Control

Control is a demanding Action Adventure title, and the measured data for the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT reveals a configuration that scales predictably with resolution, though the GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher settings. The benchmark results indicate a system capable of high refresh rate play at 1440p, yet it will require careful settings management to maintain smooth performance at 4K, particularly when the Ultra preset is engaged.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 follows an expected curve, but the magnitude of the drop is significant. At High settings, the average FPS starts at 108.6 at 1080p, falls to 83.9 at 1440p (a 22.7 percent reduction), and then declines further to 58.9 at 4K (a 29.8 percent drop from 1440p). This pattern suggests that while the Ryzen 5 9600X has ample headroom at lower resolutions, the RX 7800 XT's rendering workload scales heavily with pixel count. The 4K High result of 58.9 FPS is just under the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor at this resolution, as the CPU has already demonstrated it can push far higher frame rates at 1080p.

The scaling is more pronounced when moving from Low to Ultra settings across resolutions. At 1080p, Low preset yields 173.5 FPS, while Ultra drops to 92.9 FPS — a 46.4 percent decrease. This gap narrows slightly at 4K, where Low produces 87.1 FPS and Ultra produces 51 FPS, a 41.4 percent reduction. This relative consistency in performance loss across resolutions implies that the game's Ultra settings impose a consistent additional load on the GPU, rather than exposing a CPU bottleneck. Interestingly, the 4K Low figure of 87.1 FPS is nearly identical to the 1440p High figure of 83.9 FPS, suggesting that resolution has a more substantial impact on frame rate than the quality preset at these extremes. The data shows that at 1080p, the CPU is likely not the bottleneck, as the frame rates exceed 170 FPS, but by 4K, the GPU's limitations are clear, with even Low settings unable to reach 100 FPS.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7800 XT is the dominant component in this configuration, and its specifications explain the observed performance. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for Control's texture-heavy environments at all tested resolutions. The 16 GB capacity is particularly relevant at 4K, where the 58.9 FPS High result suggests the GPU is handling the memory load without stutter, though the frame rate is constrained by compute throughput. The card's boost clock of 2430 MHz and game clock of 2124 MHz are typical for the RDNA 3.0 architecture, and the 3840 shading units deliver 37.32 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

The GPU's benchmark percentiles place it at the 76th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32619. Its nearest rivals in synthetic tests are the AMD FirePro S9300 X2, which trails by 0.2 percent, and the NVIDIA P104-100, which leads by 0.4 percent. These margins are negligible, indicating that the RX 7800 XT sits in a competitive performance tier. In Control specifically, the 4K Ultra result of 51 FPS aligns with the GPU's 76th percentile ranking, showing that this card is positioned for high-refresh 1440p gaming rather than maxed-out 4K. The 60 RT cores and 96 ROPs are present, but the measured data does not isolate ray tracing performance; however, the pixel rate of 233.3 GPixel/s and texture rate of 583.2 GTexel/s suggest the card is well-equipped for rasterization-heavy scenes like those in Control.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear hierarchy for optimal settings. At 1920x1080, the High preset offers an average of 108.6 FPS, which is ideal for high refresh rate monitors, while Medium yields 124.6 FPS and Low reaches 173.5 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to 92.9 FPS, which is still playable but sacrifices 14.4 percent performance compared to High. Given the minimal visual difference between High and Ultra in many games, High is the recommended choice for 1080p, as it balances fidelity with a comfortable margin above 100 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the High preset produces 83.9 FPS, which is smooth for most players, while Medium achieves 94 FPS and Low hits 131.8 FPS. The Ultra preset falls to 73.7 FPS, which remains above 60 but may feel less consistent on variable refresh rate displays. For 1440p, the data suggests that High is the sweet spot, as it offers a 13.8 percent improvement over Ultra while maintaining a frame rate that exceeds typical 75 Hz monitors. At 3840x2160, the situation changes: High yields 58.9 FPS and Medium produces 62.3 FPS, both hovering near the 60 FPS target. The Ultra preset at 51 FPS is below the threshold, and Low at 87.1 FPS appears to be the only preset that provides a substantial buffer. For 4K gaming, Medium is the recommended starting point, as it provides the best balance of visual quality and playability, with Low available for those prioritizing frame rate over fidelity.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT ranks 582 out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 64th percentile of all configurations. This ranking is respectable, indicating that the pair performs better than most tested systems, but it is not at the top tier. The rank reflects the balanced nature of the components: the CPU is not holding back the GPU at most resolutions, and the GPU is strong enough to deliver solid frame rates, but neither component is an outlier in its respective benchmark percentile. The CPU sits at the 85th percentile among all processors, while the GPU is at the 76th percentile, suggesting that the CPU has slightly more headroom relative to its peers than the GPU does.

The combination's rank in this game is influenced by Control's optimization, which appears to favor higher core counts, as the Ryzen 5 9600X's 6-core, 12-thread configuration is sufficient but not exceptional. The 582nd rank out of 1636 combos means that 354 tested configurations performed better, likely including those with higher-end GPUs or more powerful CPUs. However, the data shows that this combo is not a low-end outlier; it sits comfortably in the upper-middle range, delivering 108.6 FPS at 1080p High, which is well above the average for all tested systems. The gap between this combo and the top performers is likely due to GPU limitations at higher resolutions, as the CPU's synthetic benchmarks (Cinebench R23 multicore score of 25525) indicate it can handle demanding workloads.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Granite Ridge, manufactured on a 4 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU's cache configuration includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache, which totals 32 MB. This cache arrangement is critical for gaming, as Control's physics and AI systems benefit from lower latency access to frequently used data. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s via dual-channel DDR5 is sufficient for feeding the GPU, and the PCIe Gen 5 interface with 24 lanes ensures no bottleneck in data transfer.

In Control, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p Low, where the average FPS reaches 173.5. This figure indicates that the CPU can drive frame rates well above 144 Hz when the GPU is not the limiting factor. The single-thread performance, evidenced by a Geekbench single-core score of 3363 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3603, is strong enough to handle the game's main thread. However, the 6-core configuration means that multi-threaded workloads, such as physics calculations, may not scale as well as on higher-core-count CPUs. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-13490F, which is 0.3 percent faster in average benchmark scores, and the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, which is 0.4 percent faster. These minuscule deltas suggest that the 9600X is competitively positioned for gaming, and in Control, the measured FPS at 1440p High (83.9 FPS) demonstrates that the CPU is not a bottleneck at mainstream resolutions, leaving the GPU as the primary determinant of performance.