Control

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER combination delivers a playable, if not flawless, experience in Control, with the data revealing a system that is decisively bound by its graphics card at higher resolutions. The measured frame rates show a classic pattern of GPU limitation, where the gap between settings presets widens as resolution increases, while the 8-core, 16-thread processor provides a stable foundation that never appears to bottleneck the results.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K clearly identifies the RTX 2070 SUPER as the primary performance limiter. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces 83.6 FPS, which drops to 64.9 FPS at 2560x1440, a 22.4% reduction. Scaling further to 3840x2160 yields just 40 FPS, representing a 52.2% decline from the 1080p figure. This steep drop-off is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the increased pixel count overwhelms the graphics card's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 compute.

The pattern becomes even more telling when examining the Low preset. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 128.4 FPS, but this falls to 98.8 FPS at 1440p and 65.2 FPS at 4K. The 4K Low result is particularly interesting—it remains higher than the 4K High result of 40 FPS, but the scaling from 1440p to 4K shows a 34% drop, nearly identical to the 38.4% drop seen on the High preset. This consistency suggests that even at reduced graphical loads, the GPU's pixel throughput is the deciding factor.

What the data does not show is a corresponding CPU bottleneck. The Ryzen 7 5700X's 3.40 GHz base and 4.60 GHz boost clocks, combined with its 32 MB of shared L3 cache, appear sufficient to feed the GPU across all tested configurations. If the processor were the constraint, we would expect to see frame rates plateau at lower resolutions, particularly at 1080p Low where the 128.4 FPS result suggests headroom remains. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 6858 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22620 indicate a processor with substantial throughput, yet the game's performance scales almost entirely with resolution and settings, not with CPU headroom.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for maintaining 60+ FPS on this hardware?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 with High settings achieves 64.9 FPS, making it the highest quality preset that stays above 60 FPS. At 1920x1080, all four presets—Low at 128.4 FPS, Medium at 96.2 FPS, High at 83.6 FPS, and Ultra at 72.6 FPS—exceed the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this combination?

A: Yes, but only at lower settings. The 3840x2160 Low preset yields 65.2 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS mark. However, Medium drops to 48 FPS, High to 40 FPS, and Ultra to 37.6 FPS, indicating that 4K requires significant graphical compromises.

Q: How much performance is lost between Medium and High settings?

A: At 1080p, the drop from Medium (96.2 FPS) to High (83.6 FPS) is 13.1%. At 1440p, it is 10.5% from 72.5 FPS to 64.9 FPS. At 4K, the gap narrows to 16.7% from 48 FPS to 40 FPS, showing that High is increasingly costly at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra presets?

A: At 1080p, Ultra (72.6 FPS) is 43.4% slower than Low (128.4 FPS). At 1440p, the difference is 47.5% (51.9 FPS vs 98.8 FPS). At 4K, Ultra (37.6 FPS) is 42.3% slower than Low (65.2 FPS). The consistent percentage suggests the settings scale uniformly.

Q: How does this combo rank among other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 984th out of 1636 tested combinations for this game, placing it in the 39.9th percentile. This indicates that while it performs adequately, there are 652 other combos that achieve higher frame rates in Control.

Q: Does the CPU's multi-threading capability impact the game's performance?

A: The Ryzen 7 5700X's 16 threads and 8 cores provide ample headroom, as evidenced by the 3DMark max-thread score of 6850. The game's frame rates scale predictably with GPU load, implying the processor's thread count is not a limiting factor in these measurements.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal experience balances visual fidelity with frame rate stability. For 1920x1080, the Ultra preset at 72.6 FPS offers the highest fidelity without dropping below 60 FPS, making it the recommended choice for users with 60 Hz displays. The High preset at 83.6 FPS provides a comfortable margin for higher refresh rate monitors, while Medium at 96.2 FPS is the best option for competitive play where responsiveness is paramount.

At 2560x1440, the High preset at 64.9 FPS is the clear winner, as it maintains 60+ FPS while delivering substantial graphical improvements over Medium (72.5 FPS) and Low (98.8 FPS). The Ultra preset at 51.9 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making it suitable only for users who prioritize image quality over smoothness. For 4K, the Low preset at 65.2 FPS is the only viable option for fluid gameplay, as Medium (48 FPS) and above introduce noticeable stutter. The data indicates that High settings at 1440p or Ultra at 1080p provide the best balance of quality and performance for this hardware.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset reveals a consistent hierarchy across resolutions. At 1920x1080, the lowest measured average is 72.6 FPS on Ultra, with Low reaching 128.4 FPS, Medium at 96.2 FPS, and High at 83.6 FPS. The spread of 55.8 FPS between Low and Ultra demonstrates the GPU's ability to handle the game at this resolution without significant strain.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates compress slightly, with Low at 98.8 FPS, Medium at 72.5 FPS, High at 64.9 FPS, and Ultra at 51.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 46.9 FPS, indicating that the GPU is becoming the bottleneck. At 3840x2160, the compression continues: Low at 65.2 FPS, Medium at 48 FPS, High at 40 FPS, and Ultra at 37.6 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra shrinks to 27.6 FPS, and the gap between High and Ultra narrows to just 2.4 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional effects provide diminishing returns at this resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 984 out of 1636 tested configurations places it in the lower-middle tier of all hardware combinations tested for Control. This position reflects the RTX 2070 SUPER's age—it was released in 2019 and is now end-of-life—rather than any deficiency in the Ryzen 7 5700X. The GPU's percentile rank of 65 against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 22206, shows it remains a competent mid-range card, but it cannot compete with newer generations that feature higher memory bandwidth and more shading units.

The nearest rivals for the GPU include the NVIDIA RTX A400 (deltaPct of -0.5%), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (deltaPct of 0.9%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile (deltaPct of -2.3%). These small percentage differences indicate that the RTX 2070 SUPER sits in a crowded performance band. The CPU's nearest rivals—the Intel Core i9-11900KF (deltaPct of 0.1%) and AMD Ryzen 5 7600X (deltaPct of -0.2%)—show that the Ryzen 7 5700X is well-matched to its peers, but the overall combo rank suggests the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, based on the Zen 3 architecture and codenamed Vermeer, is built on a 7 nm process at TSMC. Its 8 cores and 16 threads operate at a base clock of 3.40 GHz and can boost to 4.60 GHz, with a 65 W TDP that keeps thermals manageable. The processor's 32 MB of shared L3 cache is substantial for gaming workloads, and its DDR4 dual-channel memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth provides adequate data throughput for Control's asset streaming.

Benchmark results show the CPU's multi-threaded strength: Cinebench R23 multi-core scores 22620, PassMark multi-thread scores 26612, and Geekbench multi-core scores 9720. Single-thread performance is also respectable, with Cinebench R23 single-core at 3193 and PassMark single-thread at 3385. These figures, combined with a percentile rank of 83 among all CPUs, indicate that the processor is far from being a bottleneck. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1821 and 4-thread score of 3512 show that even lightly-threaded workloads are handled efficiently, which is relevant for games that may not fully utilize all 16 threads.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, built on the Turing architecture using a 12 nm TSMC process, is the definitive performance constraint in this pairing. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p but strained at 4K. The GPU's base clock of 1605 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, combined with 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, deliver 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores provide hardware-accelerated ray tracing, though the measured FPS data does not specify whether these features were enabled.

The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 18169 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1651 place it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A400, scores 22307 (deltaPct of -0.5%), while the AMD Radeon RX 5700 scores 21670 (deltaPct of 2.5%). These close margins confirm that the RTX 2070 SUPER is a capable but aging card. The 4K results—particularly the 37.6 FPS on Ultra—show that the GPU's pixel fill rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s are insufficient for high-fidelity gaming at that resolution, forcing users to rely on the Low preset for acceptable performance.