Control

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Control with the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 shows a predictable but significant drop as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo delivers 119.6 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 drops that to 89.9 FPS, a reduction of roughly 25%. At 3840x2160, the average falls further to 60.8 FPS, which is about 32% lower than the 1440p result and 49% below the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern indicates that the RTX 4070 becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the pixel workload grows faster than the CPU can feed frames.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens dramatically with resolution. At 1080p, the spread from Low (174 FPS) to Ultra (107.5 FPS) is 66.5 FPS. At 1440p, that spread narrows slightly to 65.1 FPS (147.7 Low vs 82.6 Ultra). At 4K, the spread compresses further to 46.1 FPS (99.7 Low vs 53.6 Ultra). This compression suggests that at 4K, the GPU is so heavily loaded that even dropping to Low settings cannot fully recover performance—the render resolution itself dominates the cost.

The data also reveals how the CPU headroom changes across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 174 FPS, which is likely near the practical limit for this Ryzen 5 3600 in Control. At 4K Low, the same CPU is only asked to produce 99.7 FPS, meaning the processor has plenty of spare capacity. The benchmark results indicate that 1080p is where this combo is most balanced, while 4K is firmly GPU-bound. For players targeting 60 FPS, the 4K High result of 60.8 FPS lands right at the threshold, making it a viable but not comfortable target.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 brings 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. In Control, a game known for its physics-heavy environments and particle effects, this memory configuration proves adequate across all tested settings. The 4K Ultra result of 53.6 FPS suggests the card is running into raw compute limits rather than memory capacity issues, as the 12 GB frame buffer is not exhausted by this title's demands.

Clock speeds tell a story of headroom and efficiency. The GPU's base clock is 1920 MHz, with a boost clock of 2475 MHz. The memory runs at 1313 MHz, which translates to 21 Gbps effective. These figures, combined with the Ada Lovelace architecture on a 5 nm process, allow the card to maintain high sustained performance. The 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the dominant factor in this game's rasterization workload, and the data shows it scales predictably with resolution.

The RTX 4070's benchmark scores place it in the 81st percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37283. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, scores 37507, which is 0.6% higher. The NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A is 1.9% higher at 38008, and the RTX 4080 Mobile is 2.2% higher at 38135. Interestingly, the AMD Radeon RX 5300M trails by 2.5% with a score of 36371. These narrow margins suggest that in synthetic tests, the RTX 4070 is tightly clustered with its competitors, but in Control specifically, the measured FPS shows it performing well above 60 FPS at 1440p High (89.9 FPS) and only slightly above 60 at 4K High (60.8 FPS). The 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores are present but not heavily utilized in this non-ray-traced test scenario.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture (Matisse codename), built on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and a shared 32 MB L3 cache. This configuration provides solid multi-threaded performance for a 2019-era chip, and its benchmarks reflect that. In Cinebench R23, it scores 15045 multi-core and 2124 single-core. The 3DMark results show a scaling pattern from 1361 (2 threads) to 4605 (16 threads), indicating good thread scaling up to the physical core count.

The CPU's role in Control becomes clear when examining the FPS data across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system hits 174 FPS, which is likely the ceiling imposed by the CPU's single-thread performance. The PassMark single-thread score of 2562 and the 3DMark single-thread score of 696 both indicate moderate per-core strength. At 1440p Low, the FPS drops to 147.7, and at 4K Low it falls to 99.7. This decline at Low settings across resolutions is purely GPU-driven, as the CPU workload stays constant while pixel count increases.

The Ryzen 5 3600 sits in the 76th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18129. Its nearest rivals are remarkably close: the Intel Core i5-11400 scores 18150 (0.1% lower), the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS scores 18101 (0.2% higher), and the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 scores 18158 (0.2% lower). The AMD EPYC 9274F is 0.3% lower at 18189. These sub-1% deltas indicate that the 3600 is performance-equivalent to several other mid-range options in synthetic tests. In Control, the CPU keeps up with the RTX 4070 at 1440p and below, but at 1080p Low, the 174 FPS result suggests the CPU is approaching its limit—the GPU could likely produce more frames if the processor were stronger.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 2560x1440 High delivers 89.9 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining visual quality. At 4K High, the average drops to 60.8 FPS, which is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes.

Q: How much faster is 1080p compared to 4K at High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 High, the average FPS is 119.6. At 3840x2160 High, it drops to 60.8. That is a 96.8% reduction in frame rate when moving from 1080p to 4K.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: At 1080p Low, the system reaches 174 FPS, which is likely CPU-limited given the Ryzen 5 3600's single-thread performance. At higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck, as shown by the progressive FPS drops.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 147.7 FPS, while Ultra produces 82.6 FPS. The difference is 65.1 FPS, meaning Ultra is about 44% slower than Low at this resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4070 has an average benchmark score of 37283. The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 scores 37507, which is 0.6% higher. The NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A is 1.9% higher at 38008, and the RTX 4080 Mobile is 2.2% higher at 38135.

Q: Is 4K Ultra playable on this hardware?

A: The measured result at 3840x2160 Ultra is 53.6 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS standard for smooth play, indicating that 4K Ultra is not fully playable without adjustments to settings or resolution scaling.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 174.0 FPS
• Medium: 137.2 FPS
• High: 119.6 FPS
• Ultra: 107.5 FPS

The 1080p results show a clear hierarchy where each settings tier reduces performance. The gap between Low and Medium is 36.8 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 12.1 FPS. This suggests diminishing returns from High to Ultra, where the visual improvements cost less relative performance than the jump from Low to Medium.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 147.7 FPS
• Medium: 103.2 FPS
• High: 89.9 FPS
• Ultra: 82.6 FPS

At 1440p, the performance curve steepens. Low is nearly 45 FPS faster than Medium, while High to Ultra is only a 7.3 FPS difference. The 1440p High result of 89.9 FPS is a strong target for high-refresh monitors, while Ultra at 82.6 FPS remains smooth.

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 99.7 FPS
• Medium: 73.0 FPS
• High: 60.8 FPS
• Ultra: 53.6 FPS

The 4K results demonstrate the GPU's limits. Low settings still produce nearly 100 FPS, but High drops to just above 60, and Ultra falls below. The scaling from Medium to High is 12.2 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 7.2 FPS. This indicates that 4K High is the practical ceiling for a consistent 60 FPS experience, while 4K Ultra requires accepting sub-60 performance.

Across all resolutions, the combo rank in Control is 470 out of 1636 tested combinations, placing it in the top 29% of all hardware pairings for this game. The measured data confirms that this system is well-suited for 1440p gaming at max settings, capable at 4K with adjustments, and extremely fast at 1080p.