Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT delivers a compelling 1080p and 1440p experience in Control, with the data showing that the Medium preset offers the most balanced combination of frame rate and visual fidelity across all tested resolutions. At 1080p, Medium produces an average of 124 FPS, which is 14 FPS higher than High and 28 FPS higher than Ultra, while still remaining 50 FPS below the Low preset’s 174 FPS. The 1440p Medium result of 94 FPS keeps the game comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, and even the 4K Medium average of 63 FPS with a minimum of 54 FPS is playable, though the Ultra preset at 49 FPS dips below that target. For players prioritizing smoothness over maximum detail, Medium is the clear recommendation, as it consistently outperforms High by a meaningful margin (from 15 FPS at 4K to 14 FPS at 1080p) while closing much of the gap to Low. The High preset, while visually superior, sacrifices 11-14 FPS compared to Medium at every resolution, making it a less efficient choice for this combination. Ultra, conversely, provides the lowest frame rates at all resolutions (49 FPS at 4K, 72 FPS at 1440p, and 96 FPS at 1080p) and is best reserved for scenarios where visual extremes outweigh frame rate demands, but the measured data suggests that Medium offers the best experience per the measured rows.

How This Combo Ranks

The Ryzen 5 7500X3D and RX 7800 XT combination ranks 899th out of 2,888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the upper third of all configurations. This percentile positioning indicates a solid, above-average performer for this title, though not a top-tier outlier. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU’s strong multi-threaded capabilities and the GPU’s substantial memory bandwidth, but the game’s engine appears to favor the GPU heavily at higher resolutions. With a combo rank of 899, this system sits ahead of roughly 69% of all tested pairings, which is a respectable result for a mid-range to upper-mid-range setup. The data suggests that while the combo does not crack the top tier, it delivers consistent frame rates that are well within playable territory for most users, especially when considering the 1080p and 1440p results. The rank also implies that there is headroom for improvement, either by overclocking the GPU or by adjusting settings, but the measured numbers already show a capable pairing for Control’s action-heavy sequences. Compared to other tested combos, this system’s performance is more influenced by the GPU at 4K, where the CPU’s role diminishes, but at 1080p, the combination shows a more balanced workload. The 899th rank out of 2,888 is a strong indicator that users with this hardware will not face significant bottlenecks in most gameplay scenarios, though the Ultra preset at 4K will test the limits of the GPU.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is the primary driver of Control’s frame rates, especially at higher resolutions, and its specifications underscore its suitability for this title. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s, which is ample for the game’s texture-heavy environments and physics effects. The base clock is set at 1295 MHz, with a boost clock of 2430 MHz and a game clock of 2124 MHz, and these clock speeds directly correlate with the measured performance. At 1080p, the GPU’s compute power (37.32 TFLOPS FP32) pushes frame rates to 174 FPS on Low, but the more demanding Ultra preset still achieves 96 FPS, showing that the 7800 XT has enough headroom for high refresh rate monitors. The memory’s effective speed of 19.5 Gbps contributes to the bandwidth figure, and this becomes critical at 4K, where the Ultra preset’s 49 FPS average indicates the GPU is nearing its limit. The 60 ray tracing cores and 96 ROPs are relevant for Control’s use of DirectX 12 features, and the data shows that even with these features enabled (as in the Ultra preset), the GPU maintains playable frame rates at 1440p (72 FPS) and 1080p (96 FPS). Compared to the CPU, the GPU’s role is more pronounced, as evidenced by the FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K; the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM ensures that memory capacity is not a limiting factor, even at 4K Ultra, but the compute load does reduce performance. The RX 7800 XT’s percentile rank of 51 against all GPUs places it in the middle of the pack, but its average benchmark score of 11,627 is competitive for this game’s requirements. The GPU’s 2x 8-pin power connectors and 263 W TDP suggest it is a power-hungry part, but the measured FPS data indicates that this power is well spent in Control, particularly in the Medium and High presets where the balance between visual quality and frame rate is optimal.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at how this combo performs across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves an average of 174 FPS, which is the highest recorded value in the entire dataset, followed by Medium at 124 FPS, High at 110 FPS, and Ultra at 96 FPS. The Medium preset also records a minimum FPS of 105 and a maximum of 142, indicating a stable frame delivery with a narrow band of variance. Moving to 1440p, the Low preset drops to 132 FPS, a 24% decrease from 1080p, while Medium falls to 94 FPS (with a minimum of 80 and maximum of 108), High to 83 FPS, and Ultra to 72 FPS. The 1440p results show that the GPU is still capable of maintaining high frame rates, but the gap between Medium and High narrows to 11 FPS, compared to 14 FPS at 1080p, suggesting the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor. At 4K, the Low preset achieves 89 FPS, Medium 63 FPS (with a minimum of 54 and maximum of 73), High 56 FPS, and Ultra 49 FPS. The 4K data reveals a significant performance cliff from Low to Medium (26 FPS drop), and the Ultra preset’s 49 FPS average is below the 60 FPS threshold, making it the only setting that fails to deliver a consistently smooth experience. Across all resolutions, the Medium preset provides the best balance, with 4K Medium at 63 FPS being just above the playable mark, while 1440p Medium at 94 FPS is excellent for high refresh rate displays. The High preset, while offering better visuals, consistently trails Medium by 11-15 FPS, and the Low preset, while fastest, sacrifices too much visual quality for most users. The data also shows that the minimum FPS values for Medium at 4K (54) and 1440p (80) are within 9-14 FPS of the averages, indicating stable performance without severe frame drops. The Ultra preset, with no recorded minimum or maximum, appears to be the least optimized for this hardware, and the 49 FPS average at 4K is 10 FPS below the 60 FPS target, which is notable for a game with fast-paced combat.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K reveals how the workload shifts between the CPU and GPU, with the data indicating that the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 174 FPS, which drops to 132 FPS at 1440p (a 24.1% decrease) and then to 89 FPS at 4K (a 32.6% decrease from 1440p and a 48.9% decrease from 1080p). This scaling pattern is consistent across all presets, but the percentage drops become more pronounced at higher quality settings. For Medium, the 1080p average of 124 FPS falls to 94 FPS at 1440p (24.2% decrease) and then to 63 FPS at 4K (33.0% decrease from 1440p and 49.2% from 1080p). The High preset shows a similar trend, with 110 FPS at 1080p dropping to 83 FPS at 1440p (24.5% decrease) and 56 FPS at 4K (32.5% decrease from 1440p and 49.1% from 1080p). Ultra follows suit, with 96 FPS at 1080p, 72 FPS at 1440p (25.0% decrease), and 49 FPS at 4K (31.9% decrease from 1440p and 49.0% from 1080p). The near-uniform 49% reduction from 1080p to 4K across all presets indicates that the scaling is primarily resolution-driven, with the GPU’s pixel throughput being the limiting factor. This is supported by the fact that the CPU’s performance, as measured by its Passmark multi-thread score of 25,047, remains constant regardless of resolution, while the GPU’s workload quadruples from 1080p to 4K. The data suggests that at 1080p, the CPU has more influence on frame rates, as evidenced by the 174 FPS Low result, but as resolution increases, the GPU’s rasterization and shading capabilities dominate. The 4K results, particularly the 49 FPS Ultra, show that the RX 7800 XT’s 37.32 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is insufficient for maximum settings at this resolution, but the 16 GB VRAM ensures that memory bandwidth (624.1 GB/s) is not a constraint. The scaling analysis also highlights that the Medium preset’s 4K result of 63 FPS is the highest quality setting that maintains a playable frame rate, with the next step up (High) dropping to 56 FPS, which is 7 FPS below the 60 FPS target. This indicates that users should prioritize Medium at 4K to avoid the performance penalty of higher settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D plays a supporting role in Control, with its 6 cores and 12 threads providing sufficient processing power to avoid bottlenecking the GPU at most settings. The CPU’s base clock of 4.00 GHz and boost clock of 4.50 GHz, combined with a 96 MB shared L3 cache, are well-suited for the game’s physics and AI calculations, but the measured FPS data shows that the GPU is the primary determinant of performance. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 174 FPS, which is close to the CPU’s Passmark single-thread score of 3,494, suggesting that the CPU can keep up with the GPU’s output at lower resolutions. However, the CPU’s multi-thread score of 25,047 places it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H (0.2% higher score) and Intel Core i9-13950HX (0.5% higher), indicating that this processor is competitive for gaming workloads. The 12 threads are utilized by Control’s multi-threaded engine, but the game’s frame rates scale more with resolution than with CPU load, as evidenced by the uniform performance drops from 1080p to 4K. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and 5 nm process node (TSMC) make it an efficient part, and its DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth provides adequate data transfer for the GPU’s 624.1 GB/s bandwidth, though the CPU’s memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor in this game. The Ryzen 5 7500X3D’s Passmark physics score of 2,779 and integer math score of 70,774 are relevant for Control’s destructible environments, but the benchmark results show that the CPU does not bottleneck the GPU at 1440p or 4K, where the GPU is clearly the constraint. At 1080p Ultra, the 96 FPS average indicates that the CPU can handle the game’s maximum settings without dropping frame rates, and the CPU’s 89th percentile ranking against all CPUs confirms its strong gaming performance. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-14600, has a 0.7% higher average score, but the Ryzen’s larger L3 cache (96 MB vs. the rival’s unspecified size) may provide an advantage in cache-sensitive titles like Control. Overall, the data shows that the CPU is more than adequate for this GPU, and users would not benefit from a faster processor for this game, as the GPU’s performance at 4K Ultra (49 FPS) is the clear limiting factor. The CPU’s role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions, where the 174 FPS Low result at 1080p approaches the limits of what the CPU can sustain, but even then, the GPU is not fully saturated, as evidenced by the 96 FPS Ultra result at the same resolution.