Control

Control pairs an 8-core, 16-thread AMD Ryzen 7 5700 with a 4 GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050, a combination that lands in the lower tier of tested systems for this action-adventure title. The measured frame rates reveal a system that is consistently playable at 1080p, increasingly strained at 1440p, and largely overwhelmed at 4K, with the GPU's modest memory capacity and bandwidth proving to be the primary constraint across most settings.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data shows a clear hierarchy of performance across the four tested presets, with the gap between Low and Ultra widening dramatically as resolution increases. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 83.4 FPS, which is the only configuration in the entire dataset that approaches high-refresh-rate territory. Medium drops to 61.6 FPS, High to 54.7 FPS, and Ultra to 48 FPS, indicating that the RTX 3050 can handle the game's visual features at 1080p but with diminishing returns as settings climb.

For the best experience per the measured rows, the Medium preset at 1080p offers the most balanced outcome. It maintains an average above 60 FPS while presumably retaining a meaningful portion of the game's visual fidelity compared to Low. The High preset at 1080p is also viable at 54.7 FPS, but the drop below the 60 FPS threshold suggests that players prioritizing smoothness should favor Medium. At 2560x1440, the situation tightens: Low yields 65.7 FPS, but Medium falls to 46.8 FPS, making Low the only sensible choice for responsive gameplay at that resolution. The 4K data is uniformly poor, with even the Low preset only reaching 41.4 FPS, so no setting is recommended there for a playable experience.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA107 chip, featuring 2048 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units. Its base clock of 1545 MHz and boost clock of 1740 MHz are paired with 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding 192.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is the most likely culprit for the steep performance cliffs observed at higher resolutions and settings, as the relatively small frame buffer and narrow bus struggle to feed the GPU's processing units.

The GPU's 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores are present in hardware, but the benchmark results suggest they provide little practical benefit in this title at the tested configurations. The fp32 throughput of 7.127 TFLOPS is adequate for 1080p gaming, yet the pixel rate of 55.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 111.4 GTexel/s become bottlenecks as resolution increases. The data implies that the RTX 3050's compute capabilities are not the limiting factor; rather, the memory subsystem — both capacity and bandwidth — caps performance when the game demands larger textures and higher buffer sizes at 1440p and 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS drops from 1080p to 4K reveal a system that is heavily GPU-bound, with the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads providing ample headroom. At the Low preset, performance falls from 83.4 FPS at 1080p to 65.7 FPS at 1440p (a 21% reduction) and then to 41.4 FPS at 4K (a 50% reduction from 1440p). This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU that runs out of memory bandwidth or capacity as pixel count rises, rather than a CPU limitation.

The High preset shows an even steeper decline: 54.7 FPS at 1080p, 42.6 FPS at 1440p, and 26.8 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most punishing, dropping from 48 FPS at 1080p to 34 FPS at 1440p and 23.8 FPS at 4K. The consistency of these drops across all settings points to the RTX 3050's 192.0 GB/s bandwidth being the fundamental constraint, as the GPU's compute units are likely idle waiting for data from the 4 GB frame buffer. The data suggests that resolution scaling is nearly linear with pixel count, indicating no unexpected CPU bottlenecks even at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 3050 delivers its best results. The Low preset achieves 83.4 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset. Medium follows at 61.6 FPS, High at 54.7 FPS, and Ultra at 48 FPS. The spread of 35.4 FPS between Low and Ultra at 1080p shows that the GPU has enough headroom to support higher settings, but the 4 GB memory capacity may cause texture pop-in or stuttering not captured in average FPS figures.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops are substantial. Low still manages 65.7 FPS, but Medium falls to 46.8 FPS, High to 42.6 FPS, and Ultra to 34 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 1440p (18.9 FPS) is larger than the corresponding gap at 1080p (21.8 FPS), suggesting that medium-quality textures or effects are particularly demanding on the memory subsystem. At 3840x2160, all settings are below playable thresholds: Low at 41.4 FPS, Medium at 28.8 FPS, High at 26.8 FPS, and Ultra at 23.8 FPS. The 4K results indicate that this combo is not suited for that resolution, regardless of settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Control?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 83.4, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

Q: Can this system run Control at 60 FPS at 2560x1440?

A: No. The only 1440p preset that comes close is Low at 65.7 FPS, but all other presets fall below 60 FPS, with Medium at 46.8 FPS, High at 42.6 FPS, and Ultra at 34 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to Low at 1080p?

A: Ultra at 1080p delivers 48 FPS, which is 35.4 FPS lower than Low's 83.4 FPS, representing a 42% reduction in average frame rate.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. At 4K, even the Low preset only reaches 41.4 FPS, while the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are unlikely to be saturated at that resolution.

Q: What is the lowest measured average FPS in the dataset?

A: The lowest measured average FPS is 23.8, recorded at 3840x2160 with the Ultra preset.

Q: Does the 4 GB VRAM impact performance at 1080p?

A: The data does not show a definitive VRAM-related cliff at 1080p, as all settings produce playable frame rates. However, the drop from Medium to High at 1080p is only 6.9 FPS, suggesting that the GPU's memory bandwidth, not capacity, may be the more pressing constraint.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700 is a Zen 3 (Cezanne) part built on a 7 nm process with 10,700 million transistors on a 180 mm² die. It features 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, alongside 16 MB of L3 cache and 512 KB of L2 cache per core. Its memory support is DDR4 with dual-channel bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, and it connects via PCIe Gen 3 with 20 lanes.

The CPU's benchmark scores show strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 20655 and a single-core score of 2916. Its PassMark multithread score of 24303 and single-thread score of 3296 place it in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27220. Compared to its nearest rivals, the Ryzen 7 5700 is essentially tied with the Intel Core i9-9900K (0.7% faster), Intel Core i7-12700H (0.8% faster), Intel Core i7-1370P (0.8% faster), and AMD Ryzen AI 5 340 (1.2% faster). In Control, the CPU's performance is likely more than sufficient, as the FPS scaling across resolutions follows a GPU-bound pattern, with no signs of CPU-induced frame rate plateaus.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5700 and RTX 3050 4 GB ranks 1468 out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the bottom 10% of systems. This low ranking is primarily attributable to the GPU's 4 GB memory capacity and 128-bit bus, which severely limit performance at higher resolutions. The CPU's strong synthetic benchmarks — including a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 20655 and a PassMark multithread score of 24303 — indicate that the processor is far more capable than the GPU in this pairing.

The ranking implies that while the CPU sits in the 84th percentile of all processors, the GPU's 50th percentile standing drags the overall combo down. The measured FPS data confirms this imbalance: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 83.4 FPS, but the GPU's limitations become apparent at 1440p and 4K, where even the lowest settings fail to maintain smooth performance. For a game like Control, which can be demanding on memory bandwidth, this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming with moderate settings, and its rank of 1468 out of 1636 reflects that narrow sweet spot.