Control

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination delivers a solid Control experience, with the data showing a clear progression of frame rates across resolutions and settings. The measured results place this combo at rank 744 out of 1636 tested configurations, a mid-pack position that reflects a balanced pairing where neither component consistently dominates the bottleneck. The RTX 3070’s percentile rank of 72 among all GPUs and the Ryzen 5 9600X’s 85th percentile among CPUs suggest the processor has more headroom than the graphics card, a dynamic that becomes evident when analyzing the scaling behavior.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable but telling pattern as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 157.3 FPS, but this drops to 122.9 FPS at 1440p and further to 83.2 FPS at 4K. This represents a 21.9% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 47.1% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is steeper at higher settings; with Ultra, the frame rate falls from 87.5 FPS at 1080p to 66.5 FPS at 1440p (a 24.0% drop) and then to 41.7 FPS at 4K (a 52.3% drop from 1080p). This pattern indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises, particularly at 4K where even Low settings only yield 83.2 FPS.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens with resolution, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. At 1080p, the difference between Low (157.3 FPS) and Ultra (87.5 FPS) is 69.8 FPS, whereas at 4K the same settings gap is only 41.5 FPS (83.2 vs 41.7). This compression at higher resolutions suggests that the RTX 3070’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are being saturated, limiting the impact of lowering settings. The 4K results hover around 41.7 to 83.2 FPS depending on preset, which is playable but far from the high-refresh territory seen at 1080p. For the Ryzen 5 9600X, the 3DMark single-thread score of 1253 and multi-thread score of 7590 indicate ample processing power, but the data shows this is not the primary constraint at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

For 1440p, the most balanced experience appears to be the Medium preset, which delivers 85.9 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay while retaining visual fidelity over the Low preset’s 122.9 FPS. The High preset at 1440p drops to 73.9 FPS, still playable but with diminishing returns for the visual upgrade. At 1080p, the High preset at 99.7 FPS offers the best combination of smoothness and quality, as it stays well above 60 FPS while the Ultra preset at 87.5 FPS provides only marginal visual improvements for a 12.2 FPS loss. For 4K, the data is less forgiving: the Medium preset at 60.2 FPS is the only setting that maintains a playable frame rate, with High at 50.6 FPS and Ultra at 41.7 FPS falling below the 60 FPS target. The Low preset at 83.2 FPS is viable for competitive play but sacrifices significant visual quality.

The measured rows suggest that the RTX 3070’s 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for this game at 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K results indicate memory pressure. The step from Medium to High at 4K costs 9.6 FPS (60.2 to 50.6), while the step from High to Ultra costs another 8.9 FPS (50.6 to 41.7). These incremental losses are relatively consistent, implying the GPU’s compute capabilities, rather than a hard VRAM limit, are the primary factor. The Ryzen 5 9600X’s cache configuration, with 32 MB of shared L3, provides solid single-thread performance, but the game’s engine appears to scale more with GPU load at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU combo in Control?

A: The data shows 1440p with Medium settings delivers 85.9 FPS, which is the highest frame rate above 60 FPS at that resolution. At 1080p, High settings achieve 99.7 FPS, offering a smoother experience, but 1440p Medium provides a better balance of visual quality and performance.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Control?

A: Yes, but only at Medium settings, which produces 60.2 FPS. The Low preset at 83.2 FPS is also playable, while High (50.6 FPS) and Ultra (41.7 FPS) fall below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the RTX 3070 compare to its nearest rivals in general benchmarks?

A: The RTX 3070’s average benchmark score is 28238, which is 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (27985) and 1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (27956). It trails the AMD FirePro S7150 by 0.6% and the AMD Radeon R9 M295X by 1.1%.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 9600X a bottleneck for the RTX 3070 in this game?

A: The CPU’s percentile rank of 85 versus the GPU’s 72 suggests the processor is not the limiting factor. The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent drop across all settings, which indicates GPU-bound performance, especially at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, Low settings achieve 157.3 FPS while Ultra achieves 87.5 FPS, a difference of 69.8 FPS. This is the largest settings gap across all resolutions, indicating that the GPU has headroom at 1080p.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations for Control?

A: This specific combination ranks 744 out of 1636 tested combos, placing it in the upper-middle tier. The ranking reflects the balanced performance of the Ryzen 5 9600X and RTX 3070 pair, which is neither top-tier nor entry-level.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings. At 3840x2160, the Low preset leads with 83.2 FPS, followed by Medium at 60.2 FPS, High at 50.6 FPS, and Ultra at 41.7 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 41.5 FPS, showing that settings have a significant but not overwhelming impact at 4K. At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts: Low achieves 122.9 FPS, Medium 85.9 FPS, High 73.9 FPS, and Ultra 66.5 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra here is 56.4 FPS, wider than at 4K, indicating more GPU headroom at this resolution.

At 1920x1080, the results are the most varied: Low hits 157.3 FPS, Medium 110.6 FPS, High 99.7 FPS, and Ultra 87.5 FPS. The 69.8 FPS difference between Low and Ultra is the largest in the dataset, confirming that 1080p is where the RTX 3070 has the most performance to spare. The progression from 1080p to 1440p to 4K shows diminishing returns for lower settings, as the GPU becomes the primary constraint. For example, at Low settings, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 34.4 FPS (157.3 to 122.9), while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 39.7 FPS (122.9 to 83.2). At Ultra, the corresponding drops are 21.0 FPS (87.5 to 66.5) and 24.8 FPS (66.5 to 41.7), showing a more compressed scaling curve.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 plays a central role in these results, with its memory configuration and clock speeds directly influencing the measured FPS. The GPU has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock is 1500 MHz with a boost of 1725 MHz, and the memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). These specs place the RTX 3070 in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28238. The 5888 shading units and 184 TMUs handle the game’s rendering load, while the 46 RT cores are relevant for Control’s ray tracing features, though the measured FPS data does not specify ray tracing settings.

The VRAM capacity of 8 GB appears adequate for Control at 1080p and 1440p, where the High preset delivers 99.7 and 73.9 FPS respectively. At 4K, the results suggest memory bandwidth or capacity constraints, as the frame rates drop sharply even at Low settings (83.2 FPS). The GPU’s 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is substantial, but the 4K data shows that the memory subsystem becomes a limiting factor. The RTX 3070’s nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (27985, 0.9% slower) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (27956, 1% slower), while it trails the AMD FirePro S7150 (28409) by 0.6%. These comparisons highlight that the RTX 3070 sits in a competitive performance tier, but in Control specifically, the measured FPS shows it is the bottleneck at 4K, as the Ryzen 5 9600X’s single-thread performance (3DMark single-thread score of 1253) is more than sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions.