Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti delivers a robust Control experience across all tested settings and resolutions. This combination ranks 671st out of 3720 tested combos in the game, placing it in the top 18% of all configurations. The data shows a system that is well-balanced for this title, though the scaling patterns reveal where each component takes the lead.

Settings Recommendations

For Control, the measured rows indicate that the Medium preset offers the most compelling balance between visual fidelity and frame rate stability. At 1920x1080, Medium produces an average of 151 FPS with a minimum of 128 FPS and a maximum of 173 FPS. That minimum frame rate is notably higher than the High preset’s 143 FPS average, and it keeps the experience well above typical 144 Hz display refresh rates. The jump from Medium to High at 1080p costs only 8 FPS on average (from 151 to 143), but the minimum frame data for High is not recorded, which makes the measured minimum of 128 FPS on Medium a safer recommendation for consistent pacing.

At 2560x1440, Medium again stands out. It delivers 121 FPS average with a 103 FPS minimum and 140 FPS maximum. This is the only 1440p row with both minimum and maximum values captured, and the 103 FPS floor means even demanding scenes stay comfortably above 100 FPS. High at this resolution averages 108 FPS, which is playable, but the lack of min/max data for High makes Medium the more predictable choice. Ultra at 1440p drops to 94 FPS average, which is still smooth, but the gap between Medium and Ultra is 27 FPS, a substantial margin for what is often a marginal visual improvement in this title.

At 3840x2160, Medium produces 82 FPS average with a 70 FPS minimum and 94 FPS maximum. This is the only 4K row with full min/max data, and the 70 FPS floor is acceptable for slower-paced action. High at 4K averages 73 FPS, and Ultra falls to 63 FPS. For 4K displays, Medium is the recommended preset because it maintains the highest minimum frame rate among the settings with recorded data. Low settings are not recommended for any resolution unless maximum frame rates are the sole priority, as the visual downgrade is significant while the FPS gains are modest—171 FPS at 1080p Low versus 151 FPS at 1080p Medium.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 671 out of 3720 tested combinations places it in the 82nd percentile of all systems tested for Control. This is a strong position, indicating that the Ryzen 5 3600 and RTX 4070 Ti together deliver frame rates that outperform the vast majority of configurations in this game. The CPU alone sits in the 71st percentile against all processors in the database, while the GPU ranks in the 84th percentile against all graphics cards. The combination of a slightly-above-average CPU and a well-above-average GPU produces a system that is greater than the sum of its parts in this title.

Looking at the CPU’s nearest rivals, the Ryzen 5 3600 shows an average benchmark score of 17035. The Intel Core i7-1260P scores 17007, a 0.2% difference. The Intel Core i5-11400 scores 17067, also a 0.2% difference. The AMD EPYC 7573X scores 17070, again a 0.2% difference, and the AMD EPYC 7742 scores 16998, a 0.2% difference. These deltas are negligible, meaning the Ryzen 5 3600 performs essentially identically to these alternatives in general benchmarks. For Control specifically, the measured FPS data suggests that CPU differences in this range are unlikely to be the deciding factor, as the game’s frame rates scale more dramatically with GPU settings than with CPU headroom.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4070 Ti has an average benchmark score of 44795. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, scores 45152, which is 0.8% higher. The AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT scores 45384, 1.3% higher. The NVIDIA RTX A6000 scores 44075, 1.6% lower. The Intel Arc A730M scores 45592, 1.7% higher. These small percentage differences suggest that the RTX 4070 Ti is positioned in a tightly contested performance band, but its actual Control results are what matter here, and they are consistently strong.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 Ti is the primary driver of frame rates in Control, especially at higher resolutions and settings. It features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus with a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. This memory configuration is ample for Control’s environments, which feature dense particle effects, dynamic lighting, and destructible geometry. The 12 GB capacity ensures that even at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the game is unlikely to exceed the available VRAM, which is a key reason the measured 4K Ultra average of 63 FPS remains playable rather than collapsing due to memory pressure.

The GPU’s clock behavior is also relevant. The base clock is 2310 MHz with a boost clock of 2610 MHz. In a game like Control, which uses real-time ray tracing for its reflections and lighting, sustained boost clocks are critical. The Ada Lovelace architecture’s 60 RT cores handle the ray tracing workload, and the 240 tensor cores provide additional compute headroom. The GPU’s 7680 shading units and 240 texture mapping units deliver a pixel rate of 208.8 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 626.4 GTexel/s. These raw throughput numbers translate directly to the measured FPS, particularly at 1440p and 4K where the GPU becomes the limiting factor.

At 1080p, the GPU still matters, but the CPU begins to play a larger role. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 20 FPS (171 to 151), while the jump from Medium to High costs 8 FPS (151 to 143). This diminishing returns pattern indicates that the GPU is not fully saturated at 1080p Low, allowing the CPU to keep pace. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 52 FPS (115 to 63), a massive spread that shows how much headroom the GPU has when settings are reduced.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low averages 171 FPS, Medium averages 151 FPS with a minimum of 128 and maximum of 173, High averages 143 FPS, and Ultra averages 124 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 47 FPS. This is the tightest range across all resolutions, which suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is able to feed the GPU adequately even at lower settings. The Medium row’s minimum of 128 FPS is particularly noteworthy because it indicates that even in heavy combat sequences, the frame rate stays well above what most monitors can display.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 156 FPS, Medium averages 121 FPS with a minimum of 103 and maximum of 140, High averages 108 FPS, and Ultra averages 94 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 62 FPS. The Medium row again provides the only min/max data, and the 103 FPS minimum is strong for 1440p. The drop from Medium to High is 13 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 14 FPS. This linear degradation suggests that each settings tier adds a consistent load on the GPU, with no single tier causing a disproportionate penalty.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 115 FPS, Medium averages 82 FPS with a minimum of 70 and maximum of 94, High averages 73 FPS, and Ultra averages 63 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 52 FPS. The Medium row’s 70 FPS minimum is the only 4K data point with a recorded floor, and it is just above the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider the baseline for smooth gameplay. The drop from Medium to High is 9 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 10 FPS. These smaller absolute drops at 4K, compared to 1440p, reflect the GPU’s diminishing ability to maintain high frame rates as resolution increases, but the RTX 4070 Ti still manages a playable 63 FPS at Ultra.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals where the bottleneck lies. At High settings, the averages are 143 FPS at 1080p, 108 FPS at 1440p, and 73 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 35 FPS (a 24.5% reduction), and the drop from 1440p to 4K is another 35 FPS (a 32.4% reduction). This pattern shows that the GPU is the primary limiter, as each resolution increase demands significantly more pixel throughput.

At Low settings, the averages are 171 FPS at 1080p, 156 FPS at 1440p, and 115 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is only 15 FPS (an 8.8% reduction), which is much smaller than the High preset’s drop. This indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is able to keep the GPU sufficiently fed at 1080p and 1440p, and the bottleneck shifts more toward the GPU only at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K at Low is 41 FPS (a 26.3% reduction), which is still significant but not as steep as the High preset’s 4K drop.

At Medium settings, the averages are 151 FPS at 1080p, 121 FPS at 1440p, and 82 FPS at 4K. The drops are 30 FPS (19.9%) from 1080p to 1440p, and 39 FPS (32.2%) from 1440p to 4K. This is a more linear scaling curve than High, which suggests that Medium settings impose a more predictable load on the GPU across resolutions.

At Ultra settings, the averages are 124 FPS at 1080p, 94 FPS at 1440p, and 63 FPS at 4K. The drops are 30 FPS (24.2%) from 1080p to 1440p, and 31 FPS (33.0%) from 1440p to 4K. The near-identical absolute drops from 1440p to 4K across High, Medium, and Ultra (35, 39, and 31 FPS respectively) indicate that the GPU is consistently the limiting factor at 4K, regardless of settings. The CPU’s influence is most visible at 1080p Low, where the 171 FPS average suggests the Ryzen 5 3600’s 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to drive the GPU to near its full potential in this game.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, built on TSMC’s 7 nm process. Its base clock is 3.60 GHz with a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. In Control, the CPU’s role is to maintain a steady frame delivery pipeline, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU has spare capacity. The 1080p Low average of 171 FPS is the highest measured across all configurations, and it demonstrates that the CPU can push the RTX 4070 Ti to high frame rates without becoming a hard bottleneck.

The CPU’s cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. This 32 MB L3 is a significant asset for a game like Control, which streams large amounts of environmental data. The 32 MB shared pool helps keep frequently accessed data close to the cores, reducing memory latency. The CPU supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel mode with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. This memory bandwidth is adequate for the game’s CPU-bound tasks, but it is not as high as newer platforms, which could explain why the 1080p Low average of 171 FPS is the ceiling rather than a higher figure.

Benchmark data shows the Ryzen 5 3600 achieves a single-thread score of 696 in 3DMark and a multi-thread score of 4605 with 16 threads. In Cinebench R23, the multi-core score is 15045 and the single-core score is 2124. These scores are modest by modern standards, but they are sufficient for Control’s engine, which is not heavily multithreaded. The game’s physics and AI systems benefit from the 12 threads, but the primary workload is on the GPU.

The CPU’s percentile rank of 71 against all processors means it outperforms 71% of CPUs in the database, but its nearest rivals show that it is in a crowded field. The Intel Core i5-11400, a 6-core part, scores 17067 on average, just 0.2% higher than the Ryzen 5 3600’s 17035. The AMD EPYC 7742, a server chip with many more cores, scores 16998, 0.2% lower. This clustering indicates that for gaming purposes, the Ryzen 5 3600’s performance is on par with several other mid-range options. In Control specifically, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU does not prevent the GPU from achieving high frame rates at any resolution or setting, which is the key takeaway.

The CPU’s boost clock of 4.20 GHz is reached through a single-core boost, while multi-core workloads run at lower clocks. Control benefits from this boost behavior because the game’s main thread is often the limiter in CPU-bound scenarios. The 1080p Low result of 171 FPS suggests that the boost clock is being maintained effectively during gameplay. At higher resolutions, the CPU’s role diminishes, and the GPU takes over as the primary performance driver, as evidenced by the larger FPS drops from 1440p to 4K compared to 1080p to 1440p.

The Ryzen 5 3600 also supports PCIe Gen 4 with 16 lanes from the CPU. The RTX 4070 Ti uses a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, which matches the CPU’s capabilities. This ensures that the GPU has full bandwidth for data transfer, which is important for Control’s texture streaming and level loading. The 12 GB GDDR6X memory on the GPU further reduces the need for frequent CPU-side data transfers, as more assets can reside in VRAM.

In summary, the Ryzen 5 3600 provides adequate CPU performance for Control, enabling the RTX 4070 Ti to deliver high frame rates across all tested settings. The CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for the game’s threading model, and the 32 MB L3 cache helps with data locality. The measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at any resolution, as the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K follows a GPU-bound pattern. For players using this combo, the Ryzen 5 3600 will not hold back the RTX 4070 Ti in Control, and the Medium preset at 1440p or 4K offers the best combination of smoothness and visual quality per the measured rows.