Control

Control pairs a 2019-era action-adventure engine with a decidedly unbalanced hardware combo: the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a solid mid-range six-core CPU, while the Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics part with performance that lands near the bottom of the GPU hierarchy. The measured frame rates reflect this split, with the CPU capable of far more than the GPU can deliver. The data shows that this pairing is playable only at 1080p with low settings, and even then the average of 65 FPS comes with no recorded minimum or maximum frame data to confirm stability. At higher resolutions or quality presets, the Arc B390 becomes the clear bottleneck, dragging the experience below acceptable thresholds. This page breaks down exactly how this combo behaves in Control, the role each component plays, and which settings produce the most usable results.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU + GPU combo in Control?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the only resolution where average FPS reaches a playable level. At 1080p Low, the combo averages 65 FPS; at 1440p Low, it drops to 50 FPS; at 4K Low, it falls to 33 FPS. Only the 1080p rows exceed the 60 FPS mark.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B390’s average benchmark score is 1482, which puts it 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, 1.5% ahead of the GeForce 800M, 2.5% ahead of the GeForce GT 625 OEM, and 2.7% ahead of the GeForce GT 710. These rivals are all extremely low-end parts, confirming the B390 sits in the bottom tier of GPUs.

Q: Does the Ryzen 5 3600 hold back the Arc B390?

A: No. The CPU is far more capable than the GPU. The Ryzen 5 3600 has a 71st percentile ranking among all CPUs, while the Arc B390 has a 9th percentile ranking among all GPUs. In game, the FPS scales directly with resolution and settings, which indicates the GPU is the limiting factor.

Q: What is the combo’s overall ranking among tested systems?

A: The combo ranks 2551 out of 2888 tested combinations in Control. This places it in the lower 12% of all tested combos, which aligns with the GPU’s low percentile and the modest FPS numbers measured.

Q: Is there a playable 4K setting?

A: At 4K, the highest average FPS is 33 at Low settings. Medium drops to 24 FPS, High to 21 FPS, and Ultra to 18 FPS. None of these reach a smooth 30+ FPS threshold consistently, making 4K effectively unplayable for this combo.

Q: How much faster is the CPU than its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 5 3600’s average benchmark score is 17035. It is 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i7-1260P (17007) and 0.2% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7742 (16998), while being 0.2% behind the Intel Core i5-11400 (17067) and the AMD EPYC 7573X (17070). These are negligible differences.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 2551 out of 2888 tested combinations in Control is a clear indicator of its overall position. This is not a mid-pack result; it is a bottom-decile placement. The percentile data for the individual components explains why. The Ryzen 5 3600 sits at the 71st percentile among all CPUs, meaning it outperforms roughly two-thirds of processors in general benchmarks. The Intel Arc B390, conversely, sits at the 9th percentile among all GPUs, meaning it outperforms only about one in eleven graphics cards. When you pair a 71st-percentile CPU with a 9th-percentile GPU, the combo’s in-game rank will be dragged down by the weaker component. The data confirms this: the rank is much closer to the GPU’s percentile than the CPU’s.

Looking at the measured FPS, the pattern holds. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 65 FPS, which is the only row above 60. Every other setting and resolution combination falls below that. At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 46 FPS; at High, it’s 41 FPS; at Ultra, it’s 36 FPS. This scaling is typical of a GPU-limited scenario because raising quality settings increases the pixel and shading workload, which the Arc B390 cannot handle. The CPU’s 3,800 million transistors and 7 nm process node are irrelevant here because the GPU is the one processing the frame buffer.

Among the 2888 tested combos, this one is close to the bottom. The rank of 2551 means there are only 337 combos that perform worse. That is a small margin. The GPU’s nearest rivals—like the GT 520MX and GT 710—are ancient parts, and the B390 only beats them by 1-3% in synthetic benchmarks. In a modern game like Control, that level of GPU performance is simply insufficient for anything beyond 1080p Low. The combo’s rank reflects this: it is a low-end system that can run the game at playable framerates only under the lightest settings.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated GPU, not a discrete card. Its memory is “System Shared,” its bus interface is “IGP,” and its power connectors are “None.” The slot width is “IGP,” meaning it draws from the system’s main memory rather than having its own VRAM. This has direct implications for Control, a game that benefits from dedicated video memory. The GPU’s memory bandwidth is listed as “System Dependent,” which means performance scales with the host system’s RAM speed and configuration. In this case, with the Ryzen 5 3600’s dual-channel DDR4 memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, the GPU is limited by that shared bandwidth.

The clock speeds show a base of 300 MHz and a boost of 2500 MHz. That boost clock is decent on paper, but the GPU has only 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 ROPs. The pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 7.680 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 15.36 TFLOPS (2:1). These numbers are low for a modern GPU. For comparison, the GPU’s percentile is 9, and its average benchmark score is 1482. The nearest rivals are all NVIDIA parts from over a decade ago, such as the GeForce GT 520MX (1463 score, 1.3% slower) and the GeForce 800M (1460 score, 1.5% slower). The B390 is not competing with modern discrete GPUs; it is competing with legacy integrated and entry-level mobile parts.

In Control, this translates to poor performance at any resolution above 1080p Low. The 4K Ultra row shows an average of 18 FPS, which is 47 FPS below the 1080p Low average. That is a 72% drop in FPS from the lowest settings to the highest at the same resolution. The GPU’s limited ROP count and memory bandwidth are the likely culprits, as higher resolutions require more pixel fill and memory traffic. The data shows that even 1440p Low (50 FPS) is 15 FPS slower than 1080p Low (65 FPS), and 4K Low (33 FPS) is 32 FPS slower. The GPU simply cannot maintain fill rates at higher pixel counts.

The Arc B390 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6. Control uses DirectX 12, so the API support is adequate. However, the hardware lacks the power to take advantage of it. The 12 ray tracing cores are present, but at this performance level, enabling RT would be unplayable. The measured rows do not include any RT-specific tests, so the data reflects pure rasterization performance. The GPU’s TDP is 80 W, which is low, but that is irrelevant to performance in this context. The data is clear: the GPU is the bottleneck, and it limits the combo to 1080p Low.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the only settings preset that delivers a consistently playable experience is 1080p Low. The average FPS there is 65, which is above the 60 FPS target. No minimum or maximum FPS is recorded for this row, so the frame time consistency is unknown. However, it is the only row with an average above 60, making it the clear choice for smooth gameplay.

At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 46 FPS, with a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 53. This is playable but not smooth, and the 40 FPS minimum suggests occasional dips below 45. For a game like Control, which has fast-paced combat and physics-based destruction, 46 FPS average with 40 FPS minimums is borderline. The jump from Low to Medium costs 19 FPS on average, which is a 29% reduction. That is a significant loss for a visual improvement that may not be noticeable on a standard monitor.

At 1080p High, the average is 41 FPS, and at Ultra, it is 36 FPS. Neither row has min/max data, but the averages are below the 45 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for playable action games. The 1080p Ultra row (36 FPS) is 29 FPS below the Low row, which is a 45% drop. The recommendation is to stay at Low for 1080p.

If you must play at 1440p, the only option is Low, which averages 50 FPS. There is no min/max data, but 50 FPS is acceptable for slower moments. However, the 1440p Medium row shows an average of 35 FPS with a minimum of 30 and maximum of 40. The 30 FPS minimum is too low for consistent play. At 1440p High (31 FPS) and Ultra (27 FPS), the averages are below 30, which is unplayable.

At 4K, no settings preset is recommended. The best average is 33 FPS at Low, which is below the 30 FPS minimum for playability. Medium (24 FPS), High (21 FPS), and Ultra (18 FPS) are all slideshows. The data suggests that this combo should be used at 1080p Low only. Any other setting sacrifices too much FPS for marginal visual gains.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range was tested. Low settings produce an average of 65 FPS. This is the highest average in the entire dataset. Medium settings drop to 46 FPS, with a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 53. High settings average 41 FPS, and Ultra settings average 36 FPS. The progression is linear: each step up in quality costs roughly 5 FPS on average, except for the Low-to-Medium jump, which costs 19 FPS. The Medium row is the only one with min/max data, showing a 13 FPS spread, which indicates some frame time variance.

At 2560x1440, the same four presets were tested. Low averages 50 FPS, which is 15 FPS lower than 1080p Low. Medium averages 35 FPS, with a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 40. High averages 31 FPS, and Ultra averages 27 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across all presets: Low loses 15 FPS, Medium loses 11 FPS, High loses 10 FPS, and Ultra loses 9 FPS. The resolution scaling is not uniform, with Low suffering the largest absolute loss.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor. Low averages 33 FPS, Medium averages 24 FPS (with a minimum of 20 and maximum of 27), High averages 21 FPS, and Ultra averages 18 FPS. The gap between 1440p and 4K is substantial: Low loses 17 FPS, Medium loses 11 FPS, High loses 10 FPS, and Ultra loses 9 FPS. The 4K Ultra row (18 FPS) is the lowest average in the dataset, and it is 47 FPS lower than the 1080p Low row.

The data shows that the GPU’s performance degrades rapidly as resolution increases. The 1080p Low average of 65 FPS is the only row above 60, and the 4K Ultra average of 18 FPS is the only row below 20. The medium presets at all resolutions have min/max data, which shows a consistent spread of 7-10 FPS between minimum and maximum. This suggests that the frame pacing is relatively stable, but the averages are too low for high-refresh displays.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, codenamed Matisse. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. The L3 cache is 32 MB shared, with 512 KB L2 per core and 64 KB L1 per core. The CPU is manufactured on a 7 nm process by TSMC, with 3,800 million transistors on a 74 mm² die. The TDP is 65 W, and it supports DDR4 memory with dual-channel configuration. The memory bandwidth is 51.2 GB/s, which is shared with the integrated GPU when the Arc B390 is active.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Ryzen 5 3600 scores 17035 on average, placing it at the 71st percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals in the benchmark database are the Intel Core i7-1260P (17007, 0.2% slower), the Intel Core i5-11400 (17067, 0.2% faster), the AMD EPYC 7573X (17070, 0.2% faster), and the AMD EPYC 7742 (16998, 0.2% slower). These are all older or lower-power parts, and the differences are within noise.

In Control, the CPU’s role is likely minimal because the GPU is the bottleneck. The measured FPS scales almost entirely with resolution and settings, not with CPU load. At 1080p Low, the CPU must feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations, but the 65 FPS average suggests the CPU is not limiting. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would not drop as much when raising resolution. The data shows a 47 FPS drop from 1080p Low to 4K Ultra, which is a GPU-bound pattern.

The Ryzen 5 3600 has strong multi-threaded performance: Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 15045, and 3DMark 16-thread score is 4605. Single-thread performance is also respectable: Cinebench R23 single-core is 2124, and 3DMark single-thread is 696. Control is a game that benefits from higher single-thread performance, and the Zen 2 architecture’s IPC is adequate for this title. However, with the GPU’s 9th percentile ranking, the CPU’s capabilities are never fully utilized. The combo’s rank of 2551 out of 2888 is a direct result of the GPU’s low performance, not the CPU’s. If the Arc B390 were replaced with a stronger GPU, the Ryzen 5 3600 would likely support significantly higher frame rates based on its CPU benchmarks, but that is outside the scope of this data.