Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X and AMD Radeon RX 9070 combination delivers a strong 1080p and 1440p experience in Control, but demands careful settings management at 4K to maintain smooth gameplay. The data shows a clear pattern: this combo is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while the CPU provides ample headroom at lower settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable scaling curve as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop is significant. At 1080p with Ultra settings, the combo achieves 100 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops this to 77.2 FPS, a 22.8% decrease, while 4K Ultra falls to 51.4 FPS, a further 33.4% reduction from 1440p. This steep decline indicates the RX 9070 is the primary limiting factor as pixel count rises.

The pattern is consistent across all settings presets. At High settings, the transition from 1080p (116.2 FPS) to 1440p (87 FPS) represents a 25.1% loss, and 4K High lands at 57.1 FPS — a 34.4% drop from 1440p. The Low preset shows the widest absolute spread: 183.5 FPS at 1080p, 137.1 FPS at 1440p, and 92.2 FPS at 4K. This demonstrates that even at the lowest graphical load, the GPU's rendering throughput at 4K is roughly half of what it produces at 1080p.

Notably, the scaling efficiency between 1440p and 4K is worse than between 1080p and 1440p across all settings. For Medium, the 1080p-to-1440p drop is 27.3% (132.1 to 96 FPS), while the 1440p-to-4K drop is 31.5% (96 to 65.8 FPS). This suggests the RX 9070's memory bandwidth and fillrate become increasingly strained as the pixel workload grows beyond 1440p.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 9070, built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with a Navi 48 chip, brings substantial resources to Control. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than adequate for the game's texture streaming at 4K. The GPU's 3584 shading units and 128 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s, which helps explain why even the 4K Low preset manages 92.2 FPS.

The clock behavior is telling: the GPU has a base clock of 1330 MHz, a game clock of 2070 MHz, and a boost clock of 2520 MHz. The large gap between base and boost suggests the card can aggressively scale its frequency under load, but the 57.1 FPS at 4K High indicates it cannot sustain enough throughput to fully saturate a 60 Hz display at that quality level. The 4K Ultra result of 51.4 FPS further confirms this limitation.

In the broader benchmark context, the RX 9070 scores a 25381 in Passmark G3D and ranks in the 79th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals show a tight cluster: the NVIDIA A2 is 0.2% faster, the Quadro GV100 is 0.3% slower, and the AMD Radeon HD 7970 is 0.7% slower. This indicates the RX 9070 sits in a competitive mid-to-high tier, but not at the absolute top of the performance stack — which aligns with its 4K struggles in Control.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 7600X provides a robust foundation for this pairing. With 6 cores and 12 threads based on Zen 4 architecture, it operates at a 4.70 GHz base clock and 5.30 GHz boost clock. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (83.2 GB/s bandwidth) ensure the CPU does not bottleneck the GPU at most settings.

Evidence for CPU headroom comes from the scaling behavior. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 183.5 FPS, but at 4K Low it drops to 92.2 FPS — a 49.8% reduction. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the frame rate would stay relatively flat across resolutions at the same settings. Instead, the steep drop confirms the GPU is the constraint. The CPU's synthetic scores reinforce this: it achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 24128 and a single-core score of 3406, placing it in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs.

The 7600X's nearest rivals in the database are all within 0.2% of its average benchmark score, which includes the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U and the AMD Ryzen 7 7735U. This clustering shows the 7600X delivers consistent mid-range compute performance. For Control, which is not heavily multithreaded, the single-core strength of 3406 in Cinebench R23 is likely more relevant than the multicore figure.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific CPU-GPU pairing holds a combo rank of 532 out of 1636 tested combinations in Control — placing it in the 67.5th percentile of all combos. This is a solid mid-to-upper tier result, but not a top-25% finish. The ranking reflects the balance between the 7600X's strong compute capabilities and the RX 9070's mid-high GPU tier.

The rank implies that roughly 1100 other combos outperform this pairing in Control, while about 532 perform worse. Given the GPU's 79th percentile standing, the combo rank lower than the GPU's individual percentile suggests the CPU may be holding back the system slightly, or that other GPU-combo pairings with similar graphics cards achieve better results due to more powerful processors.

This ranking makes practical sense: for a game like Control with demanding visual effects, the GPU matters more than the CPU. A faster GPU paired with a weaker CPU would likely rank higher than this combo, while a stronger CPU with this same GPU would yield marginal gains at best.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium settings as the sweet spot for most users, particularly at higher resolutions. At 1440p Medium, the combo delivers 96 FPS — comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold and only 8 FPS shy of the High preset's 87 FPS. This suggests Medium provides most of the visual fidelity with a meaningful performance buffer.

For 4K, the situation is more nuanced. The 4K Medium result of 65.8 FPS is the only 4K preset that clears 60 FPS, making it the recommended choice for 4K displays. The 4K High preset's 57.1 FPS is playable but risks dips below 60 FPS during intense scenes, while 4K Ultra at 51.4 FPS is best reserved for screenshot or slow-paced exploration.

At 1080p, the choice is less critical. The High preset at 116.2 FPS and Medium at 132.1 FPS both offer headroom above typical 144 Hz refresh rates. The Ultra preset at 100 FPS is also viable for high-refresh monitors, though it sacrifices 16.2 FPS compared to High. For competitive play or maximum frame rates, the Low preset at 183.5 FPS is unmatched, but the visual compromise is significant.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combo run Control at 4K 60 FPS?*

A: Only at Medium settings, which yields 65.8 FPS. High settings drop to 57.1 FPS and Ultra to 51.4 FPS, both below the 60 FPS target.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: 1440p provides the best balance, with all presets exceeding 77 FPS. High settings at 87 FPS offer strong visuals, while Low reaches 137.1 FPS for high-refresh displays.

Q: How much performance is lost going from 1080p to 4K?

A: At High settings, the drop is from 116.2 FPS to 57.1 FPS, a 50.9% reduction. At Low settings, the drop is from 183.5 FPS to 92.2 FPS, a 49.8% reduction.

*Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in Control?*

A: The GPU is the clear bottleneck. Frame rates scale significantly with resolution changes, which would not happen if the CPU were limiting performance.

Q: How does this combo compare to other tested configurations?

A: It ranks 532nd out of 1636 combos, placing it in the upper third of all tested pairings for Control.

Q: What is the fastest settings preset at 1080p?

A: Low settings deliver 183.5 FPS, which is 51.4 FPS faster than the next preset (Medium at 132.1 FPS).

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured frame rate data for this combo in Control is as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 183.5 FPS
• Medium: 132.1 FPS
• High: 116.2 FPS
• Ultra: 100 FPS

2560x1440:

• Low: 137.1 FPS
• Medium: 96 FPS
• High: 87 FPS
• Ultra: 77.2 FPS

3840x2160:

• Low: 92.2 FPS
• Medium: 65.8 FPS
• High: 57.1 FPS
• Ultra: 51.4 FPS

The data shows a consistent ordering across all resolutions, with Low always delivering the highest frame rate and Ultra the lowest. The gap between Low and Ultra widens as resolution increases: 83.5 FPS at 1080p, 59.9 FPS at 1440p, and 40.8 FPS at 4K. This compression at higher resolutions indicates that GPU throughput limits the frame rate spread, as the pixel cost of Ultra settings becomes proportionally smaller relative to the total render load.