Control

# Control — AMD Ryzen 5 7600 + AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB

The benchmark data for Control with this AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB combination covers four quality presets across three resolutions, providing a complete picture of how this mid-range pairing handles a demanding action-adventure title. The measured results show a system that can deliver playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but struggles at 4K, with the GPU emerging as the primary constraint across all tested configurations.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear hierarchy of performance across the four quality presets, with the sweet spot depending heavily on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 143 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset. The Medium preset at 1080p still achieves a strong 101 FPS average, with a minimum of 86 FPS and maximum of 117 FPS, indicating consistent frame delivery. The High preset at 1080p drops to 90 FPS, while Ultra sits at 78 FPS — all three of these presets remain above the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered smooth for action games.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance landscape shifts considerably. Low produces 108 FPS average, Medium delivers 77 FPS with a 65 FPS minimum, High reaches 68 FPS, and Ultra falls to 59 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p offers the best balance, staying above 60 FPS on average while providing better visual quality than Low. At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more challenging: Low manages 73 FPS, Medium achieves 52 FPS with a 44 FPS minimum, High drops to 46 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 40 FPS. For 4K gaming, only the Low preset maintains playable frame rates, while Medium and above fall below the 60 FPS target.

The data suggests that Medium is the recommended preset for both 1080p and 1440p gaming, as it provides the best combination of visual fidelity and frame rate stability. At 1080p, Medium's 101 FPS average leaves substantial headroom, while at 1440p the 77 FPS average with an 86 FPS maximum keeps the experience fluid. For 4K, users should stick to Low to maintain acceptable performance, as the jump from Low to Medium costs 21 FPS on average — a substantial penalty for modest visual gains.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor built on the Zen 4 architecture with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.10 GHz. Its 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth provide solid fundamentals for gaming workloads. The CPU's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 12735 and a Geekbench multicore score of 13413, while single-thread performance is equally respectable with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1852 and Geekbench single-core score of 2521.

In the context of Control, the CPU's role appears to be secondary to the GPU across most tested configurations. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K follows a pattern consistent with GPU-bound scenarios: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 143 FPS, which drops to 108 FPS at 1440p and 73 FPS at 4K. This scaling suggests the CPU can feed the GPU adequately even at lower resolutions where frame rates are highest. The CPU's percentile rank of 78 against all CPUs places it in the upper quartile, indicating it has sufficient headroom for this title.

The Ryzen 5 7600's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX with a delta of 0.2%, the AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS at -0.3%, the Intel Core i9-11900KF at 0.4%, and the AMD Ryzen 5 8540U at 0.5%. These tightly clustered scores — all within 0.5% of the 7600's average benchmark score of 26324 — suggest that CPU performance is not a differentiator in this game. The 3DMark multi-threaded score of 6503 and single-thread score of 999 further confirm balanced performance that should not bottleneck the RX 9060 XT in Control.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with a Navi 44 chip, featuring 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation pipelines. Its boost clock reaches 3130 MHz with a game clock of 2530 MHz, and the 8 GB of GDDR6 memory operates on a 128-bit bus with 322.3 GB/s bandwidth. The GPU's compute capabilities include 25.64 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 32 ray tracing cores for DirectX 12 Ultimate support.

The GPU's role in Control is clearly dominant, as evidenced by the performance deltas between settings at each resolution. At 1080p, the gap between Low and Ultra is 65 FPS (143 to 78), while at 1440p it narrows to 49 FPS (108 to 59), and at 4K it further reduces to 33 FPS (73 to 40). This pattern indicates that at lower resolutions, the GPU has more headroom to render additional effects, while at 4K the GPU is already saturated even at Low settings. The 8 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient for this game, as no anomalies in the data suggest memory-related stuttering or texture pop-in.

The RX 9060 XT's benchmark results are modest, with a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4093 and a percentile rank of only 24 against all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the Intel HD Graphics 630 at 0.4% delta, NVIDIA Quadro K2100M at -1.4%, NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M at 1.5%, and AMD Radeon R5 M330 at -1.8%. These comparisons highlight that the RX 9060 XT, despite its modern architecture and high boost clock, delivers performance in the lower tier of discrete GPUs — a factor that explains its struggles at 4K in Control.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Control with this hardware?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 as the most comfortable resolution, with all four presets delivering above 78 FPS average. At 2560x1440, only Low and Medium presets stay above 60 FPS, while 3840x2160 requires Low settings to maintain playable frame rates.

Q: How does the Medium preset compare to High in terms of frame rate impact?

A: At 1080p, Medium delivers 101 FPS compared to High's 90 FPS, a difference of 11 FPS. At 1440p, the gap is 9 FPS (77 vs 68), and at 4K it narrows to 6 FPS (52 vs 46). Medium consistently offers better performance with presumably minor visual trade-offs.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The frame rate scaling across resolutions indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck. From 1080p Low to 4K Low, performance drops from 143 FPS to 73 FPS, a 49% reduction that aligns with GPU-bound rendering rather than CPU limitations.

Q: Can this system achieve 60 FPS at 1440p with Ultra settings?

A: No. The measured Ultra preset at 2560x1440 produces an average of 59 FPS, just below the 60 FPS threshold. Users seeking 60 FPS at 1440p should use High settings, which deliver 68 FPS.

Q: What minimum frame rates can be expected at Medium settings?

A: The data records minimum FPS values only for Medium presets: 86 FPS at 1080p, 65 FPS at 1440p, and 44 FPS at 4K. These minima indicate frame time consistency, with 1080p and 1440p showing stable delivery while 4K exhibits more variance.

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

A: The combination ranks 1908 out of 3720 tested combos in Control, placing it in the lower-middle range of the database. This ranking reflects the GPU's modest synthetic benchmark performance relative to other tested hardware.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important characteristics about this hardware combination. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 143 FPS at 1080p to 108 FPS at 1440p (a 24.5% reduction) and then to 73 FPS at 4K (a 32.4% reduction from 1440p). This progressive decline indicates that the GPU is increasingly stressed as pixel count rises, with the 4K resolution demanding more than four times the pixel throughput of 1080p.

At Medium settings, the scaling shows a similar pattern: 101 FPS at 1080p, 77 FPS at 1440p, and 52 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 23.8% from 1080p to 1440p and 32.5% from 1440p to 4K. High settings follow with 90, 68, and 46 FPS respectively, while Ultra produces 78, 59, and 40 FPS. The consistent proportional reductions across all settings suggest that resolution scaling is governed primarily by GPU fill rate and pixel processing capabilities rather than other bottlenecks.

The data reveals that the transition from 1440p to 4K incurs a larger percentage penalty than the 1080p to 1440p step across every preset. This nonlinear scaling is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios where memory bandwidth and ROP throughput become increasingly critical at higher resolutions. The RX 9060 XT's 322.3 GB/s bandwidth and 200.3 GPixel/s pixel rate appear adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but insufficient for maintaining high frame rates at 4K with quality settings enabled.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the complete set of measurements shows Low leading at 143 FPS average, followed by Medium at 101 FPS with a minimum of 86 FPS and maximum of 117 FPS. High produces 90 FPS average, and Ultra trails at 78 FPS. The 65 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at this resolution indicates significant GPU headroom that allows quality settings to have a pronounced impact on performance.

Moving to 2560x1440, Low delivers 108 FPS, Medium achieves 77 FPS with 65 FPS minimum and 88 FPS maximum, High reaches 68 FPS, and Ultra settles at 59 FPS. The 49 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1440p is narrower than at 1080p, suggesting the GPU is beginning to approach its limits. The Medium preset's 65 FPS minimum ensures that even demanding scenes remain above playable thresholds.

At 3840x2160, the measurements show Low at 73 FPS, Medium at 52 FPS with 44 FPS minimum and 60 FPS maximum, High at 46 FPS, and Ultra at 40 FPS. The 33 FPS spread between Low and Ultra is the smallest of all resolutions, confirming that 4K rendering saturates the GPU regardless of quality settings. The Medium preset's 44 FPS minimum may result in noticeable frame drops during intense action sequences, making Low the safer choice for 4K play.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB achieves a rank of 1908 out of 3720 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 51st percentile of all configurations. This middle-of-the-pack ranking reflects the GPU's modest performance profile, as the CPU's strong synthetic benchmarks — including a 78th percentile ranking against all CPUs — would suggest higher potential if paired with a more capable graphics card.

The GPU's percentile rank of 24 against all GPUs, combined with its 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 4093, positions the RX 9060 XT in the lower tier of modern graphics cards. The nearest rival comparisons show the GPU performing within 1.8% of integrated and older mobile solutions, which contextualizes its mid-range positioning. This explains why the combo sits near the median of tested configurations in Control despite the CPU's upper-quartile performance.

The rank of 1908 indicates that roughly half of all tested combos deliver better performance in Control, while the other half perform worse. For users with this specific hardware pairing, the data suggests that playing at 1080p with Medium or High settings provides the most balanced experience, while 1440p gaming is viable with Medium settings. The 4K performance, while technically playable at Low settings, places this combo below the median in terms of overall capability for this title.