Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and Radeon RX 6600 XT combination delivers a playable but demanding experience in Control, with performance scaling that clearly exposes the GPU as the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The data shows a steep drop as resolution increases: at 1080p High settings, the combo averages 77.1 FPS, which falls to 56.9 FPS at 1440p and further to 36.1 FPS at 4K. This represents a 53% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K at High settings, a decline that aligns with the GPU's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth being stretched across four times the pixel count. The pattern is consistent across all quality presets; for instance, at Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 116.9 FPS at 1080p to 60.9 FPS at 4K, a 48% reduction. These results indicate that while the CPU can feed frames adequately at lower resolutions, the RX 6600 XT's compute resources—10.60 TFLOPS FP32 and 64 ROPs—are overwhelmed by the 3840x2160 resolution, making the GPU the definitive limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling across resolutions tells a clear story about system balance. At 1080p, the combo exhibits strong performance, with Low settings hitting 116.9 FPS and Medium at 81.7 FPS, suggesting the CPU and GPU are well-matched for competitive or high-refresh gaming. However, moving to 1440p introduces a noticeable penalty: High settings drop to 56.9 FPS, while Ultra falls to 49.2 FPS, a 20% and 21% reduction from their 1080p counterparts respectively. This scaling pattern is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the pixel throughput demands of 2560x1440 exceed what the RX 6600 XT's 2048 shading units can deliver without compromising frame times. The 4K results are more punishing, with Ultra settings averaging just 35.2 FPS and High at 36.1 FPS, both of which fall below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Interestingly, the gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 25.7 FPS (60.9 vs. 35.2), which is narrower than the 54.5 FPS gap at 1080p (116.9 vs. 62.4). This compression suggests that at 4K, the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth become the absolute ceiling, with quality settings having diminishing returns on performance as the resolution saturates the render pipeline. The data indicates that 1080p is the sweet spot for this combo, while 1440p requires moderate settings, and 4K is only viable at Low presets.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader database of tested combinations, this pairing of the Ryzen 5 5500 and RX 6600 XT ranks 1215 out of 1636 combos for Control, placing it in the 26th percentile of all tested systems. This rank reflects a mid-tier standing, which is consistent with the CPU's 79th percentile among all processors and the GPU's 71st percentile among all graphics cards. The combo's position is modest, yet it outperforms many older or lower-end pairings, as evidenced by the GPU's nearest rivals: the RX 6600 XT scores 0.1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, 0.4% higher than the AMD Radeon R9 M395X, but 0.9% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and 1.5% lower than the AMD FirePro S7150. These deltas are small, indicating that the RX 6600 XT sits in a competitive performance band where minor architectural differences yield negligible frame rate changes. For the combo as a whole, the 1215th rank suggests that while individual components are capable, the pairing does not break into the top tier, likely due to the CPU's 6-core/12-thread configuration and the GPU's 128-bit memory bus limiting aggregate throughput in a game like Control that scales well with both multi-threaded CPU work and GPU bandwidth.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process. It operates at a base clock of 3.60 GHz and boosts up to 4.20 GHz, with a 65W TDP and 16 MB of L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16429 and a single-core score of 2319, along with a PassMark multi-thread score of 19330. These figures place it 0.1% below the Intel Core i5-12500 and 0.1% above the AMD EPYC 7J13 in average benchmark score, showing it is competitive with mid-range desktop parts. For Control, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw calls, which benefit from the 12 threads. The data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 116.9 FPS, a figure that suggests the CPU is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions, as the frame rate is high enough to indicate headroom. However, the CPU's single-thread performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 single-core at 2319, is modest compared to top-tier parts, which could limit performance in scenes with heavy AI or complex scripted sequences. The 3.60 GHz base clock and 4.20 GHz boost provide adequate frequency for gaming, but the lack of PCIe Gen 4 support (the CPU uses PCIe Gen 3) may reduce data transfer rates to the GPU, though this is unlikely to be a major factor in Control's frame rates given the game's moderate asset streaming requirements. The CPU's 79th percentile ranking among all processors reinforces that it is a capable but not exceptional gaming chip, and its 12 threads ensure it can handle modern multi-threaded workloads without becoming a limiting factor in most gaming scenarios.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p Ultra settings?

A: The combo delivers 62.4 FPS at 1080p Ultra, which is above the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the RX 6600 XT compare to the RTX 3070 in benchmark scores?

A: The RX 6600 XT scores 0.9% lower than the RTX 3070 in average benchmark performance, indicating very close performance.

Q: What is the CPU's boost clock speed?

A: The Ryzen 5 5500 boosts up to 4.20 GHz from a base clock of 3.60 GHz.

Q: Is the combo capable of 4K gaming?

A: At 4K High settings, the combo averages 36.1 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold; however, at 4K Low settings, it achieves 60.9 FPS, making 4K playable only at reduced quality.

Q: What is the GPU's memory bandwidth?

A: The RX 6600 XT has a memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s, provided by 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus.

Q: How does the CPU rank among all tested processors?

A: The Ryzen 5 5500 ranks in the 79th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20875.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 23 chip, featuring 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. It operates at a base clock of 1968 MHz and boosts up to 2589 MHz, with a game clock of 2359 MHz. The GPU's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory runs at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps effective), delivering 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth across a 128-bit bus. These specifications yield a pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 10.60 TFLOPS. In Control, the GPU's role is dominant, as the frame rate scaling across resolutions demonstrates. At 1080p, the GPU can push 77.1 FPS at High settings, but this drops to 56.9 FPS at 1440p and 36.1 FPS at 4K, highlighting the memory bandwidth constraint at higher pixel counts. The GPU's 71st percentile ranking among all GPUs and its benchmark scores—PassMark G3D at 16461 and Geekbench OpenCL at 82736—position it as a solid mid-range card. Its nearest rival, the GTX 980 Ti, scores 0.1% lower, while the RTX 3070 scores 0.9% higher, indicating that the RX 6600 XT is within a narrow performance band of its contemporaries. The GPU's 32 ray tracing cores are present, but Control's implementation of ray tracing would likely further tax the 8 GB VRAM and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth, potentially reducing frame rates below the measured non-RT values. The data suggests that the RX 6600 XT is the primary determinant of performance in this combo, especially at 1440p and above, where its 128-bit memory interface becomes a limiting factor for filling the large frame buffers required by the game's physics-heavy environments.