Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT delivers a highly playable Control experience across the board, but the settings and resolution choices matter significantly. At 1080p and 1440p, the combination is overwhelmingly GPU-bound, with the CPU providing ample headroom. At 4K, the RX 9070 XT becomes the definitive limiting factor, and users will need to balance visual fidelity against frame rate targets. The data across the measured rows paints a clear picture of a setup that excels at high-refresh 1440p gaming and can handle 4K with settings adjustments.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows in Control show a clear hierarchy across the four settings presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—at every resolution. The most balanced experience, according to the data, is the High preset. At 2560x1440, High produces an average of 92 FPS, which is a strong result for a demanding action-adventure title. Moving up to Ultra at the same resolution drops the average to 80 FPS, a 13% reduction (from 92 to 80 FPS) that may not justify the visual gains for all users. The Medium preset at 1440p yields 103 FPS, but the jump from Medium to High is only 11 FPS (from 103 to 92 FPS), while the visual quality difference between these two tiers is typically more noticeable in Control's particle effects and reflections. This makes High the sweet spot for image quality per frame.

At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 122 FPS on average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold and suitable for high-refresh-rate displays. The Ultra preset at 1080p still manages 106 FPS, so users with 144Hz monitors can push maximum settings and remain comfortably in the triple digits. However, the data shows diminishing returns at this resolution: the difference between High and Ultra is only 16 FPS (from 122 to 106 FPS), whereas the difference between Low and High is 71 FPS (from 193 to 122 FPS). This indicates that the High preset is the most efficient use of the GPU's capabilities at 1080p.

For 4K gaming, the recommendation shifts. The High preset at 3840x2160 produces 62 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS target but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. The Medium preset at 4K yields 70 FPS with a recorded minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS, suggesting occasional dips below the 60 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset at 4K falls to 54 FPS, which is below the standard 60 FPS target and may result in noticeable stutter in fast-paced combat sequences. The Low preset at 4K achieves 98 FPS, but the visual compromise is substantial. Given the data, the High preset at 4K is the best overall choice—it maintains the 60 FPS target while preserving the game's atmospheric lighting and destructible environment details. Users prioritizing a rock-solid 60 FPS with VRR enabled could opt for Medium, as its 70 FPS average provides more headroom above the minimum of 59 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the dominant component in this pairing for Control, and its specifications in the FACT PACK explain why. The GPU ships with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 644.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This is more than sufficient for Control's texture streaming and physics-based destruction at all tested resolutions. The 16 GB capacity ensures that even at 4K with High settings, the game does not encounter VRAM-related bottlenecks—the measured 62 FPS average at 4K High is a compute-limited result, not a memory capacity issue.

Clock speeds for the RX 9070 XT are substantial: a base clock of 1660 MHz, a game clock of 2400 MHz, and a boost clock of 2970 MHz. The high boost clock is particularly relevant for Control, which features rapid camera movements and frequent environmental destruction that cause transient load spikes. The GPU's 4096 shading units, 256 texture mapping units, and 128 ROPs provide the raw throughput needed to sustain high frame rates, and the 64 ray tracing cores indicate hardware support for DirectX 12 Ultimate features, though the measured data does not isolate ray tracing performance.

The GPU's benchmark profile in the FACT PACK shows a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 7260, which is a synthetic measure of its rasterization prowess. More telling is the Geekbench Vulkan score of 65879, which reflects strong API-level performance that translates well to Control's DirectX 12 rendering path. The GPU's percentile ranking against all GPUs is 55, placing it in the upper half of the performance distribution. The nearest rival comparison in the FACT PACK lists the AMD Radeon HD 7770M, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570, and NVIDIA P106-090 as scoring within 1% of the RX 9070 XT's average benchmark score of 13543. These are older, lower-tier GPUs, which is an artifact of the aggregate scoring methodology rather than an indication of comparable real-world performance in a modern title like Control.

The GPU's 304 W TDP and dual-slot design with two 8-pin power connectors are consistent with a high-performance card. The PCIe 5.0 x16 bus interface ensures no bandwidth limitation for the card's 16 GB frame buffer. The GPU's FP32 throughput of 48.66 TFLOPS is the headline compute figure, and in Control, this translates to the measured frame rates being consistently GPU-bound at 1440p and 4K, as the CPU is not the constraining factor at those resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop is telling. At the High preset, the average frame rates are 122 FPS at 1080p, 92 FPS at 1440p, and 62 FPS at 4K. This represents a 24.6% reduction from 1080p to 1440p (from 122 to 92 FPS) and a 32.6% reduction from 1440p to 4K (from 92 to 62 FPS). The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 49.2% (from 122 to 62 FPS), which is slightly less than the theoretical 50% reduction in pixel count (1080p has 2.07 million pixels, 1440p has 3.69 million, 4K has 8.29 million). This suggests the GPU is not purely pixel-bound at 1080p; some portion of the frame time at that resolution is spent on other bottlenecks, likely CPU-related overhead.

The Low preset shows a different scaling curve: 193 FPS at 1080p, 146 FPS at 1440p, and 98 FPS at 4K. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p is 24.4% (from 193 to 146 FPS), and from 1440p to 4K is 32.9% (from 146 to 98 FPS). The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 49.2% (from 193 to 98 FPS), nearly identical to the High preset's scaling. This consistency indicates that the limiting component scales predictably with resolution across settings, which points to the GPU being the primary limiter at all tested configurations.

The Medium preset's data includes minimum and maximum FPS values, which provide insight into frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the average is 137 FPS with a minimum of 116 FPS and maximum of 157 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average is 103 FPS with a minimum of 88 FPS and maximum of 119 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average is 70 FPS with a minimum of 59 FPS and maximum of 80 FPS. The spread between minimum and maximum FPS widens as resolution increases: 41 FPS at 1080p (116 to 157), 31 FPS at 1440p (88 to 119), and 21 FPS at 4K (59 to 80). This narrowing spread at higher resolutions is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario where frame times are more uniform, whereas at 1080p, CPU-side variable load introduces more frame time variance.

The scaling data strongly indicates that the GPU, not the CPU, is the limiting component in this pairing. At 1080p, the CPU has more influence on frame pacing, but even there, the GPU delivers 193 FPS on Low settings, which is far beyond what the CPU's single-thread performance would cap in most scenarios. The consistent ~49% total drop from 1080p to 4K across both Low and High presets is a textbook GPU-bound scaling signature.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT ranks 937th out of 3720 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the 74.8th percentile of all combos tested for this game. This is a strong result, positioning the pairing in the top quarter of all possible configurations. The rank reflects the aggregate of all measured settings and resolutions, so a combo that performs well across the board earns a higher placement.

The rank of 937 out of 3720 is notably better than what the GPU's individual percentile ranking (55th) might suggest. This discrepancy arises because the combo rank is specific to Control's performance characteristics, while the GPU percentile is derived from a broader set of synthetic benchmarks. Control is a game that scales well with GPU compute and memory bandwidth, both of which are strengths of the RX 9070 XT. The game's relatively modest CPU requirements, as evidenced by the CPU's performance in this pairing, allow the GPU to stretch its legs.

The CPU's individual ranking metrics from the FACT PACK provide context: the Ryzen 5 5500 has a percentile ranking of 73 against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19593. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 (delta -0.1%), Intel Core i5-12500 (delta -0.4%), Intel Core i7-10700F (delta +0.5%), and Intel Core i5-11600KF (delta -0.7%). These deltas are all within 1%, indicating that the CPU is a mid-pack performer in the broader CPU landscape. In Control, this CPU performance is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the GPU at 1440p and 4K, as the measured FPS at those resolutions is GPU-limited.

The fact that this combo ranks in the top 25% despite using a mid-range CPU from 2022 and a GPU that launched in 2025 speaks to the efficiency of the pairing for this specific title. Control's engine is known for its physics simulation and particle effects, which benefit from the GPU's compute throughput. The RX 9070 XT's 48.66 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the key enabler here, allowing the game to maintain high frame rates even with complex scenes. The combo rank of 937 out of 3720 should be interpreted as a strong endorsement of this pairing for Control specifically, not necessarily for other titles with different bottleneck characteristics.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, fabricated on TSMC's 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 16 MB of L3 cache. The memory support is DDR4 with dual-channel configuration, providing 51.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This is a modest but capable configuration for gaming.

In Control, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, as the measured FPS at 1440p and 4K is clearly GPU-bound. The CPU's 12 threads are more than sufficient for Control's multi-threaded engine, which typically utilizes 6-8 threads for game logic and physics. The CPU's single-thread performance, as indicated by its 3DMark single-thread score of 836 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2319, is adequate for the game's main thread, which handles input and scene management.

The CPU's benchmark scores in the FACT PACK show a balanced profile: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16429 and single-core score of 2319, Geekbench multi-core score of 7976 and single-core score of 1730. The multi-core to single-core ratio of approximately 7.1x (16429 / 2319) indicates good scaling across the 6 cores, but not exceptional—Control does not require extreme multi-core scaling. The CPU's Passmark physics score of 896 is modest, which could matter in physics-heavy moments in Control, but the measured FPS data does not show significant frame drops that would indicate CPU-bound physics stalls.

The CPU's nearest rival comparison in the FACT PACK shows it performs within 1% of the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430, Intel Core i5-12500, Intel Core i7-10700F, and Intel Core i5-11600KF. This places the Ryzen 5 5500 in a competitive middle tier for gaming CPUs. In Control, this level of CPU performance is sufficient to feed the RX 9070 XT at 1080p, where the GPU is still the primary limiter—the 193 FPS at 1080p Low is evidence that the CPU is not capping frame rates even at high FPS levels.

The CPU's PCIe Gen 3 interface is a potential consideration, but the RX 9070 XT's PCIe 5.0 bus interface is backward compatible, and Control's frame buffer usage does not exceed the bandwidth available on Gen 3. The CPU's 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth is a potential limitation for very high-FPS scenarios, but the measured data shows the GPU is the bottleneck before memory bandwidth becomes an issue. Overall, the Ryzen 5 5500 plays a supporting role in this combo, providing enough single-thread and multi-thread performance to keep the GPU fed without becoming a limiting factor at the tested resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data in the FACT PACK provides a complete matrix of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 193 FPS on Low, 137 FPS on Medium, 122 FPS on High, and 106 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at 1080p has a minimum of 116 FPS and a maximum of 157 FPS, showing a frame time variance that is typical for a fast-paced game. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 87 FPS (from 193 to 106 FPS), representing a 45% reduction in frame rate when moving to maximum settings.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates are 146 FPS on Low, 103 FPS on Medium, 92 FPS on High, and 80 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at 1440p has a minimum of 88 FPS and a maximum of 119 FPS. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across settings: 24.4% for Low (193 to 146), 24.8% for Medium (137 to 103), 24.6% for High (122 to 92), and 24.5% for Ultra (106 to 80). This uniformity confirms that the GPU is the scaling component.

At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are 98 FPS on Low, 70 FPS on Medium, 62 FPS on High, and 54 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at 4K has a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS. The reduction from 1440p to 4K is 32.9% for Low (146 to 98), 32.0% for Medium (103 to 70), 32.6% for High (92 to 62), and 32.5% for Ultra (80 to 54). The consistent ~32% drop from 1440p to 4K, compared to the ~24% drop from 1080p to 1440p, reflects the larger pixel count increase between 1440p and 4K (2.25x) versus 1080p to 1440p (1.78x).

The data shows that the Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that falls below 60 FPS, with an average of 54 FPS. The High preset at 4K is the minimum settings tier that maintains 60 FPS, at 62 FPS. For users targeting 1440p, all settings presets deliver over 80 FPS, with High at 92 FPS and Ultra at 80 FPS both providing excellent experiences. The Low preset at 1080p, at 193 FPS, is the highest measured frame rate and is suitable for esports-style play or extreme refresh rate monitors, though the visual quality trade-off is significant. The Medium preset across all resolutions provides the best minimum FPS headroom, with a 59 FPS minimum at 4K, ensuring no drops below 60 FPS in the measured data.