Control

Control is a 2019 Action Adventure title that stresses both the CPU and GPU in unusual ways, and the pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 delivers a highly playable experience across most settings and resolutions. The measured data shows a system that can push well past 100 FPS at 1080p on lower presets, but which also begins to show its limits when ray tracing and higher resolutions are introduced. This analysis breaks down exactly where this combo excels, where it struggles, and which settings provide the best balance of visual quality and frame rate based strictly on the measured FPS rows.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combo in Control reveals a clear hierarchy across the four settings presets, and the optimal choice depends heavily on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset still delivers an average of 81 FPS, which is fully playable, but the jump to High yields 93 FPS, and Medium pushes to 105 FPS. The Low preset at 1080p produces a very high 148 FPS average. For players with a 1080p display, the High preset appears to be the sweet spot: it provides a substantial visual upgrade over Low while maintaining a 93 FPS average that comfortably exceeds the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset at 1080p offers an even healthier margin at 105 FPS, with the minimum FPS of 89 recorded in the data, indicating that even the slowest frames stay well above common refresh rate targets. Ultra at 1080p is viable at 81 FPS, but the 12 FPS drop from High to Ultra suggests diminishing returns for the extra visual fidelity.

Moving to 2560x1440, the picture changes noticeably. The High preset drops to an average of 71 FPS, which is still playable but leaves less headroom. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 80 FPS, with a minimum of 68 FPS and a maximum of 92 FPS, making it the strongest choice for a smooth experience at this resolution. The Low preset at 1440p reaches 112 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors, but the visual compromise is significant. The Ultra preset at 1440p falls to 61 FPS, which is right at the edge of playability; the data shows no minimum FPS for this row, but the average is low enough that frame pacing could become an issue during intense combat sequences. For 1440p, the recommendation is clearly the Medium preset: it offers the best combination of visual quality and performance, with an 80 FPS average and a minimum FPS of 68 that keeps the experience fluid.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained. The High preset averages 48 FPS, which is below the ideal 60 FPS target but still playable for a slower-paced action adventure. The Medium preset at 4K averages 54 FPS, with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 62 FPS, making it the best option for 4K gaming on this hardware. The Low preset at 4K reaches 76 FPS, which is surprisingly high and suggests that the GPU has more headroom when the visual load is reduced. The Ultra preset at 4K averages 41 FPS, which is the only measured row that falls below the 45 FPS playability threshold; this preset should be avoided at 4K. The overall recommendation for this combo is to use the Medium preset at 1440p for the best balance, or the Medium preset at 4K if resolution is the priority. The High preset at 1080p is also a strong choice for players who want a mix of quality and speed.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F and the AMD Radeon RX 7700 ranks 1294 out of 2888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the benchmark database. This position, roughly the 55th percentile, indicates that this pairing is capable but not top-tier for this specific game. The rank reflects the measured FPS data across all resolutions and settings, and it shows that this combo sits comfortably above the median but well behind the highest-performing configurations. The CPU itself has an average benchmark score of 32750, which places it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU has an average benchmark score of 15852, putting it in the 58th percentile of all GPUs. The disparity between these two percentile rankings is telling: the CPU is a stronger component relative to its peers than the GPU is relative to its own peers.

Looking at the nearest rivals for each component provides additional context. The Ryzen 5 7400F’s nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Core i5-14600T with an average score of 32707 and a deltaPct of 0.1, meaning the AMD chip is essentially tied with that Intel part. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H scores 32812, which is 0.2 percent higher, while the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 scores 32662, 0.3 percent lower. These tiny deltas show that the Ryzen 5 7400F is positioned in a very competitive cluster of CPUs, where performance differences are within the margin of error. For the GPU, the RX 7700’s nearest rival is the AMD Radeon R9 370X with an average score of 15862, just 0.1 percent higher, and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 at 15679, which is 1.1 percent lower. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti scores 16129, putting it 1.7 percent ahead, while the AMD Radeon RX 9060 scores 16014, 1 percent ahead.

The combo rank of 1294 out of 2888 suggests that while neither component is a standout in its class, the pairing works well enough to place in the top half of all tested configurations. The data indicates that this system is more than adequate for Control at medium settings, but it will not compete with high-end combos that feature flagship GPUs and CPUs. The rank also implies that the bottleneck is more likely the GPU than the CPU, given the GPU’s lower percentile ranking. This is a balanced mid-range setup that delivers solid frame rates without pushing the envelope.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 32 chip, and it brings 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s. The GPU has a base clock of 1900 MHz, a boost clock of 2459 MHz, and a game clock of 2041 MHz, with memory running at 2438 MHz or 19.5 Gbps effective. These specifications place the RX 7700 in the mid-range segment, and its benchmark scores confirm this positioning. The GPU achieves a Passmark G3D score of 20974 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2865, with a percentile rank of 58 against all GPUs. In the context of Control, the GPU’s role is critical because the game’s visual effects, particularly its physics-based destruction and particle systems, place a heavy load on the graphics processor.

The measured FPS data shows that the RX 7700 handles Control well at lower settings but struggles to maintain high frame rates at Ultra settings, especially at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the GPU delivers 148 FPS at Low settings, which indicates that the card has significant headroom when the visual load is reduced. However, at 1080p Ultra, the average FPS drops to 81, a 45 percent reduction from Low. This pattern is consistent at 1440p, where Low produces 112 FPS and Ultra drops to 61 FPS. At 4K, the gap widens further: Low averages 76 FPS, while Ultra averages only 41 FPS. These numbers suggest that the RX 7700’s 16 GB of VRAM is not the limiting factor, as even at 4K Ultra, the game would not likely exceed 16 GB of memory usage. Instead, the GPU’s compute performance and memory bandwidth appear to be the bottlenecks at higher settings.

The GPU’s nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, scores 1.7 percent higher in average benchmarks, which suggests that the RX 7700 is competitive with that card but slightly behind. The AMD Radeon RX 9060 also scores 1 percent higher, while the Radeon R9 370X is essentially tied with the RX 7700. This positioning means that in Control, the RX 7700 should deliver frame rates similar to these cards, with minor differences. The GPU’s 40 RT cores and DirectX 12 Ultimate support indicate that it can handle ray tracing, but the measured data does not include ray tracing tests, so the impact on performance in Control cannot be quantified. The 16 GB VRAM is a notable advantage, providing headroom for texture-heavy scenes, but the data shows that the GPU’s raw rasterization performance is the primary driver of FPS in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo in Control provides a comprehensive picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 148 FPS, which is the highest measured frame rate for this combo. The Medium preset at 1080p averages 105 FPS, with a minimum of 89 FPS and a maximum of 121 FPS, showing good frame consistency. The High preset drops to 93 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 81 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the combo can easily handle high refresh rates even at Medium settings, and even Ultra settings remain playable.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 112 FPS, which is still very high. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 80 FPS, with a minimum of 68 FPS and a maximum of 92 FPS, making it the most balanced option at this resolution. The High preset averages 71 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 61 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 1440p results in a frame rate drop of approximately 24 percent for the Low preset (148 to 112 FPS), 24 percent for Medium (105 to 80 FPS), 24 percent for High (93 to 71 FPS), and 25 percent for Ultra (81 to 61 FPS). This consistent scaling suggests that the GPU is the primary limiting factor, as the relative performance drop is uniform across settings.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 76 FPS, which is a 32 percent drop from the 1440p Low result. The Medium preset at 4K averages 54 FPS, with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 62 FPS. The High preset averages 48 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 41 FPS. The 4K results show a steeper performance decline, particularly for the Medium preset, which drops from 80 FPS at 1440p to 54 FPS at 4K, a 32.5 percent reduction. The Low preset drops from 112 to 76 FPS, a 32 percent reduction, while High drops from 71 to 48 FPS, a 32 percent reduction, and Ultra drops from 61 to 41 FPS, a 33 percent reduction. This uniform scaling across resolutions indicates that the GPU is consistently the bottleneck, with the CPU providing sufficient headroom to avoid limiting performance even at 4K.

The minimum FPS values recorded only for the Medium preset at each resolution provide additional insight. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 89 FPS, at 1440p Medium it is 68 FPS, and at 4K Medium it is 46 FPS. These minimums show that frame pacing remains stable even under load, with no severe stutters. The maximum FPS values for Medium follow the same pattern: 121 FPS at 1080p, 92 FPS at 1440p, and 62 FPS at 4K. The spread between minimum and maximum FPS is relatively narrow, indicating consistent performance without major dips.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K in Control reveals important information about which component is limiting performance. Looking at the Low preset, the average FPS goes from 148 at 1080p to 112 at 1440p to 76 at 4K. This represents a 24 percent drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 32 percent drop from 1440p to 4K. The Medium preset shows a similar pattern: 105 FPS at 1080p, 80 FPS at 1440p, and 54 FPS at 4K, with drops of 24 percent and 32.5 percent respectively. The High preset follows with 93 FPS at 1080p, 71 FPS at 1440p, and 48 FPS at 4K, representing drops of 24 percent and 32 percent. The Ultra preset goes from 81 FPS at 1080p to 61 FPS at 1440p to 41 FPS at 4K, with drops of 25 percent and 33 percent.

The consistency of these scaling percentages is striking. Across all four settings presets, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is between 24 and 25 percent, and the drop from 1440p to 4K is between 32 and 33 percent. This uniform scaling strongly indicates that the GPU is the limiting component, as the performance degradation matches what would be expected from a GPU-bound scenario. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would not scale as cleanly with resolution, because the CPU’s workload would remain relatively constant while the GPU’s workload increases. Instead, the data shows that the CPU is providing enough throughput to feed the GPU at all resolutions, and the GPU’s rendering capabilities are what determine the final frame rate.

The scaling also suggests that the RX 7700 has a performance ceiling that is reached at around 148 FPS at 1080p Low. The fact that the FPS does not scale linearly with pixel count (4K has four times the pixels of 1080p, but the FPS drops by roughly half from 148 to 76 at Low) indicates that other factors, such as memory bandwidth and fill rate, are also at play. The GPU’s 624.1 GB/s memory bandwidth and 236.1 GPixel/s pixel rate are sufficient for 1080p gaming but become stretched at 4K, where the pixel count demands more from these resources. The 4K results, particularly the 41 FPS average at Ultra, show that this combo is not ideal for 4K gaming with maximum settings, but it can handle 4K at Medium settings with a 54 FPS average.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture with a 5 nm process node. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, with 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s, and it connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes. In benchmark tests, the Ryzen 5 7400F achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21765 and a single-core score of 3072, with a Passmark multithread score of 25645 and a single-thread score of 3689. These scores place the CPU in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs, indicating strong performance for its class.

In Control, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, as the resolution scaling analysis shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck. However, the CPU’s performance still matters for maintaining high frame rates at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 148 FPS, which requires the CPU to feed the GPU with enough draw calls and physics calculations to sustain that frame rate. The Ryzen 5 7400F’s 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for this task, as Control is not heavily multi-threaded and typically benefits more from single-core performance. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3072 indicates strong single-thread performance, which is crucial for games that rely on a main thread for game logic.

The CPU’s nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-14600T, which has an average benchmark score of 32707, just 0.1 percent lower than the Ryzen 5 7400F’s 32750. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H scores 32812, 0.2 percent higher, and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 scores 32662, 0.3 percent lower. These tiny differences indicate that the Ryzen 5 7400F is in a tightly contested performance tier, and in Control, the CPU choice is unlikely to cause significant frame rate differences between these chips. The CPU’s 32 MB of L3 cache is also relevant, as Control’s open-ended level design and physics objects can benefit from larger caches, though the impact is not directly measurable from the FPS data.

The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this combo, even at 1080p Low where 148 FPS is achieved. The consistent scaling of FPS with resolution confirms that the GPU is the bottleneck, and the CPU has enough headroom to avoid constraining performance. The Ryzen 5 7400F’s 65 W TDP and efficient Zen 4 architecture suggest that it can sustain high clocks without thermal throttling, though the measured FPS data does not include thermals. Overall, the CPU provides a solid foundation for this GPU pairing, ensuring that the RX 7700 is not held back by processing power in Control.