this game, an unusual position for a CPU that ranks in the 85th percentile overall. The explanation is straightforward: Control's measured performance in this dataset is dominated by GPU capability, and pairing a strong processor with an end-of-life Polaris card drags the combined result down. The RX 580 carries a Passmark G3D score of 8813 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1005, figures that align with the mid-table frame rates recorded here. Anyone ranking builds for Control should read this result as a GPU problem, not a system-wide one.

Similar Performance Alternatives

On the CPU side, the nearest rivals cluster within a fraction of a percent of the i7-12700KF's average benchmark score. The Intel Core i7-13700T (average score 35403, essentially even), the Intel Core i5-13600T (35305, within 0.2 percent), the Intel Core 5 213PE (35428, within 0.2 percent), and the Intel Core i7-12700K (35287, within 0.2 percent) would all deliver indistinguishable results in this GPU-limited scenario. Any of these processors paired with the same RX 580 would reproduce the measured frame rates.

On the GPU side, the database lists the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (average score 12940, within 0.1 percent), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (12986, within 0.4 percent), the AMD Radeon 740M (12870, within 0.5 percent), and the AMD FirePro W5100 (12847, within 0.6 percent) as statistically equivalent alternatives. Swapping the RX 580 for a GTX 1660 SUPER, for example, would be expected to move Control's frame rates by less than one percent based on aggregate scores. Users chasing higher frame rates in Control need to step meaningfully beyond this performance tier rather than making a lateral move within it.

The Verdict

Can this PC run Control? Yes, but only under narrow conditions. The recorded verdict data shows 1920x1080 at the Low preset is playable, averaging 65.3 FPS with a 5.3 FPS cushion over the 60 FPS threshold. At 2560x1440, the verdict is negative: no preset clears 60 FPS, and even Low tops out at 49.6 FPS. At 3840x2160, the verdict is firmly negative, with the best result (Low at 32.8 FPS) running at barely half the threshold. The practical recommendation from the data is to play at 1080p on Low, or accept sub-60 frame rates at higher resolutions. The i7-12700KF, with 12 cores, 20 threads, DDR4/DDR5 memory support, and PCIe 4.0 with 20 CPU lanes, has ample headroom for a much stronger GPU, so the upgrade path for this game runs entirely through the graphics card. Note that the RX 580 lacks ray tracing hardware (its rtCores field is null), which matters for a title known as a ray tracing showcase; the measured presets here reflect rasterization performance only.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings configuration for Control on an i7-12700KF with an RX 580?

A: 1920x1080 at the Low preset, averaging 65.3 FPS. It is the only measured configuration that reaches the 60 FPS playability threshold.

Q: Can this PC run Control at 1440p?

A: Not at 60 FPS. The best 2560x1440 result is Low at 49.6 FPS average, and Medium, High, and Ultra drop to 32.1, 28.4, and 25.2 FPS respectively.

Q: Is 4K playability possible at any preset?

A: No. At 3840x2160 the averages are 32.8 FPS on Low, 23.2 on Medium, 20.7 on High, and 17.1 on Ultra, all well below the threshold.

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

A: The GPU. Frame rates fall sharply as resolution and preset demands rise, which is the classic pattern of a GPU-limited system, and the i7-12700KF sits in the 85th percentile of all CPUs while the RX 580 sits in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs.

Q: How does this combination rank against other systems tested in Control?

A: It ranks 3386 out of 3720 tested combinations, placing it near the bottom of the field for this game despite the strong CPU.

Q: Would swapping the RX 580 for a GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER help?

A: Not meaningfully. The GTX 1660 SUPER's average benchmark score sits within 0.4 percent of the RX 580's, so Control performance would be nearly identical.