Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the Intel Arc B390 delivers a playable, though constrained, experience in Control, with the data clearly indicating that the integrated GPU is the primary bottleneck across all tested resolutions and settings. The Arc B390’s performance profile, which sits near the bottom of the database’s GPU rankings, limits frame rates to sub-60 FPS at every configuration, while the six-core Ryzen 5 5500 provides ample headroom that never appears to be the limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep and consistent drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, a pattern that points squarely at the GPU as the performance ceiling. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 41 FPS at 1080p to 31 FPS at 1440p, a 24% reduction, before plummeting to 21 FPS at 4K, which is a 49% loss compared to the 1080p result. This scaling behavior is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the pixel throughput demand of higher resolutions outpaces the Arc B390’s 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and its 24 ROPs. The drop from 1440p to 4K is particularly severe, suggesting that the memory bandwidth, listed as “System Dependent,” becomes a critical constraint at 3840x2160, as the shared system memory architecture struggles to feed the render pipeline.

Low settings show a similar trend but with a slightly shallower curve. The average FPS goes from 65 at 1080p to 50 at 1440p, a 23% reduction, and then to 33 at 4K, a 34% loss from the 1440p figure. This relatively smaller percentage drop at 4K Low compared to High suggests that lowering quality reduces the per-pixel workload, allowing the GPU to cope better with the increased resolution, yet the absolute numbers remain low. The difference between Low and High at the same resolution is also telling: at 1080p, Low yields 65 FPS versus 41 FPS for High, a 58% uplift, which indicates that the Arc B390’s shading units and TMUs are heavily taxed by the higher-quality effects in Control. At 4K, the gap narrows to 33 FPS versus 21 FPS, a 57% difference, implying that the resolution increase overwhelms the GPU regardless of settings, reinforcing the conclusion that this combo is fundamentally GPU-limited.

The medium preset data, which includes min and max FPS values, provides additional insight into frame pacing under load. At 1080p Medium, the average is 46 FPS with a range of 40 to 53 FPS, showing a 28% variance between the minimum and maximum, which suggests inconsistent frame times. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 35 FPS with a 30-40 FPS range, and at 4K Medium, it falls to 24 FPS with a 20-27 FPS range. The widening relative variance at higher resolutions — from 28% at 1080p to 35% at 4K — indicates that the GPU’s limited resources lead to more pronounced stuttering as resolution increases, likely due to the shared memory bandwidth becoming a more frequent bottleneck.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1920x1080 as the only resolution where any settings preset achieves an average above 60 FPS. Low settings hit 65 FPS average, while Medium, High, and Ultra all fall below 50 FPS, making 1080p the practical target for smoother gameplay.

Q: Does the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 CPU bottleneck the Intel Arc B390 in this game?

A: No, the benchmark results indicate the opposite. The CPU’s multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16429 and a Passmark multithread score of 19330, far exceeds what the GPU can render. The FPS scaling with resolution and settings follows GPU-bound patterns, not CPU limitations.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in terms of raw score?

A: The Arc B390 has an average benchmark score of 1482, which is 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% higher than the GeForce 800M (1460), and 2.7% higher than the GeForce GT 710 (1443). Its percentile rank of 9 places it in the bottom tier of all GPUs.

Q: What is the expected frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce an average of 50 FPS, while Ultra drops to 27 FPS. This represents a 46% reduction in average frame rate when moving from the lowest to the highest quality preset, highlighting the heavy cost of Ultra effects on this GPU.

*Q: Is the Arc B390’s performance in Control consistent with its overall benchmark standings?*

A: Yes, the combo rank of 2551 out of 2888 tested combos places this setup in the bottom 12% of all configurations. This is consistent with the GPU’s 9th percentile ranking, confirming that the integrated graphics solution is the dominant limiting factor.

Q: Does the CPU’s 16 MB of L3 cache have any noticeable impact on the game’s performance?

A: The data does not show a direct correlation between cache size and FPS in Control. The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i5-12500 with a 0.4% higher average score, show negligible FPS differences, suggesting that the game’s performance is not sensitive to this CPU’s cache configuration.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured FPS data, the Low preset at 1920x1080 is the only configuration that delivers an average frame rate above 60 FPS, hitting 65 FPS. This makes it the clear choice for players prioritizing smoothness over visual fidelity. However, the data also shows that Medium at 1080p, with an average of 46 FPS and a minimum of 40 FPS, provides a more visually rich experience while staying within a range that is playable on many displays, especially those with variable refresh rate support. The gap between Low and Medium is 19 FPS at 1080p, which is substantial, but the jump from Medium to High (41 FPS) is only 5 FPS, suggesting that Medium offers the best balance of quality and performance per the measured rows.

At 1440p, the situation becomes more challenging. Low settings at 50 FPS is the only preset that approaches playable territory, but it still falls short of 60 FPS. Medium at 35 FPS and High at 31 FPS are noticeably stutter-prone, with the Medium preset showing a 10 FPS variance between its 30 FPS minimum and 40 FPS maximum. For 4K, all presets are below 33 FPS, with even Low struggling to maintain a smooth experience; the data shows 33 FPS average, which is borderline for cinematic games but not ideal for action sequences. Consequently, the recommendation is to use Low at 1080p for competitive or fast-paced gameplay, or Medium at 1080p for a better visual experience, while avoiding resolutions above 1440p unless the user accepts sub-30 FPS averages.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings was tested. Low produces an average of 65 FPS, with no min or max recorded. Medium averages 46 FPS, with a minimum of 40 and maximum of 53 FPS. High averages 41 FPS, and Ultra drops to 36 FPS. This shows a clear tiering, with Low being the only preset above the 60 FPS threshold, and a 29 FPS difference between the lowest and highest quality settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages drop across the board. Low yields 50 FPS, Medium averages 35 FPS with a 30-40 FPS range, High averages 31 FPS, and Ultra falls to 27 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows reductions of 15 FPS for Low, 11 FPS for Medium, 10 FPS for High, and 9 FPS for Ultra, indicating that lower settings suffer more in absolute terms but retain a larger relative advantage.

At 3840x2160, the performance is heavily compromised. Low averages 33 FPS, Medium averages 24 FPS with a 20-27 FPS range, High averages 21 FPS, and Ultra averages 18 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 15 FPS, which is a smaller absolute gap than at 1080p (29 FPS) or 1440p (23 FPS). This compression suggests that at 4K, the GPU is so saturated that even reducing settings cannot unlock significant additional performance, a hallmark of a hard memory or compute limit. The Medium preset’s min FPS of 20 at 4K indicates that frame drops can be severe, making the experience feel inconsistent.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2551 out of 2888 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the bottom 11.7% of all configurations. This ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU, which has a percentile rank of 9 across all GPUs, meaning it outperforms only 9% of the database’s graphics cards. The CPU, by contrast, has a percentile rank of 73, outperforming 73% of all CPUs, which underscores the extreme imbalance in this pairing. The GPU’s nearest rivals, the GT 520MX and GeForce 800M, have scores within 1.5% of the Arc B390, yet these are legacy mobile parts, suggesting the Arc B390’s integrated nature limits it to entry-level discrete GPU territory. The combo rank implies that in a database of 2888 systems, only 337 perform worse in Control, which aligns with the GPU’s low standing. This rank is not a reflection of the CPU’s capability, as its nearest rivals like the Ryzen AI 5 430 (-0.1%) and Core i5-12500 (-0.4%) show that the CPU is competitive with mid-range desktop parts, but the GPU drags the overall gaming experience down to the bottom quartile.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 brings six cores and twelve threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its benchmark scores, such as 16429 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 7976 in Geekbench multicore, indicate a capable mid-range processor that should not impede gaming performance in Control. The CPU’s 73rd percentile ranking and its nearest rivals — the Ryzen AI 5 430 (-0.1%), Core i5-12500 (-0.4%), and Core i7-10700F (+0.5%) — all show average scores within 1% of the 5500, confirming that this processor is well-matched to its peers in synthetic workloads. In Control, the measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU throttling; the frame rates scale predictably with resolution and settings, which are GPU-bound variables. The CPU’s 16 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support, with a theoretical bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, provide sufficient data throughput for the game’s logic and physics, but these factors do not appear to influence the average FPS given the GPU’s severe limitations. The data implies that the Ryzen 5 5500 is more than adequate for this title, and in a different GPU pairing, it could likely sustain higher frame rates without bottlenecking.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel’s 3 nm process. It features 1536 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 24 ROPs, with a boost clock of 2500 MHz. Its raw compute is rated at 7.680 TFLOPS for FP32, which is modest for modern gaming. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 1482 places it in the 9th percentile, with nearest rivals including the GT 520MX (1.3% slower), GeForce 800M (1.5% slower), and GT 625 OEM (2.5% slower) — all of which are ancient, low-end parts. This context makes the Control results unsurprising: the GPU’s memory is “System Shared,” and its bandwidth is “System Dependent,” meaning it relies on the CPU’s DDR4 memory, which is a significant bottleneck compared to dedicated VRAM. The measured FPS data shows that even at 1080p Low, the GPU can only muster 65 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 18 FPS. The 24 ROPs and 120.0 GTexel/s texture rate are insufficient for the high-resolution rendering demands of Control, particularly with its complex lighting and particle effects. The GPU’s 12 RT cores, while present, offer ray tracing capability, but the low FP32 throughput suggests that enabling such features would severely degrade performance, though no such data was measured. The 80 W TDP and lack of power connectors indicate this is a low-power part designed for portability, which aligns with its performance class. In essence, the Arc B390 is the definitive limiting factor in this combo, as its integrated nature and low benchmark standing constrain the Ryzen 5 5500 to frame rates that are playable only at the lowest settings and resolutions.