Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER pairing represents a balanced 1080p-oriented setup, but Control’s demanding rendering engine pushes the GPU to its limits as resolution climbs. The measured data shows a clear performance hierarchy across the three tested resolutions and four quality presets, with the combo landing in the 3176th position out of 3720 tested combinations in this game. That places it in the lower-middle tier of the database, which is consistent with the hardware’s age and market positioning.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and reveals where the bottleneck sits. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 91 FPS average, which is smooth and responsive. Moving to 1440p at the same Low preset drops that to 69 FPS, a reduction of 22 FPS. At 4K Low, the average falls further to 46 FPS, which is a 45 FPS loss from the 1080p baseline. That is a 49.5% drop in performance from 1080p to 4K, indicating the GPU is struggling to fill the larger frame buffer.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings. At High settings, 1080p yields 57 FPS, 1440p yields 43 FPS, and 4K yields 29 FPS. The delta between 1080p and 4K at High is 28 FPS, or roughly 49% lower. Medium settings show the same trend: 64 FPS at 1080p, 49 FPS at 1440p, and 33 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, with 50 FPS at 1080p, 38 FPS at 1440p, and just 25 FPS at 4K.

This consistent halving of performance from 1080p to 4K is a classic sign of a GPU-limited scenario. The Ryzen 5 5500 has enough headroom at lower resolutions, but the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 6 GB VRAM and 192-bit memory bus become the limiting factor as pixel count quadruples. The data suggests that 4K is not a viable target for this combo, even at the lowest settings, because 46 FPS average is below the 60 FPS threshold most players expect. The 1440p results are more encouraging — Low settings hit 69 FPS, which is playable, but the higher presets all fall below 50 FPS.

GPU Role

The GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a TU116 chip manufactured on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It packs 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock runs at 1530 MHz with a boost up to 1785 MHz, and memory operates at 1750 MHz or 14 Gbps effective. Those clocks are modest by modern standards, and the shading units number 1408 with 88 TMUs and 48 ROPs.

The GPU’s compute throughput is rated at 5.027 TFLOPS for FP32, which is adequate for 1080p gaming but gets stretched thin at higher resolutions. The pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s are the relevant figures for Control’s visual effects, which rely heavily on texture sampling and pixel shading. The memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s is the key constraint at 4K, where the larger frame buffer demands more data movement per frame.

The benchmark scores reflect this mid-range positioning. The GPU’s PassMark G3D score is 12699, with a percentile ranking of 53 among all GPUs. That means it sits just above the median, which aligns with its performance in Control. The nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile with a score of 12940 (0.4% higher), the AMD Radeon RX 580 at 12928 (0.4% higher), and the AMD Radeon 740M at 12870 (0.9% higher). The delta between these cards is tiny, under 1%, suggesting that swapping to any of them would yield nearly identical frame rates in this game. The NVIDIA Tesla M2090 scores slightly higher at 13075, but that is a compute-oriented card, not a gaming part.

The GPU’s 6 GB VRAM is a concern for Control at 4K, but the measured data shows that even at Ultra settings the combo manages 25 FPS average, so it does not run out of memory entirely. The bottleneck is raw shading power, not capacity. The 14 Gbps effective memory speed helps at 1080p, where the Low preset produces 91 FPS, but it cannot compensate for the limited ROP count at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

The data points to a clear sweet spot for this combo at 1080p Medium. That preset delivers 64 FPS average with a minimum of 55 FPS and a maximum of 74 FPS, providing a smooth experience with decent visual fidelity. The 55 FPS minimum is above the 50 FPS threshold where frame pacing becomes noticeable, so Medium is the safest choice for consistent gameplay.

At 1080p High, the average drops to 57 FPS, which is still playable, but the lack of minimum frame data makes it harder to judge consistency. The Low preset at 1080p hits 91 FPS average, which is excellent for fast-paced action, but the visual downgrade is significant. The Ultra preset at 1080p yields 50 FPS average, which is borderline for a game like Control that rewards precision.

For 1440p, the only viable option is Low settings, which produces 69 FPS average. The Medium preset at 1440p drops to 49 FPS with a minimum of 41 FPS, which will feel stuttery in combat sequences. High at 1440p gives 43 FPS and Ultra gives 38 FPS, both below the playable threshold. At 4K, all presets fall below 50 FPS, with Low at 46 FPS being the least bad option, but even that is not recommended for serious play.

The best experience per the measured rows is 1080p Medium. It balances the 64 FPS average with the 55 FPS minimum, ensuring that the frame rate does not dip into the 40s during intense scenes. Players with high-refresh monitors could drop to Low for 91 FPS, but the graphical compromise is steep. For most users, Medium at 1080p is the practical choice.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 3176 out of 3720 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the bottom 15% of the database. That is a low position, but it is important to contextualize this rank. The database includes top-end rigs with RTX 4090s and Ryzen 9 processors, so a mid-range pairing from 2022 will naturally sit near the bottom. The rank reflects the GPU’s age more than the CPU’s capabilities.

The Ryzen 5 5500 itself scores well in synthetic benchmarks. Its average benchmark score is 19593, with a percentile ranking of 73 among all CPUs. That means it outperforms 73% of processors in the database, which is a solid result for a 6-core, 12-thread part. The nearest CPU rivals are the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 with an average score of 19617 (-0.1% delta), the Intel Core i5-12500 at 19668 (-0.4% delta), and the Intel Core i7-10700F at 19499 (+0.5% delta). These deltas are all within 1%, meaning the Ryzen 5 5500 is effectively tied with those CPUs in overall compute performance.

The GPU’s percentile ranking is lower at 53, with an average benchmark score of 12986. The nearest GPU rivals are all within 1% of each other, as noted earlier. The combo’s low rank in Control is therefore driven by the GPU, not the CPU. If the same CPU were paired with a stronger GPU, the rank would improve substantially.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Cezanne, built on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 16 MB of shared L3. Memory support is dual-channel DDR4 with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s.

In Control, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations. The game is not particularly CPU-intensive at lower resolutions, but the 12 threads ensure that background tasks do not cause stutters. The synthetic benchmarks show a strong single-thread score of 836 in 3DMark, which translates to 2319 in Cinebench R23 single-core. That is sufficient for Control’s main thread, which handles game logic and scene management.

The multi-threaded performance is also respectable. Cinebench R23 multi-core scores 16429, and Geekbench multi-core hits 7976. These figures indicate that the CPU can handle the concurrent workloads that Control generates, such as physics simulations and AI updates. The PassMark multithread score of 19330 and the 3DMark max threads score of 5411 confirm this.

However, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this combo. At 1080p Low, the GPU produces 91 FPS, which is a high frame rate for this game. If the CPU were bottlenecking, that number would be lower. The fact that the frame rate scales down smoothly as resolution increases — from 91 FPS at 1080p Low to 46 FPS at 4K Low — indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint. The CPU has the headroom to push higher frame rates, but the GTX 1660 SUPER cannot keep up.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset for this combo in Control is as follows. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 91 FPS. The Medium preset averages 64 FPS with a minimum of 55 FPS and a maximum of 74 FPS. High averages 57 FPS, and Ultra averages 50 FPS. None of the 1080p presets have minimum or maximum data except for Medium, which shows a 19 FPS range between minimum and maximum.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 69 FPS. The Medium preset averages 49 FPS with a minimum of 41 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS. High averages 43 FPS, and Ultra averages 38 FPS. Again, only Medium has full min/max data, showing a 15 FPS range.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 46 FPS. The Medium preset averages 33 FPS with a minimum of 28 FPS and a maximum of 38 FPS. High averages 29 FPS, and Ultra averages 25 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K has a 10 FPS range, showing tighter frame pacing than at lower resolutions.

The pattern is consistent: each step from Low to Medium costs roughly 20-30% performance, and each step from Medium to High costs another 15-20%. The jump from Low to Ultra at 1080p costs 41 FPS (91 to 50), which is a 45% reduction. At 1440p, the same jump costs 31 FPS (69 to 38), a 45% reduction. At 4K, it costs 21 FPS (46 to 25), also a 45% reduction. This consistent scaling suggests the game engine handles settings changes uniformly across resolutions.

The minimum FPS data, where available, shows that the frame pacing is stable. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 55 FPS, which is only 9 FPS below the average. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 41 FPS, 8 FPS below the average. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 28 FPS, 5 FPS below the average. These tight ranges indicate that Control does not have severe frame spikes on this hardware, even when the GPU is heavily loaded.

For players targeting 60 FPS, only the 1080p Low preset achieves it with margin to spare. The 1080p Medium preset comes close at 64 FPS, but the minimum of 55 FPS means it will occasionally dip below 60. For players targeting 30 FPS, the 1440p Low preset at 69 FPS is comfortable, and even the 1440p Medium at 49 FPS is playable if you can tolerate occasional drops to 41 FPS. The 4K presets are all below 50 FPS, so they are only suitable for screenshotting or casual exploration, not combat.