Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT combination delivers a playable but constrained experience in Control, with performance heavily dependent on resolution and settings. The data shows a system where the GPU's age and 8 GB VRAM capacity are the primary bottlenecks, especially at higher resolutions and quality presets.

FAQ

Q: What is the best performance this combo achieves in Control?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 116.2 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only configuration that breaks the 100 FPS barrier, indicating that high-refresh-rate 1080p play is possible only with significant graphical compromises.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rivals in general benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 5 9600X has an average benchmark score of 28246, placing it 0.3% ahead of both the Intel Core i5-13490F and AMD Ryzen 5 230, and 0.4% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS. Its performance is effectively tied with its nearest competitors.

Q: How does the GPU's general benchmark standing compare to its rivals?

A: The RX 5700 XT's average benchmark score is 24731. It is 0.1% slower than the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile, but 0.3% faster than the Intel Arc A350M and 0.9% faster than the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000. This places it in a competitive mid-range tier.

Q: What is the best 4K performance available with this hardware?

A: At 3840x2160, the highest average frame rate is 61.4 FPS, which is achieved only with Low settings. Under the Ultra preset, performance drops to 32.5 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: Is 1440p a viable resolution for this combo?

A: Yes, but with limitations. At 2560x1440, the system achieves 90.3 FPS on Low and 57.8 FPS on High. The Ultra preset yields 49 FPS, which is playable but not optimal for fast-paced action.

Q: How does the Ultra preset scale from 1080p to 4K?

A: Performance drops by 48.2% when moving from 1920x1080 (62.7 FPS) to 3840x2160 (32.5 FPS). This steep decline indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the defining component in this pairing. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s, is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the capacity becomes a constraint at 4K. The GPU's clock speeds—1605 MHz base, 1755 MHz game, and 1905 MHz boost—are the key drivers of performance. The data shows that at 3840x2160, even dropping from High to Medium settings only yields a 9.3% increase in frame rate (38.7 to 42.3 FPS), while dropping from High to Low yields a 58.7% increase (38.7 to 61.4 FPS). This non-linear scaling suggests that texture memory and fill-rate demands, not just raw shader throughput, are heavily influencing results at this resolution. The GPU's 9.754 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 64 ROPs are being overwhelmed by the game's demands at 4K.

The Ryzen 5 9600X, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is not the primary bottleneck. Its high single-thread performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3603, provides ample headroom for the game's logic. The CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache and DDR5 memory support ensure it can feed the GPU data quickly. However, the benchmark results indicate that the GPU's 8 GB VRAM ceiling is hit first. This is evident in the 4K results where the gap between Low and Medium settings is only 3.6 FPS (61.4 vs 42.3 FPS), while the gap between Medium and High is 3.6 FPS (42.3 vs 38.7 FPS). The GPU is the limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The performance degradation from 1080p to 4K is significant and reveals a GPU-bound scenario. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 with High settings results in a 23.3% drop in average FPS (75.4 to 57.8). The next step, from 1440p to 3840x2160, causes a further 33.0% drop (57.8 to 38.7 FPS). This pattern holds across all settings. For instance, with the Ultra preset, the frame rate declines from 62.7 FPS at 1080p to 49 FPS at 1440p and finally to 32.5 FPS at 4K.

This scaling curve indicates that the RX 5700 XT's computational resources are exhausted as pixel count increases. The 4K resolution requires the GPU to process four times the pixels of 1080p, and the data shows it cannot maintain playable frame rates under demanding presets. The CPU's role in this scaling is minimal, as its performance is consistent across resolutions. The primary takeaway is that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where the GPU can maintain higher utilization without being overwhelmed by memory bandwidth or capacity limitations. The 4K results are only playable with Low settings, where the GPU can keep up with the load.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is ranked 1210 out of 1636 tested combos in Control. This places it in the lower-middle tier of all possible configurations. The ranking reflects the GPU's age and performance class; the CPU is a modern, high-performance part, but the GPU is a previous-generation model that is now end-of-life. The combo's percentile ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU's overall benchmark percentile of 68, which is below the CPU's percentile of 85.

The data suggests that this pairing is not optimized for Control. The CPU is capable of much higher frame rates, but the GPU cannot deliver them. This is a classic case of bottlenecking, where the GPU limits the system's overall performance. The 1210th rank out of 1636 combos indicates that many other GPU pairings would yield better results. While the combo is functional, it does not leverage the full potential of the Ryzen 5 9600X. The rank is a clear indicator that users seeking higher performance in Control would need to consider a more powerful GPU to better match the CPU's capabilities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo shows a clear performance hierarchy. With Low settings, the average FPS is 116.2, which is the highest recorded for this resolution. Medium settings produce 82.7 FPS, while High settings yield 75.4 FPS. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, with an average of 62.7 FPS. This represents a 46% drop from Low to Ultra, demonstrating the significant impact of graphical fidelity on frame rate at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates decline across all presets. Low settings still deliver a playable 90.3 FPS. Medium settings average 63.3 FPS, and High settings average 57.8 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to 49 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay. The performance gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 45.7%, slightly narrower than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's limitations are fully exposed. Low settings are the only playable option, with an average of 61.4 FPS. Medium settings drop to 42.3 FPS, High settings to 38.7 FPS, and Ultra to a stuttering 32.5 FPS. The performance gap between Low and Ultra is 47.1%. The data shows that this combo is not suitable for 4K gaming with high or ultra settings, as the frame rates fall well below the threshold for a smooth experience. The 8 GB VRAM capacity and the GPU's raw compute power are insufficient for the demands of Control at this resolution.