Control

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for this AMD Ryzen 5 5600 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination in Control show a clear and consistent pattern of scaling across the three tested resolutions. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the average FPS is 100. Moving to 2560x1440 drops that to 76, a 24% reduction. At 3840x2160, the average falls further to 51, which is 49% below the 1080p result and 33% below the 1440p result. This scaling curve is steep, indicating that the rendering load at higher resolutions is substantial.

The pattern is even more pronounced at the Low preset. At 1080p Low, the system delivers 158 FPS average. At 1440p Low, that drops to 120 FPS, a 24% decrease. At 4K Low, the average is 81 FPS, which is 49% lower than 1080p and 33% lower than 1440p. The consistency of these percentage drops—24% from 1080p to 1440p and 33% from 1440p to 4K across both High and Low presets—suggests a predictable scaling model where the GPU becomes progressively more saturated as pixel count increases.

The Medium preset shows the same trajectory, with 112 FPS at 1080p, 85 FPS at 1440p, and 57 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset follows suit: 87 FPS at 1080p, 66 FPS at 1440p, and 44 FPS at 4K. Notably, the gap between 1080p and 1440p at Ultra is 21 FPS, while the gap between 1440p and 4K is 22 FPS. This near-linear drop in performance as resolution increases points to the GPU being the primary limiting component in this configuration.

What does this say about the bottleneck? At 1080p, the frame rates are high enough—158 FPS on Low, 112 FPS on Medium, 100 FPS on High, and 87 FPS on Ultra—that the CPU's six cores and twelve threads are likely keeping pace with the GPU's output. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across all presets, which is typical of a GPU-bound scenario. The 4K results, where even Low settings only reach 81 FPS, confirm that the RTX 3070's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and GA104 chip are working at their limits. The data does not show any anomaly where a lower resolution would suggest a CPU limitation, as the FPS gains from 1440p to 1080p are proportional to the pixel count reduction.

The min and max FPS data available for the Medium preset further illustrates this. At 1080p Medium, the range is 96 to 129 FPS. At 1440p Medium, it narrows to 72 to 98 FPS. At 4K Medium, it tightens further to 49 to 66 FPS. The shrinking frame time variance at higher resolutions is a hallmark of GPU-bound rendering, where each frame takes longer to produce and the CPU has ample time to prepare the next frame. This is not a system that struggles with CPU overhead; it is a system where the GPU is the definitive gatekeeper for performance.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear picture of how each preset balances visual quality against frame rate. For users targeting a 60 FPS baseline, the 4K Ultra preset falls short at 44 FPS average, and 4K High is also below that threshold at 51 FPS. The 4K Medium preset, however, reaches 57 FPS average, which is close to but not quite at the 60 FPS mark. For a locked 60 FPS experience at 4K, the Low preset at 81 FPS is the safest choice, though it sacrifices significant visual fidelity.

At 1440p, the situation is more comfortable. The Ultra preset delivers 66 FPS average, which clears the 60 FPS bar. High settings at 1440p reach 76 FPS, Medium hits 85 FPS, and Low achieves 120 FPS. For users with a 144 Hz display, the Low preset at 1440p is the only one that comes close to that refresh rate, while Medium and High are better suited for 60-75 Hz panels. The Ultra preset at 1440p is viable for 60 Hz displays but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes.

The 1080p results offer the most flexibility. Ultra settings run at 87 FPS average, which is suitable for high-refresh-rate gaming on a 90 Hz or 100 Hz panel. High settings at 100 FPS are a strong match for a 100 Hz monitor. Medium at 112 FPS and Low at 158 FPS both support 120 Hz and 144 Hz displays respectively. Given the measured data, the best overall experience for this combo depends on the target resolution. For 4K, Medium is the highest preset that stays near 60 FPS, but Low is the only one that guarantees it. For 1440p, Ultra provides a playable experience, but High offers a better balance with a 10 FPS improvement. For 1080p, High or Ultra are both excellent choices, with the latter providing the best visual quality while still exceeding 85 FPS.

The data suggests that this system is well-matched to 1440p High as the sweet spot. It delivers 76 FPS, which is 15 FPS higher than 1440p Ultra and only 9 FPS lower than 1440p Medium. The jump from Medium to High is visually significant in most games, and the performance cost here is 9 FPS, which is acceptable. At 4K, users must make a more pronounced trade-off, as the difference between Low and Medium is 24 FPS, while Medium to High costs 6 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 7 FPS. The 4K Low preset at 81 FPS is the only one that provides a high-refresh experience, but it underutilizes the GPU's capabilities.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest preset that maintains an average of 60 FPS or more at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset achieves 81 FPS average, which is the only preset at that resolution that clears 60 FPS. The Medium preset reaches 57 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the 1440p Ultra preset compare to the 1080p Ultra preset?

A: At 2560x1440 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 66. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 87. This represents a 21 FPS difference, or approximately 24% lower performance at the higher resolution.

Q: Is there any resolution where the CPU becomes the limiting factor?

A: The data does not indicate a CPU bottleneck at any resolution. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 1440p to 4K is consistent and proportional across all presets, which is characteristic of GPU-bound rendering. The Ryzen 5 5600's 6 cores and 12 threads appear sufficient to feed the RTX 3070 at all tested resolutions.

Q: What is the frame time variance at 1080p Medium settings?

A: The measured data for 1920x1080 Medium shows an average FPS of 112, with a minimum of 96 FPS and a maximum of 129 FPS. This indicates a frame time range of roughly 7.8 to 10.4 milliseconds.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from High to Low settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, High settings produce 76 FPS average, while Low settings produce 120 FPS average. This is a 44 FPS improvement, or approximately 58% higher performance with the Low preset.

Q: Does the 4K Medium preset have recorded minimum and maximum FPS values?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Medium settings, the average FPS is 57, with a minimum of 49 FPS and a maximum of 66 FPS. This shows a relatively tight frame time distribution for a GPU-bound workload at that resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured frame rate data for this configuration spans three resolutions and four settings presets. Starting at 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers the highest average at 158 FPS. Medium settings at 1080p produce an average of 112 FPS, with a recorded minimum of 96 FPS and maximum of 129 FPS. High settings at 1080p reach 100 FPS average. The Ultra preset at 1080p rounds out the results with 87 FPS average.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves 120 FPS average. Medium settings at 1440p produce 85 FPS average, with a minimum of 72 FPS and maximum of 98 FPS. High settings at 1440p reach 76 FPS average. The Ultra preset at 1440p delivers 66 FPS average. The relative ordering remains consistent across resolutions, with Low always being the fastest and Ultra always being the slowest.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset reaches 81 FPS average. Medium settings at 4K produce 57 FPS average, with a minimum of 49 FPS and maximum of 66 FPS. High settings at 4K achieve 51 FPS average. The Ultra preset at 4K delivers 44 FPS average. This is the only resolution where the Low preset fails to break 100 FPS, and it is also the only resolution where no preset exceeds 90 FPS.

The data for the Medium preset is the only set that includes minimum and maximum FPS values across all three resolutions. At 1080p, the spread from min to max is 33 FPS. At 1440p, the spread narrows to 26 FPS. At 4K, the spread is 17 FPS. This tightening of the frame rate range as resolution increases is consistent with GPU-bound performance, where the frame time becomes more uniform as the GPU works closer to its maximum capacity.

Comparing presets within a single resolution, the gap between Low and Ultra is 71 FPS at 1080p, 54 FPS at 1440p, and 37 FPS at 4K. The diminishing absolute difference at higher resolutions reflects the GPU's reduced headroom; at 4K, even the Low preset requires significant GPU resources, so the relative cost of higher-quality settings is compressed.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with the GA104 chip, manufactured on an 8 nm process by Samsung. The GPU operates with a base clock of 1500 MHz and a boost clock of 1725 MHz. The memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. The memory clock is listed as 1750 MHz, which translates to 14 Gbps effective.

In Control, the GPU's 8 GB memory capacity appears sufficient for the tested settings, as there is no data indicating memory-related performance drops. The 5888 shading units and 184 texture mapping units work together to deliver the pixel rates observed in the measurements. The pixel rate is 165.6 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 317.4 GTexel/s. These specifications align with the frame rates seen at 1080p, where the GPU is able to push over 150 FPS on Low settings.

The RTX 3070's ray tracing cores (46 RT cores) and tensor cores (184) are present in the hardware, though the measured FPS data does not specify whether ray tracing was enabled in any of the tested presets. The FP32 performance is 20.31 TFLOPS, which is a raw compute figure that correlates with the GPU's ability to handle complex shaders. The GPU's percentile ranking is 61, meaning it outperforms 61% of all GPUs in the benchmark database, with an average benchmark score of 17208.

Comparing to nearest rivals, the RTX 3070 scores 0.7% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT, which has an average score of 17083. It is 1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 (17037) and 1.1% higher than the AMD Radeon HD 7970M (17019). The only rival that outranks it is the NVIDIA Tesla K40c, which scores 17468, placing it 1.5% above the RTX 3070. These are synthetic benchmark comparisons, but they contextualize the GPU's position relative to other hardware.

The GPU's 220 W TDP and dual-slot design, along with its 1x 12-pin power connector and 550 W suggested PSU, indicate that this is a power-hungry card, but the measured FPS data does not include power consumption figures. The 242 mm length and 112 mm height make it a compact dual-slot card for its performance class.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 5000 series, built on the Zen 3 architecture with the Vermeer codename. It operates on the AMD Socket AM4 platform with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. The 7 nm process node, manufactured by TSMC, houses 4,150 million transistors on a 74 mm² die. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache.

In Control, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 158 FPS, which is a high enough frame rate that the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are likely working near their limit. However, the consistent scaling across resolutions suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck, as frame rates drop proportionally with increasing pixel count. The CPU's boost clock of 4.40 GHz provides solid single-thread performance, which is important for game engines that rely on a main thread.

The CPU's benchmark results place it in the 74th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20468. Its nearest rivals in synthetic tests include the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, which scores 0.1% higher (20454), the AMD Ryzen 5 8500G at 0.2% higher (20425), the AMD EPYC 9454P at 0.2% higher (20422), and the AMD EPYC 7713 at 0.5% higher (20363). These are close calls, indicating that the Ryzen 5 5600 sits in a competitive performance tier.

The CPU's memory support includes DDR4 with dual-channel configuration and a memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. This bandwidth is sufficient for the GPU to receive data without starving it, as evidenced by the high frame rates at 1080p. The CPU's 65 W TDP is modest, and its PCIe Gen 4 support with 20 lanes provides ample bandwidth for the RTX 3070's PCIe 4.0 x16 interface.

The single-thread performance of the Ryzen 5 5600 is particularly notable, with a Passmark single-thread score of 3256 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2584. These figures suggest that the CPU can handle the physics and game logic of Control without becoming a limiting factor, even at lower resolutions where frame rates are highest. The multi-thread scores, such as Cinebench R23 multicore at 18309, show that the 12 threads can handle background tasks without interfering with game performance.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this AMD Ryzen 5 5600 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 pairing achieves a rank of 1607 out of 3720 total combos for Control. This places it in the upper half of all tested configurations, specifically at approximately the 43rd percentile of combos. The rank reflects the combined performance of the CPU and GPU working together in this specific game.

The combo's ranking is influenced by the measured FPS across resolutions, with the highest absolute performance seen at 1080p Low (158 FPS) and the lowest at 4K Ultra (44 FPS). The system's ability to maintain playable frame rates at 1440p Ultra (66 FPS) and 4K Medium (57 FPS) contributes to its position. The data indicates that this is a mid-to-high-tier combination for Control, capable of running the game smoothly at 1080p and 1440p with most presets, while 4K requires careful settings selection.

Comparing to the CPU's and GPU's individual percentile rankings—74th for the CPU and 61st for the GPU—the combo's 43rd percentile ranking in this game suggests that Control is more demanding than average, or that the combination does not scale as well as other pairings. The gap between the CPU's strong percentile and the combo's lower rank implies that the RTX 3070, despite being a capable GPU, limits the overall performance in this title more than the CPU does.

The combo's position relative to the 3720 tested combos means there are 2113 combinations that rank higher and 1606 that rank lower. This distribution shows that while the combo is not at the top, it is far from the bottom. For users with this hardware, the measured data provides a reliable expectation of performance: the system can handle Control at 1080p with ease, at 1440p with moderate settings, and at 4K with significant compromises. The rank of 1607 serves as a benchmark for what this specific pairing achieves in this game, and it confirms that the RTX 3070 is the defining component in this configuration, with the Ryzen 5 5600 providing sufficient support to avoid holding the GPU back.