Control

Control is a 2019 action-adventure title that stresses both the GPU and CPU depending on how it is configured. The benchmark data for the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 reveals a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but begins to show its CPU limitations at 1080p. The measured FPS rows provide a clear picture of how this combination scales across three resolutions and four quality presets, offering insights into where the bottleneck lies and which settings yield the most playable experience.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial, but the pattern is not uniform across all settings. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 226.8 FPS at 1920x1080 to 207.0 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 19.8 FPS, and then to 147.1 at 3840x2160, another 59.9 FPS drop. This indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is still capable of feeding the GPU at 1080p, but the GPU becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises. The 4K Low result of 147.1 FPS is still exceptionally high, showing that even at the most demanding resolution, this combo has massive headroom for high refresh rate displays.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is more dramatic. The average FPS is 158.9 at 1080p, dropping to 116.6 at 1440p and further to 82.0 at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is roughly 48%, compared to a 35% drop at Low settings. This suggests that the higher preset increases the GPU workload per pixel, making the GPU bottleneck more pronounced at 4K. The data implies that at 1080p Ultra, the RTX 5090 is not being fully utilized, as the Ryzen 5 5600X’s 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, are likely holding the frame rate back from what the GPU could theoretically deliver.

The Medium preset shows a similar trend to High, with 197.8 FPS at 1080p, 153.9 at 1440p, and 102.5 at 4K. The High preset sits between Medium and Ultra, producing 179.2, 136.3, and 91.7 FPS respectively. The consistent ordering of presets across all resolutions confirms that Control’s rendering pipeline scales predictably with both resolution and quality settings. The sharpest FPS decline occurs between 1440p and 4K for every preset, with an average drop of about 35-40 FPS, which is a strong indicator that the GPU’s 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 512-bit bus are being pushed to their limits at 4K, despite their immense bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s.

Settings Recommendations

For a 60 Hz display, any preset at any resolution is overkill, as even the lowest result (82.0 FPS at 4K Ultra) far exceeds that threshold. The data suggests that players with high refresh rate monitors should prioritize resolution over settings. At 4K, the jump from High to Ultra costs 9.7 FPS (from 91.7 to 82.0), while the jump from Medium to High costs 10.8 FPS (from 102.5 to 91.7). The drop from Low to Medium is 44.6 FPS (147.1 to 102.5), which is a massive hit for a single preset tier. This indicates that Low to Medium is a steep performance cliff, while High to Ultra is a more moderate trade-off.

The optimal balance for a 144 Hz 4K display would be Low settings, which delivers 147.1 FPS. However, if visual fidelity is a priority, Medium at 4K provides 102.5 FPS, which is still above 100 FPS and likely a better experience than High at 1440p (136.3 FPS) if the user values resolution over frame rate. At 1440p, the High preset at 136.3 FPS is the best choice for a 144 Hz panel, as it maintains a high frame rate while offering better visuals than Medium (153.9 FPS) or Low (207.0 FPS). The Ultra preset at 1440p (116.6 FPS) is only recommended for 120 Hz displays, as it does not hit 144 FPS.

At 1080p, the data shows that the CPU is the limiting factor. The difference between Low (226.8 FPS) and Ultra (158.9 FPS) is 67.9 FPS, which is a significant range, but even the lowest of these is far above what most monitors can display. For esports-style play where maximum frame rate is critical, Low at 1080p is the clear winner. For a balanced experience, Medium at 197.8 FPS or High at 179.2 FPS both exceed 144 Hz and provide better image quality. The Ultra preset at 158.9 FPS is the only one that falls below 160 FPS, but it is still playable on a 144 Hz display.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The highest average FPS is 226.8 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only measurement that exceeds 220 FPS across all tested configurations.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1440p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 136.3 at 2560x1440 to 91.7 at 3840x2160, a loss of 44.6 FPS or approximately 33%. This is a significant reduction that highlights the GPU’s workload at 4K.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 the bottleneck at 1080p Ultra?

A: No, the data suggests otherwise. At 1080p Ultra, the average FPS is 158.9, while at 1440p Ultra it is 116.6. The relatively small drop from 1080p to 1440p (42.3 FPS) compared to the drop from 1440p to 4K (34.6 FPS) indicates that the CPU is limiting performance at 1080p, as the GPU is not fully saturated with pixels.

Q: Which preset offers the best frame rate for a 4K 120 Hz display?

A: Low settings at 3840x2160 produce 147.1 FPS, which exceeds 120 Hz. Medium settings at 102.5 FPS fall short of 120 Hz, so Low is the only preset that fully supports a 120 Hz 4K panel without compromise.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 30th out of 1636 tested combos, placing it in the top 2% of all configurations. This is a strong result, but the ranking suggests that there are other CPU-GPU pairings that yield higher frame rates in Control.

Q: What is the average FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings yield 207.0 FPS while Ultra settings yield 116.6 FPS. The difference is 90.4 FPS, which is a larger gap than at 4K (65.1 FPS difference between Low and Ultra), indicating that the CPU is more involved at lower resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are 226.8 for Low, 197.8 for Medium, 179.2 for High, and 158.9 for Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 67.9 FPS. This resolution shows the smallest absolute FPS values for Low and Medium relative to higher resolutions, but the largest proportional differences between presets. The data indicates that at 1080p, the Ryzen 5 5600X’s single-thread performance, as reflected in its 3dmark single-thread score of 917, is sufficient to keep the RTX 5090 fed at lower settings, but Ultra settings begin to tax the CPU’s multi-threaded capabilities.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are 207.0 for Low, 153.9 for Medium, 136.3 for High, and 116.6 for Ultra. The drop from Low to Medium is 53.1 FPS, which is the largest single-tier drop at this resolution. The gap between Medium and High is 17.6 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 19.7 FPS. These numbers suggest that Medium is a sweet spot for 1440p, offering a 33% improvement over Ultra while only sacrificing visual quality at a moderate level.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS values are 147.1 for Low, 102.5 for Medium, 91.7 for High, and 82.0 for Ultra. The drop from Low to Medium is 44.6 FPS, which is a significant hit. The High and Ultra presets are the only ones that fall below 100 FPS, with 91.7 and 82.0 respectively. This resolution is clearly the most demanding, and the data shows that even the RTX 5090, with its 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate, cannot maintain triple-digit frame rates at the highest settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the 4K performance. With 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s, the GPU has ample memory and bandwidth for Control’s high-resolution textures. The boost clock of 2407 MHz and base clock of 2017 MHz, combined with 21760 shading units, allow for massive parallel processing. The benchmark results show that the GPU is the primary limiter at 4K, as the FPS scales consistently with resolution, regardless of preset.

The GPU’s 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores are relevant for Control’s ray tracing and DLSS features, though the measured FPS data does not specify whether these features were enabled. The pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s are theoretical maximums that the measured results approach at 1080p Low (226.8 FPS), but not at 4K Ultra (82.0 FPS). The data indicates that the GPU’s raw compute power is more than sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but 4K Ultra pushes the card to its limits, as evidenced by the 82.0 FPS result. The GPU’s percentile rank of 94 versus all GPUs and its average benchmark score of 84306 place it in the top tier, but the nearest rival data shows a delta of only 1.3% against the AMD Radeon PRO W6600, suggesting that the 5090’s gaming performance is not uniquely superior in this scenario.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. Its 32 MB of L3 cache and 7 nm process node contribute to strong single-thread performance, as shown by its 3dmark single-thread score of 917 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2622. In Control, the CPU’s role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the FPS difference between Low (226.8) and Ultra (158.9) is 67.9 FPS, which is larger than the difference at 4K (65.1 FPS). This suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is struggling to issue draw calls fast enough to keep the GPU fully utilized at Ultra settings.

The CPU’s multi-threaded performance, reflected in its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 18578 and 3dmark_max_threads score of 5588, is adequate for Control’s physics and AI, but the 6-core limit may be a constraint. The nearest rival data shows the Ryzen 5 5600X is nearly identical in performance to the Intel Core i7-10700, with a delta of -0.3%, and slightly behind the Intel Core i5-12490F by -0.5%. This indicates that the 5600X is not a bottleneck in a general sense, but its age (released in November 2020) means that newer CPUs with higher single-thread scores could improve 1080p performance. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are modest compared to the GPU’s capabilities, and the data implies that upgrading the CPU would yield higher frame rates at 1080p, but not at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 30th out of 1636 tested configurations, which places it in the top 1.8% of all systems. This is an excellent ranking, but it is not the top spot, indicating that other combinations of CPUs and GPUs achieve higher frame rates in Control. The GPU’s high percentile rank of 94 and the CPU’s percentile rank of 78 suggest that the GPU is the stronger component in this pairing. The measured FPS data supports this, as the system excels at 4K where the GPU is the bottleneck, but shows relative weakness at 1080p where the CPU is more critical.

The ranking implies that for this game, the RTX 5090 is the primary driver of performance, and the Ryzen 5 5600X is a capable but not exceptional partner. The nearest rival data for the CPU shows it is within 0.7% of the Intel Xeon 6325P and within 0.5% of the Intel Core i5-12490F, meaning that swapping the 5600X for a slightly faster CPU would not dramatically change the ranking. Conversely, the GPU’s nearest rivals include the RTX 5090 D with a 0.1% delta, which is essentially identical, and the RTX 5050 Mobile with a 0.2% delta, which is surprisingly close despite being a mobile part. This suggests that the RTX 5090’s performance in Control is not uniquely tied to its desktop design, and the 30th rank may be more a reflection of the CPU’s limitations at lower resolutions than the GPU’s absolute performance.