Control

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Control with the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX show a predictable but steep scaling curve as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces 142 FPS average. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same High preset drops that to 107 FPS, a reduction of roughly 25%. At 3840x2160 High, the average falls further to 72 FPS, which is about 49% below the 1080p figure. This pattern indicates that the RX 7900 XTX is still the dominant factor in determining frame rates, but the CPU is not entirely idle — the gap between 1080p and 1440p is larger than the gap between 1440p and 4K in percentage terms, suggesting that at 1080p the processor is beginning to impose some ceiling on performance.

The Low preset tells a similar story. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 225 FPS average. At 1440p Low, it drops to 170 FPS, and at 4K Low it sits at 115 FPS. The absolute drop from 1080p to 1440p is 55 FPS, while from 1440p to 4K it is also 55 FPS, showing a near-linear scaling curve at the lowest settings. This is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario where the rendering load scales almost directly with pixel count — the RX 7900 XTX's 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 24 GB of GDDR6 are not the constraint at Low, but the compute throughput is being taxed evenly across resolutions.

Ultra settings amplify the resolution sensitivity. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 123 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it falls to 93 FPS, a 24% drop. At 4K Ultra, the average is 63 FPS, which is a 49% reduction from 1080p — nearly identical percentage scaling to the High preset. This tells us that the game's Ultra preset, which likely includes higher draw distances and more complex lighting, does not disproportionately burden the GPU at higher resolutions; the bottleneck remains pixel throughput rather than shader complexity.

What the resolution scaling reveals most clearly is that the RX 7900 XTX is the limiting component at every resolution and preset combination. The CPU's 3.40 GHz base clock and 4.60 GHz boost clock, with 8 cores and 16 threads, are sufficient to feed the GPU at 1080p Low, where 225 FPS is achieved without the frame rate collapsing. The fact that 4K Ultra still averages 63 FPS — above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play — indicates that the GPU's 61.39 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 479.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are being well utilized, but they are not overpowered for this title's demands.

The measured data includes minimum and maximum frames only for the Medium preset at each resolution. At 1080p Medium, the range is 136 to 184 FPS around a 160 FPS average. At 1440p Medium, the range narrows to 103 to 139 FPS around a 121 FPS average. At 4K Medium, it is 69 to 94 FPS around an 82 FPS average. This shows that as resolution increases, the frame time variance tightens relative to the average, which is typical of GPU-bound scenarios where the rendering pipeline is consistently saturated.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows for Control provide a clear picture of which preset offers the best balance between visual fidelity and frame rate for this specific hardware combination. At 1080p, the High preset delivers 142 FPS average, which is well above the refresh rate of most standard monitors. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to 123 FPS, a 13% reduction that may be noticeable in fast-paced combat but remains playable. The Medium preset at 1080p averages 160 FPS, which is 13% higher than High, but the visual difference between Medium and High in Control is typically modest — mostly affecting shadow resolution and reflection quality.

At 1440p, the High preset averages 107 FPS, which is still above 100 FPS and comfortable for most displays. The Ultra preset at 1440p falls to 93 FPS, which is within the VRR range of many gaming monitors but may show slight stutter on fixed 60 Hz panels. Medium at 1440p averages 121 FPS, a 13% improvement over High, but the visual trade-off is more pronounced at this resolution because the higher pixel density makes lower-quality textures more apparent.

At 4K, the High preset averages 72 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS baseline but not by a large margin. Ultra at 4K averages 63 FPS, which is right at the edge of smoothness — acceptable for a slower-paced action-adventure title but not ideal for twitchy sequences. Medium at 4K averages 82 FPS, providing a more comfortable margin above 60 FPS while still retaining the game's core visual identity.

The data suggests that the High preset is the sweet spot for this combo. At every resolution, High offers a frame rate that is at least 12% above the 60 FPS threshold, and it does so without the performance penalty of Ultra. The measured Medium preset at 4K provides 82 FPS, which is 30% higher than Ultra's 63 FPS, but the visual downgrade from High to Medium is generally less objectionable than from Ultra to High in this title. For players prioritizing smoothness over maximum fidelity, Medium at 4K is the recommended choice, while High at 1440p or 1080p is ideal for those with high-refresh-rate displays.

The Low preset, while achieving 225 FPS at 1080p and 170 FPS at 1440p, sacrifices too much visual quality for a game that is known for its atmospheric environments and destructible physics. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p is 160 FPS versus 225 FPS, a 29% reduction, but the visual improvement in lighting and texture detail is substantial. Given that the RX 7900 XTX can handle Medium at 4K with 82 FPS, there is no reason to settle for Low at any resolution on this hardware.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the centerpiece of this configuration, and its specifications align closely with the measured performance. The GPU is built on the Navi 31 chip using the RDNA 3.0 architecture, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC with 57,700 million transistors on a 529 mm² die. This is a large, power-hungry part, as evidenced by its 355 W TDP and dual-slot design with two 8-pin power connectors, but it delivers the compute headroom required for Control's demanding rendering.

The GPU's clock behavior is notable. The base clock is 1929 MHz, the game clock is 2365 MHz, and the boost clock reaches 2498 MHz. These are high frequencies for a GPU of this class, and they contribute to the 61.39 TFLOPS FP32 throughput that the card can sustain. The 6144 shading units and 384 texture mapping units work in concert to process the game's particle effects and geometry, while the 192 ROPs handle the final pixel output. The 96 ray tracing cores are present but Control does not heavily utilize ray tracing in its default settings, so the measured frame rates reflect traditional rasterization performance.

The memory subsystem is a defining feature. The RX 7900 XTX comes with 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, running at 2500 MHz memory clock with 20 Gbps effective speed. This yields a bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s, which is more than sufficient for a game like Control that uses high-resolution textures and streaming environments. The 4K Ultra preset averages 63 FPS, and the fact that the frame rate does not crater at this resolution suggests that memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor — the GPU's compute units are the primary constraint.

The GPU's benchmark scores contextualize its performance. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 6841. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 50465, and in Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 85612. The PassMark G3D score is 31238, which places the GPU in the 64th percentile of all GPUs in the database. The nearest rivals in the GPU benchmark list are notably older or lower-tier parts — the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB (0.4% higher average score), NVIDIA Quadro K5200 (1% lower), AMD FirePro D300 (1.2% lower), and NVIDIA TITAN Xp (1.2% higher). These comparisons are based on average benchmark scores, which include non-gaming workloads, so they do not directly reflect Control's specific performance, but they do indicate that the RX 7900 XTX's synthetic test results are comparable to a range of very different hardware.

The GPU's production status is listed as end-of-life, and its launch MSRP was 999 USD. The card is physically large, measuring 287 mm in length, 110 mm in height, and 51 mm in width, which is worth noting for case compatibility. The display outputs include one HDMI 2.1a, two DisplayPort 2.1, and one USB Type-C, providing flexible connectivity for multiple monitors.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for Control, this specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX ranks 536 out of 3720 total combos. This places it in the top 14.4% of all tested configurations, which is a strong result given that the CPU is a mid-range part from the 5000 series while the GPU is a flagship RDNA 3.0 card. The rank reflects the fact that Control is not an exceptionally demanding game by modern standards — the 4K Ultra average of 63 FPS is respectable but not record-breaking, and the 1080p Low average of 225 FPS shows that the GPU has headroom that is not fully utilized at lower resolutions.

The combo rank is determined by the measured FPS across all resolution and settings combinations, and it is important to note that this rank is relative to all other CPU-GPU pairs in the database, not just those with similar hardware. A system with a faster CPU might achieve higher frame rates at 1080p Low, where the CPU becomes more relevant, but the overall rank would still be dominated by the GPU's performance at 4K. The Ryzen 7 5700X's 3DMark scores — 6858 in the 16-thread test, 5768 in the 8-thread test, 3512 in the 4-thread test, and 921 in the single-thread test — indicate that this CPU is capable of keeping up with the GPU in most scenarios, but it is not the strongest possible pairing.

The rank of 536 out of 3720 means that there are 535 combos that perform better in this game, likely including configurations with newer CPUs like the Ryzen 7 5800 (which has a 0.2% higher average benchmark score) or the Ryzen 5 7600X (which is 0.2% lower). However, the delta between these CPUs is minimal — the Intel Core i5-12600K matches the Ryzen 7 5700X exactly in average benchmark score (27578), and the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H is only 0.3% higher. This suggests that the CPU choice has a minor impact on the overall combo rank for Control, and the RX 7900 XTX is doing the heavy lifting.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X is a Zen 3 architecture part, codenamed Vermeer, built on TSMC's 7 nm process with 4,150 million transistors on a 74 mm² die. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. The TDP is 65 watts, which is modest for an 8-core part, and the CPU supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus providing 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3. The CPU uses AMD Socket AM4 and supports PCIe Gen 4 with 20 lanes.

In terms of raw compute, the Ryzen 7 5700X scores 13184 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 1499 in single-core. In Geekbench, it scores 10779 multicore and 2016 single-core. The 3DMark scores indicate strong multi-threaded scaling, with the 16-thread score of 6858 almost identical to the max-thread score of 6850, meaning the CPU is fully utilizing its 16 threads in that workload. The PassMark scores show 92749 in integer math, 51842 in floating point math, and 26612 in multithreaded tasks.

For Control, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics updates. The game is not heavily CPU-threaded, so the Ryzen 7 5700X's 8 cores are more than adequate. The frame rate difference between 1080p Low (225 FPS) and 1080p Medium (160 FPS) is 65 FPS, which is a 29% reduction, and this is likely due to increased GPU load rather than CPU limitations. However, the fact that 225 FPS is achievable at 1080p Low suggests that the CPU is not capping performance at that level — the GPU is still the bottleneck.

The CPU's percentile ranking among all CPUs is 79, and its average benchmark score is 27578. The nearest rivals are the Intel Core i5-12600K (0% delta), AMD Ryzen 7 5800 (0.2% higher), AMD Ryzen 5 7600X (0.2% lower), and Intel Core Ultra 5 125H (0.3% higher). These are all modern mid-range to upper-mid-range processors, and the performance differences are within noise. For Control, the CPU choice is unlikely to be the deciding factor between playable and unplayable frame rates — the GPU is the clear determinant.

The CPU's memory support is DDR4 with ECC capability, which is a legacy feature of the AM4 platform. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps with gaming workloads that benefit from larger caches, but Control's engine is not particularly cache-sensitive. The 4.60 GHz boost clock is sufficient for the game's single-threaded portions, and the 3DMark single-thread score of 921 indicates solid per-core performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Control with this combo covers four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) at three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160), for a total of 12 data points. Each entry provides an average FPS, and the Medium preset also includes minimum and maximum FPS values.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 225 FPS average. The Medium preset averages 160 FPS, with a minimum of 136 FPS and a maximum of 184 FPS. The High preset averages 142 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 123 FPS. This gives a spread of 102 FPS between Low and Ultra at 1080p, indicating that the visual settings have a significant impact on performance at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 170 FPS. The Medium preset averages 121 FPS, with a minimum of 103 FPS and a maximum of 139 FPS. The High preset averages 107 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 93 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 77 FPS, which is narrower than at 1080p, reflecting the increased GPU load at higher pixel counts.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 115 FPS. The Medium preset averages 82 FPS, with a minimum of 69 FPS and a maximum of 94 FPS. The High preset averages 72 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 63 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is 52 FPS, the smallest of the three resolutions.

The frame time data from the Medium preset is informative. At 1080p, the difference between minimum and maximum is 48 FPS (136 to 184), which is a 35% variance around the average. At 1440p, the difference is 36 FPS (103 to 139), a 30% variance. At 4K, the difference is 25 FPS (69 to 94), a 30% variance. This shows that the frame pacing is consistent across resolutions, with no signs of CPU stutter or GPU hiccups.

The scaling from Low to Ultra at each resolution is roughly linear: at 1080p, the FPS drops by 45% from Low to Ultra (225 to 123); at 1440p, it drops by 45% (170 to 93); at 4K, it drops by 45% (115 to 63). This consistency suggests that the game's settings presets scale the rendering load uniformly, and the RX 7900 XTX handles the increased load predictably.

The absolute numbers confirm that this combo is capable of running Control at 4K with playable frame rates on all presets. The lowest measured average is 63 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is above the 60 FPS threshold. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset exceeds 120 FPS, making it suitable for high-refresh-rate displays. The data is measured, not estimated, meaning these figures come from actual benchmark runs rather than theoretical calculations.