Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT delivers a solid 1080p and 1440p experience in Control, with the data showing this combo ranks 1081 out of 1636 tested combinations. The measured frame rates reveal a system that handles the game’s action-adventure demands well at mainstream resolutions, though 4K Ultra pushes the hardware to its limits.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows indicate that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium produces an average of 85.9 FPS, which is only 6.1% lower than High’s 79.8 FPS. Wait—the data shows Medium actually beats High: 85.9 FPS versus 79.8 FPS at 1080p. This pattern repeats at 2560x1440, where Medium hits 64.2 FPS compared to High’s 59.5 FPS, and at 3840x2160, where Medium manages 43.1 FPS versus High’s 42 FPS. Medium consistently outperforms High by a margin of roughly 7-8% while presumably retaining most visual quality.

For users prioritizing frame rate, the Low preset is the clear choice. At 1080p, Low delivers 120.4 FPS, comfortably exceeding 120 FPS for high-refresh displays. At 1440p, Low achieves 92.2 FPS, and even at 4K, Low maintains 63.8 FPS—the only 4K setting that crosses the 60 FPS threshold. This makes Low the only viable preset for 4K gaming with this hardware.

The Ultra preset should be avoided except for screenshot purposes. At 1080p, Ultra averages 66.4 FPS, which is playable but 22% slower than Medium. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 48.4 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 31.5 FPS—a stutter-prone experience. The performance delta between Medium and Ultra is substantial: 19.5 FPS at 1080p, 15.8 FPS at 1440p, and 11.6 FPS at 4K. Given that Medium provides the best combination of frame rate and visual fidelity, it stands as the recommended preset for this combo.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 6650 XT brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s base clock runs at 2055 MHz, with a game clock of 2410 MHz and a boost clock of 2635 MHz. These clocks, combined with 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs, produce a pixel rate of 168.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 337.3 GTexel/s. The card’s FP32 throughput of 10.79 TFLOPS places it comfortably in the mid-range segment.

In Control, the GPU’s memory configuration proves adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but 4K stresses the 8 GB frame buffer. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (31.5 FPS) versus 4K Low (63.8 FPS) illustrates how texture memory and shading demands scale with resolution. The 32 ray tracing cores on this RDNA 2.0 GPU are present, though Control’s implementation is not tested here. The GPU’s 72nd percentile ranking among all GPUs suggests it sits above average, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6800M (0% delta) and the Intel Arc A370M (-0.5% delta). These comparisons indicate the RX 6650 XT holds its own against mobile and lower-tier desktop parts.

The Ryzen 5 5500 CPU, with 6 cores and 12 threads, provides ample processing power for this title. Its 3.60 GHz base and 4.20 GHz boost clocks, paired with 16 MB of L3 cache, prevent CPU bottlenecks in most scenarios. The CPU’s 79th percentile ranking versus all CPUs, and its near-tie with the Intel Core i5-12500 (-0.1% delta), confirm it does not hold back the GPU in Control’s physics-heavy combat sequences.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1081 out of 1636 places this pairing in the lower-middle third of all tested combinations. This rank reflects the combined capabilities of the Ryzen 5 5500 and RX 6650 XT, which individually sit at the 79th and 72nd percentiles respectively. The gap between the CPU’s percentile and the GPU’s percentile suggests the graphics card is the more limiting factor in this pairing.

The CPU’s nearest rivals show negligible performance deltas: the Intel Core i5-12500 at -0.1%, the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE at -0.1%, and the AMD EPYC 7J13 at +0.1%. These sub-1% differences mean the Ryzen 5 5500 effectively trades blows with these parts in synthetic benchmarks, but in Control, the GPU dominates the frame rate equation. The combo’s rank is therefore more indicative of the GPU’s tier than the CPU’s.

The GPU’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6800M (0% delta), AMD Radeon RX 470 (+0.1%), Intel Arc A370M (-0.5%), and AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH (-0.6%). The RX 6650 XT outperforms the RX 470 and RX Vega M GH slightly, while trailing the Arc A370M by half a percent. These marginal differences in synthetic scores translate to the measured FPS deltas seen in Control, where the combo’s 1081st rank reflects a mid-pack standing among the 1636 tested configurations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured averages across presets are: Low at 120.4 FPS, Medium at 85.9 FPS, High at 79.8 FPS, and Ultra at 66.4 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra spans 54 FPS, representing a 45% performance drop when maxing out settings. The jump from Low to Medium costs 34.5 FPS, while the step from Medium to High costs 6.1 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 13.4 FPS. This non-linear scaling suggests Medium is the sweet spot, as the visual gains from High and Ultra do not justify the frame rate losses.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts: Low averages 92.2 FPS, Medium 64.2 FPS, High 59.5 FPS, and Ultra 48.4 FPS. The total spread is 43.8 FPS, a 47.5% drop from Low to Ultra. The Medium-to-High gap narrows to 4.7 FPS, while the High-to-Ultra gap widens to 11.1 FPS. This indicates that at 1440p, the GPU begins to struggle with Ultra’s additional shading and texture demands.

At 3840x2160, the results compress significantly: Low averages 63.8 FPS, Medium 43.1 FPS, High 42 FPS, and Ultra 31.5 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread is 32.3 FPS, a 50.6% drop. Notably, Medium and High are nearly identical at 4K, differing by only 1.1 FPS. This suggests that at 4K, the GPU is memory-bandwidth or fill-rate limited, and the settings differences between Medium and High have minimal impact. Ultra at 31.5 FPS is the only preset that falls below 30 FPS, confirming that 4K Ultra is not viable for this combo.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this pairing. At Low settings, 1080p yields 120.4 FPS, 1440p yields 92.2 FPS, and 4K yields 63.8 FPS. This represents a 23.4% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 30.8% drop from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is roughly consistent with the pixel count increase, indicating the GPU is the primary limiter at Low settings.

At Medium settings, the progression is 85.9 FPS at 1080p, 64.2 FPS at 1440p, and 43.1 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 25.3%, while the 1440p-to-4K drop is 32.9%. The slightly larger drop at higher resolutions suggests the 8 GB frame buffer and 128-bit memory bus become more constraining as resolution increases.

At High settings, 1080p gives 79.8 FPS, 1440p gives 59.5 FPS, and 4K gives 42 FPS. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 25.4%, and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 29.4%. At Ultra, the numbers are 66.4 FPS, 48.4 FPS, and 31.5 FPS, with drops of 27.1% and 34.9% respectively. The increasing percentage drops at Ultra settings indicate that the GPU’s shading units and memory bandwidth are saturated earlier at higher resolutions, and the CPU’s role diminishes.

The consistent pattern across all settings—where 4K performance falls to roughly half of 1080p performance—confirms that the RX 6650 XT is the limiting component. The Ryzen 5 5500’s 12 threads and 16 MB of L3 cache are sufficient to feed the GPU at 1080p, but as resolution rises, the GPU’s workload dominates. The 4K Ultra result of 31.5 FPS is particularly telling: it sits below the 42 FPS High result and the 43.1 FPS Medium result, showing that Ultra’s extra effects tax the GPU beyond its comfortable operating range. For users targeting 4K, the Low preset is the only option that maintains playable frame rates, while 1440p Medium and 1080p Medium offer the best balance of visual quality and performance.