Control

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti delivers a playable Control experience at 1080p and 1440p, but 4K requires a significant settings compromise. At 1920x1080, this combo clears the 60 FPS threshold at every preset, including Ultra at 64.8 FPS average. Moving to 2560x1440, the system remains capable but only on Low and Medium settings, with Ultra dropping to 51.8 FPS. At 3840x2160, only Low settings manage to stay above 60 FPS, averaging 63.1 FPS, while High and Medium fall to 38.5 and 41.3 FPS respectively. The data indicates a system that is CPU-strong but GPU-limited at higher resolutions, with the RTX 3060 Ti’s 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth becoming the bottleneck as pixel count rises.

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run Control at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings?

A: Yes. Benchmark results show an average of 64.8 FPS at 1080p Ultra, which clears the 60 FPS playable threshold. The verdict lists High, Low, Medium, and Ultra all as playable at this resolution.

Q: What is the best playable setting at 2560x1440?

A: Medium is the best playable setting, delivering an average of 64.8 FPS. Low also works at 87.3 FPS, but High falls to 58.8 FPS and Ultra to 51.8 FPS, both below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this hardware?

A: Only on Low settings. The data shows 63.1 FPS average at 3840x2160 Low, which is the sole playable preset. Medium (41.3 FPS), High (38.5 FPS), and Ultra (33.8 FPS) all fail to reach 60 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU benchmark compare to its nearest rival?

A: The Core i7-14700K has an average benchmark score of 69355, placing it 0.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 9115 (69288) and 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515). Its percentile vs all CPUs is 94.

Q: How does the GPU benchmark compare to AMD alternatives?

A: The RTX 3060 Ti scores 16129 on average, which is 0.7% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (16014) and 1.7% ahead of the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862). It sits 1.4% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (16351) and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (16361).

Q: What is the performance gap between 1080p and 1440p at High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 High, the average FPS is 74.3. Dropping to 2560x1440 High reduces the average to 58.8, a decrease of 15.5 FPS or roughly 21% from the 1080p result.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data reveals a clear division of labor between the Core i7-14700K and the RTX 3060 Ti. At 1920x1080, the CPU’s strength is evident: the system achieves 117 FPS on Low settings, indicating headroom that the GPU cannot fully exploit at higher presets. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a drop from 117 to 64.8 FPS, a 44.6% reduction, which is driven primarily by GPU load as visual effects and resolution scaling increase.

At 2560x1440, the GPU begins to dominate the performance envelope. The average FPS falls from 87.3 on Low to 51.8 on Ultra, a 40.7% reduction. The CPU’s 20 cores and 28 threads are sufficient to feed the GPU at this resolution, as evidenced by the fact that even the lowest preset at 1440p (87.3 FPS) remains well above the 1080p Ultra result. This suggests the RTX 3060 Ti is the limiting factor once resolution increases, with its 8 GB memory capacity and 256-bit bus becoming constraints.

The 3840x2160 results confirm the GPU-bound nature of this pairing. Performance plummets to 38.5 FPS on High and 33.8 FPS on Ultra, with only Low (63.1 FPS) staying above the playable threshold. The gap between Low and Medium at 4K is steep (63.1 to 41.3 FPS), indicating that memory bandwidth and shading unit load are saturated. The i7-14700K’s 33 MB L3 cache and high single-thread score (2160 in Cinebench R23) are irrelevant at this point; the GA104 chip’s 4864 shading units and 80 ROPs simply cannot process 4K frames fast enough. For 1080p and 1440p gaming, the CPU is over-provisioned, but at 4K, the GPU is the definitive bottleneck.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080: The system delivers its strongest results at this resolution. Low settings average 117 FPS, Medium 82.3 FPS, High 74.3 FPS, and Ultra 64.8 FPS. All four presets exceed the 60 FPS playable threshold, with Ultra providing a 4.8 FPS margin. The scaling pattern shows diminishing returns: dropping from Low to Medium costs 34.7 FPS, while the Medium-to-High transition costs only 8 FPS, and High-to-Ultra costs 9.5 FPS.

2560x1440: Performance remains respectable but requires settings management. Low averages 87.3 FPS, Medium 64.8 FPS, High 58.8 FPS, and Ultra 51.8 FPS. The playable settings are Low and Medium, with Medium exactly matching the 60 FPS threshold. High misses by 1.2 FPS, making it borderline, while Ultra falls 8.2 FPS short. The gap between Medium and High (6 FPS) is narrower than the Low-to-Medium gap (22.5 FPS), suggesting a non-linear cost for shadow quality and texture filtering.

3840x2160: This resolution exposes the GPU’s limits. Low averages 63.1 FPS, which is playable but with a slim 3.1 FPS margin. Medium drops to 41.3 FPS, High to 38.5 FPS, and Ultra to 33.8 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 21.8 FPS loss, while High-to-Ultra only costs 4.7 FPS, indicating that Ultra is not disproportionately heavier than High at this resolution. The data shows no min or max FPS values recorded, so the analysis relies solely on averages, but the trend is unambiguous: 4K is only viable on the lowest preset.

The Verdict

This PC can run Control, but the definition of "run" depends entirely on resolution. At 1920x1080, the answer is a definitive yes across all presets. The verdict lists High, Low, Medium, and Ultra as playable, with Ultra averaging 64.8 FPS. For 1080p gamers who want maximum visual fidelity, this is a capable configuration.

At 2560x1440, the system is conditionally playable. The verdict restricts playable settings to Low and Medium, with Medium at 64.8 FPS being the best choice. High at 58.8 FPS is tantalizingly close but misses the 60 FPS mark, so users must decide between a slight settings reduction or accepting sub-60 performance. Ultra at 51.8 FPS is not recommended for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the system is only playable on Low, which averages 63.1 FPS. This is a marginal pass, and any scene complexity could push it below 60 FPS in practice. Medium, High, and Ultra are all unplayable, with averages ranging from 41.3 to 33.8 FPS. The verdict clearly states Low is the only playable setting. For 4K users, this hardware is a compromise machine, not a high-fidelity solution.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The CPU’s nearest rivals offer nearly identical compute performance. The AMD EPYC 9115 scores 69288, just 0.1% below the i7-14700K’s 69355, making it a statistical tie for gaming workloads. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X scores 69515, 0.2% higher, while the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875) and AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69996) are 0.7% and 0.9% faster respectively. These deltaPct values are all within noise for game benchmarks, so swapping to any of these CPUs would yield effectively identical FPS in Control.

On the GPU side, the RTX 3060 Ti’s neighbors are similarly close. The AMD Radeon RX 9060 (16014) is 0.7% slower, the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862) is 1.7% slower, and the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (16351) and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (16361) are 1.4% faster. In practical terms, a system with the RX 5700 XT would produce nearly the same average FPS at each resolution and preset, differing by no more than 1-2 frames. The RTX 3060 Ti has ray tracing cores (38) and DLSS support, but for raw rasterization in Control, these alternatives are interchangeable.

How This Combo Ranks

Among all 3720 tested CPU-GPU combinations in Control, this pairing ranks 2572nd. That places it in the 30.9th percentile, meaning roughly 69% of tested combos perform better. This low rank is driven by the GPU, not the CPU. The i7-14700K’s 94th percentile CPU score suggests it is a top-tier processor, but the RTX 3060 Ti’s 59th percentile GPU score drags the overall ranking down. The combo rank reflects the GPU bottleneck at higher resolutions, where the 8 GB memory and 16.20 TFLOPS FP32 throughput are insufficient for sustained 60 FPS at 4K High. For 1080p and 1440p, the rank underestimates the experience, as the system meets the playable threshold at those resolutions. However, in a database comparing all combos, the 2572nd position accurately captures the hardware’s limitations for demanding 4K scenarios.