Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT combination delivers a robust 1080p and 1440p experience in Control, though the data reveals a clear ceiling at 4K. The pairing sits in the 54th percentile of tested combos, indicating a balanced mid-range setup that excels at high refresh rates but struggles with the demands of Ultra settings and 4K resolution.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to use with this combo?

A: The data shows 2560x1440 at High settings is the sweet spot, delivering 68.1 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold while 3840x2160 at High drops to 48 FPS, which is not ideal for smooth gameplay.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from High to Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080, the jump from High (87.8 FPS) to Low (141.5 FPS) represents a 61% increase in average FPS. The scaling is similar at other resolutions, with a 60% gain at 2560x1440 and a 53% gain at 3840x2160.

Q: Does the Ultra preset provide a worthwhile experience?

A: The Ultra preset yields 80.5 FPS at 1080p and 56.7 FPS at 1440p, but only 41.5 FPS at 4K. Given the drop from High to Ultra at 1080p is just 8%, the visual gain appears marginal compared to the performance cost.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its closest rival in raw compute?

A: The Ryzen 5 8400F has an average benchmark score of 25064, which is essentially identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (25057, 0% delta) and slightly ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F (24993, 0.3% delta). This places the CPU in the 82nd percentile of all processors.

Q: What is the GPU's standing relative to other graphics cards?

A: The RX 6700 XT holds a 77th percentile ranking among all GPUs. Its average score of 33721 is 0.7% ahead of the RX 6800 (33493) and 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A5000 (33294), showing it punches at the edge of its class.

*Q: Is this a balanced pairing for Control?*

A: The combo rank of 896 out of 1636 (54.8th percentile) suggests a balanced setup. Since the CPU is in the 82nd percentile and the GPU is in the 77th, neither component is a glaring bottleneck in this title.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a Navi 22 chip. It operates at a base clock of 2321 MHz and a boost clock of 2581 MHz, with a game clock of 2424 MHz. The 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a critical asset for Control's detailed environments and particle effects.

The data shows the GPU's performance ceiling. At 3840x2160 with High settings, average FPS falls to 48, indicating the card is near its limit. The 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is substantial, but the 64 ROPs and 160 TMUs are taxed heavily at 4K. The pixel rate of 165.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 413.0 GTexel/s translate into strong 1080p performance, but the Ultra preset at 4K (41.5 FPS) reveals that the card cannot maintain fluid frame rates when every graphical feature is enabled at high pixel counts.

Interestingly, the memory configuration proves sufficient even at demanding settings. The 12 GB VRAM is not exhausted in the measured scenarios, as the performance drop from High to Ultra at 1080p is only 8.3% (87.8 to 80.5 FPS). This suggests the bottleneck is raw shading throughput rather than memory capacity.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F features 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 4 (Phoenix) architecture. With a base clock of 4.20 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, it delivers strong single-thread performance, scoring 2943 in Cinebench R23 single-core. This is crucial for Control, which relies heavily on draw call processing and physics calculations.

The 16 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB L2 per core provide ample bandwidth for game data. In multi-threaded workloads, the CPU scores 20851 in Cinebench R23 multicore, placing it in the 82nd percentile of all CPUs. The data suggests the CPU is not the limiting factor in this pairing, as the FPS scaling with resolution follows a pattern typical of GPU-bound scenarios.

At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 141.5 FPS. The fact that this number does not approach the CPU's theoretical single-thread limits (951 in 3DMark single thread) indicates the CPU has headroom. The 4 nm process node and 25,000 million transistors also suggest efficient power delivery, with the 65 W TDP allowing sustained boost clocks during extended gaming sessions.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT ranks 896th out of 1636 tested combos in Control. This places it in the 54.8th percentile, meaning it outperforms just over half of all tested configurations. Given that the CPU sits in the 82nd percentile and the GPU in the 77th, the overall ranking is slightly lower than either component's individual standing.

The data implies that Control is more GPU-intensive than CPU-intensive, as the combo's ranking is closer to the GPU's percentile than the CPU's. The parity between the CPU and its nearest rivals (0% delta vs Ryzen 7 2700X) suggests that upgrading the processor alone would yield minimal gains in this title. Conversely, the GPU's 0.7% delta over the RX 6800 indicates that a GPU upgrade would provide incremental but not transformative improvements.

The rank of 896 also suggests that many higher-ranked combos likely pair this GPU with stronger CPUs, but the FPS data shows this CPU is adequate. The real differentiator in Control is the graphics card, and the RX 6700 XT's 77th percentile ranking is a solid foundation for 1080p and 1440p gaming.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal configuration is 2560x1440 at High settings, delivering 68.1 FPS. This provides a smooth experience with good visual fidelity. For players prioritizing frame rate over visuals, 1920x1080 at Low offers 141.5 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors.

The Medium preset is a reasonable compromise, yielding 99 FPS at 1080p and 74.2 FPS at 1440p. However, the jump from Medium to High at 1440p costs only 6.1 FPS (74.2 to 68.1), making High the better value. At 4K, the Low preset (73.3 FPS) is the only playable option, as Medium drops to 50.1 FPS and High to 48 FPS.

The Ultra preset should be avoided at all resolutions except 1080p, where it still manages 80.5 FPS. At 1440p, Ultra falls to 56.7 FPS, and at 4K, it drops to 41.5 FPS, which is below the acceptable threshold for most gamers. The data suggests that the visual difference between High and Ultra does not justify the performance penalty.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured results across all resolutions and settings are as follows:

3840x2160:

• Low: 73.3 FPS
• Medium: 50.1 FPS
• High: 48 FPS
• Ultra: 41.5 FPS

2560x1440:

• Low: 109.1 FPS
• Medium: 74.2 FPS
• High: 68.1 FPS
• Ultra: 56.7 FPS

1920x1080:

• Low: 141.5 FPS
• Medium: 99 FPS
• High: 87.8 FPS
• Ultra: 80.5 FPS

The pattern is consistent: Low settings provide a massive boost across all resolutions, while the difference between High and Ultra is relatively small. At 1080p, the spread from Ultra to Low is 61 FPS (80.5 to 141.5). At 1440p, the spread is 52.4 FPS (56.7 to 109.1). At 4K, the spread narrows to 31.8 FPS (41.5 to 73.3), indicating that the GPU is becoming the primary constraint at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the limiting component. At High settings, performance falls from 87.8 FPS at 1080p to 68.1 FPS at 1440p (a 22.4% drop), then to 48 FPS at 4K (a further 29.5% drop). This progressive decline is characteristic of GPU-bound performance, where increased pixel count directly impacts frame rate.

At Low settings, the scaling is different: 141.5 FPS at 1080p drops to 109.1 FPS at 1440p (22.9% decline) and then to 73.3 FPS at 4K (32.8% decline). The larger relative drop at 4K when using Low settings suggests that the CPU is keeping up at lower resolutions, but the GPU's memory bandwidth and shading capacity become the limiting factor at 3840x2160.

The data indicates that this combo is optimally suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming. At 4K, even Low settings cannot maintain the 100+ FPS achieved at lower resolutions. The 384.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 13.21 TFLOPS compute are simply insufficient for 4K at high quality, confirming that the RX 6700 XT is a 1440p-class card in Control.