Control

# Control with AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D + AMD Radeon RX 580

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D, a 6-core/12-thread Zen 3 Vermeer processor on the AM4 socket, paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 (Polaris 20, GCN 4.0) produces a combination that lands at rank 2633 out of 2888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the lower 9th percentile of system configurations. This pairing reflects a CPU that sits at the 85th percentile against all CPUs while the GPU rests at the 53rd percentile, revealing a substantial imbalance where the graphics card becomes the primary constraint across most settings and resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, with the RX 580’s 8 GB GDDR5 memory and 256-bit bus being the dominant factor. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 63 FPS average, which drops to 48 FPS at 1440p Low (a 23.8% reduction) and further to 32 FPS at 4K Low (a 49.2% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern indicates that even at the lowest settings, the GPU is heavily taxed by pixel count increases, with the 4K Low result falling below the 60 FPS threshold that would be considered fluid gameplay.

Moving up to Medium settings, the resolution scaling becomes even more pronounced. The combo delivers 45 FPS at 1080p Medium, 34 FPS at 1440p Medium (a 24.4% drop), and 23 FPS at 4K Medium (a 48.9% drop from 1080p). The 4K Medium result includes a minimum of 19 FPS and a maximum of 26 FPS, showing tight frame delivery but at a level that would feel sluggish. At High settings, the pattern continues with 40 FPS at 1080p, 30 FPS at 1440p (a 25% drop), and 20 FPS at 4K (a 50% drop). Ultra settings show the most severe scaling: 35 FPS at 1080p, 26 FPS at 1440p (a 25.7% drop), and 18 FPS at 4K (a 48.6% drop).

The consistency of these percentage drops across all four quality presets—hovering around 24-26% from 1080p to 1440p and 48-50% from 1080p to 4K—strongly indicates that the limiting component is the GPU's raw throughput rather than CPU overhead or memory bandwidth constraints. The Ryzen 5 5500X3D, with its 96 MB shared L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s dual-channel DDR4 bandwidth, is not the bottleneck here; the RX 580’s 6.175 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 193.0 GTexel/s texture rate simply cannot keep up with the increasing pixel workload. The 4K Ultra result of 18 FPS is particularly telling, as it represents a 71.4% performance loss versus 1080p Ultra, confirming that this combination is not viable above 1080p for Control at any settings.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested configurations, this CPU-GPU pairing ranks 2633rd out of 2888 combos in Control, placing it in the bottom 8.8% of all systems tested. This low rank is somewhat surprising given that the CPU alone performs at the 85th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37018. The GPU, however, only reaches the 53rd percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 12928. The combination of a strong CPU with a mid-tier GPU from 2017 results in a system that is fundamentally limited by its graphics processing capability in this game.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks illustrate its competitive position: it sits just 0.2% above the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (score 36945) and 0.2% above the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 (score 36938), while being 0.2% below the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (score 37093) and 0.3% below the Intel Core i9-12900T (score 37112). These deltaPct values show that the 5500X3D is essentially performance-equivalent to these alternatives, with differences of less than a third of a percent. The GPU’s nearest rivals similarly cluster closely: the RX 580 is 0.1% above the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (score 12940), 0.4% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (score 12986), 0.5% below the AMD Radeon 740M (score 12870), and 0.6% below the AMD FirePro W5100 (score 12847).

The rank of 2633 out of 2888 means that 255 other tested combinations performed worse in Control, while 2632 performed better. This places the system in a position where most modern gaming PCs would outperform it, but it is not the absolute bottom tier. The gap between the CPU’s high percentile (85th) and the GPU’s mid-range percentile (53rd) is the defining characteristic of this combo, and it explains why the measured FPS numbers are consistently low even at 1080p. The data suggests that users would see substantial improvements by upgrading the GPU while keeping the CPU, as the 5500X3D has significant headroom that the RX 580 cannot utilize in this game.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the clear bottleneck in this configuration, and its specifications explain why. Built on the 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries with 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die, this Polaris 20 chip operates at a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost clock of 1340 MHz. The memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR5 running at 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus, yielding 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s.

In Control, a game that uses DirectX 12 (the GPU supports DirectX 12_0), the RX 580’s PassMark scores provide context: it scores 43 in DirectX 12, 60 in DirectX 11, 46 in DirectX 10, and 124 in DirectX 9. These synthetic scores are low in absolute terms, but the G3D score of 8813 and the GPU compute score of 3488 give a more complete picture of its capability. The GPU’s percentile rank of 53rd against all GPUs places it in the middle of the pack, but for a game like Control that pushes visual fidelity, this is insufficient for high frame rates.

The 8 GB VRAM is not the limiting factor at these resolutions—even at 4K Ultra, the game would not likely exhaust 8 GB of GDDR5—but the bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s becomes strained as resolution increases. The measured FPS drops from 63 at 1080p Low to 32 at 4K Low, a 49.2% reduction that correlates closely with the increase in pixel count from 2.07 million to 8.29 million (a 4x increase). The fact that the FPS does not drop by 75% (which would be proportional to pixel count) suggests that some other factor, possibly memory bandwidth or texture fill rate, provides partial mitigation, but the overall trend is clear: the GPU is overwhelmed at higher resolutions.

The RX 580’s nearest rival, the GTX 1660 SUPER, scores 0.4% higher in average benchmarks, yet both are clearly in the same performance class. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1005 reinforces that this GPU is designed for 1080p gaming at medium to high settings, not for 1440p or 4K. The data shows that at 1080p, the RX 580 can deliver playable frame rates at Low (63 FPS) and Medium (45 FPS), but High (40 FPS) and Ultra (35 FPS) are borderline for a game that benefits from higher refresh rates.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend heavily on the target resolution and the user’s frame rate preferences. At 1080p, the most balanced choice is Medium settings, which delivers an average of 45 FPS with a minimum of 38 FPS and a maximum of 51 FPS. This preset maintains a playable experience while offering improved visual quality over Low settings, which achieves 63 FPS but at significantly reduced graphical fidelity. The Medium preset’s minimum of 38 FPS indicates that even the lowest frame dips remain above the stutter threshold for most players, making it the recommended configuration for a smooth experience.

For users who prioritize frame rate over visuals, 1080p Low at 63 FPS is the only measured configuration that exceeds the 60 FPS mark, and it does so by a comfortable margin. However, the jump from Low to Medium costs 18 FPS (from 63 to 45), which is a 28.6% reduction—a steep price for the visual upgrade. High settings at 1080p yield 40 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action sequences, while Ultra at 35 FPS is the lowest 1080p result and may feel sluggish during intense combat.

At 1440p, the data suggests that only Low settings (48 FPS) provide a reasonably smooth experience, with Medium (34 FPS) and High (30 FPS) falling into the territory where frame pacing issues become noticeable. Ultra at 1440p produces only 26 FPS, which is below the threshold for comfortable play. At 4K, all settings produce sub-32 FPS results, with Low at 32 FPS being the only configuration that approaches playability, and even that is marginal. The 4K Medium result of 23 FPS with a minimum of 19 FPS and maximum of 26 FPS shows that the frame delivery is consistent but far too slow for this game. Consequently, the recommendation is to run Control at 1080p Medium for the best balance, or 1080p Low if a stable 60+ FPS is required, and to avoid 1440p and 4K unless the user is willing to accept sub-50 FPS performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset reveals a systematic progression across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo produces 63 FPS average on Low, 45 FPS on Medium (with a minimum of 38 FPS and maximum of 51 FPS), 40 FPS on High, and 35 FPS on Ultra. The 28 FPS spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p represents a 44.4% performance range, showing that the quality presets have a significant impact on frame rate even at the lowest resolution tested.

At 2560x1440, the results are 48 FPS on Low, 34 FPS on Medium (minimum 29 FPS, maximum 39 FPS), 30 FPS on High, and 26 FPS on Ultra. The spread here is 22 FPS, or 45.8% from Low to Ultra, which is proportionally similar to 1080p. The Medium preset’s minimum of 29 FPS and maximum of 39 FPS shows a 10 FPS variance, indicating that scene complexity can cause noticeable frame time spikes. At 3840x2160, the results drop to 32 FPS on Low, 23 FPS on Medium (minimum 19 FPS, maximum 26 FPS), 20 FPS on High, and 18 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is just 14 FPS, or 43.75%, because the GPU is so heavily constrained that even reducing settings cannot recover significant performance.

Comparing across resolutions at the same settings, the data shows that Low settings scale from 63 FPS at 1080p to 48 FPS at 1440p to 32 FPS at 4K, Medium scales from 45 to 34 to 23, High scales from 40 to 30 to 20, and Ultra scales from 35 to 26 to 18. The Medium preset at 4K has the most complete data with a minimum of 19 FPS and maximum of 26 FPS, while the other cells only provide average FPS. This suggests that the 4K Medium result is the most thoroughly characterized, possibly because it represents the borderline playable configuration that was tested more extensively.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D brings substantial processing power to this combo, with 6 cores and 12 threads based on Zen 3 architecture (Vermeer codename) built on TSMC’s 7 nm process with a die size of 74 mm². The base clock is 3.00 GHz with a boost clock of 4.00 GHz, and the 105 W TDP indicates a power-hungry chip for its core count. The cache hierarchy is notable: 64 KB L1 per core, 512 KB L2 per core, and a substantial 96 MB shared L3 cache, which is exceptionally large for a non-X3D part and likely contributes to its strong synthetic performance.

In PassMark benchmarks, the CPU scores 20363 in multithread, 2941 in single-thread, 34511 in floating-point math, 60033 in integer math, 2282 in physics, and 170 in find prime numbers. The multithread score of 20363 with an average benchmark score of 37018 places it at the 85th percentile against all CPUs, which is a strong result for a 6-core processor. The single-thread score of 2941 is equally impressive, indicating that the CPU can handle the per-thread demands that Control’s engine places on it.

However, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this game. At 1080p Low, the GPU is able to produce 63 FPS, which suggests that the CPU can feed the GPU at this rate, but at higher settings and resolutions, the FPS drops due to GPU constraints. The fact that increasing resolution from 1080p to 1440p reduces FPS by approximately 25% at every settings level, while the CPU’s workload remains largely unchanged, confirms that the RX 580 is the bottleneck. The CPU’s nearest rivals—the Ryzen 5 5600F (0.2% higher score), Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (0.2% lower), Core Ultra 5 225 (0.2% higher), and Core i9-12900T (0.3% lower)—all perform within a fraction of a percent, so swapping the CPU would not meaningfully change Control’s frame rates in this configuration.

The 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth and dual-channel DDR4 support are sufficient for this game, as Control is not memory-bandwidth sensitive at these frame rates. The CPU’s 20 PCIe Gen 4 lanes (CPU only) provide ample bandwidth for the GPU, although the RX 580 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, which is backward compatible. The CPU’s lack of integrated graphics means the RX 580 is the sole display output, and its ECC memory support is irrelevant for gaming. Overall, the Ryzen 5 5500X3D is a capable processor that is wasted in this pairing, as the RX 580 cannot push frame rates high enough to utilize the CPU’s full potential.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows that 1080p Medium delivers 45 FPS average with a minimum of 38 FPS and maximum of 51 FPS, making it the best balance of visual quality and performance. For a higher frame rate, 1080p Low achieves 63 FPS, but 1440p and 4K results are all below 48 FPS even at Low settings.

Q: Why does the frame rate drop so much from 1080p to 4K?

A: The RX 580’s GPU resources are the limiting factor. At Low settings, FPS drops from 63 at 1080p to 48 at 1440p and 32 at 4K, representing a 49.2% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The GPU’s 256.0 GB/s bandwidth and 6.175 TFLOPS compute cannot handle the pixel count increase, while the CPU is not the constraint.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this system?

A: Benchmark results indicate the GPU is the bottleneck. The CPU ranks at the 85th percentile with an average score of 37018, while the GPU ranks at the 53rd percentile with an average score of 12928. The consistent FPS drops across resolutions at every settings level confirm that the RX 580 limits performance.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: It ranks 2633rd out of 2888 combos in Control, placing it in the bottom 8.8% of tested configurations. The CPU’s nearest rivals (Ryzen 5 5600F, Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450, Core Ultra 5 225, Core i9-12900T) all score within 0.3% of each other, while the GPU’s rivals (RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, GTX 1660 SUPER) score within 0.4%.

Q: Can this system play Control at 4K?

A: Technically yes, but not comfortably. The best 4K result is 32 FPS at Low settings, with Medium at 23 FPS, High at 20 FPS, and Ultra at 18 FPS. The 4K Medium result shows a minimum of 19 FPS and maximum of 26 FPS, indicating that gameplay would feel sluggish.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, Low produces 63 FPS while Ultra produces 35 FPS, a difference of 28 FPS or a 44.4% reduction. Medium achieves 45 FPS and High achieves 40 FPS, showing that the quality presets have a significant impact on performance even at the lowest resolution.