Control

# Control with AMD Ryzen 7 5700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers strong frame rates in Control across all tested resolutions. At 1080p High settings, the combo averages 156 FPS, while 1440p High drops to 118 FPS and 4K High settles at 79 FPS. This places the combination in the 91st percentile of all tested CPU-GPU pairings for this game, ranking 325th out of 3,720 combos. The data indicates a system that can handle Control at high refresh rates at 1440p and remains comfortably playable at 4K, though the frame rate scaling shows an increasingly GPU-bound workload as resolution climbs.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS rows show a clear pattern: each step up in resolution costs roughly 25-30% of the average frame rate at the same settings preset. Starting from 1080p High at 156 FPS, moving to 1440p High reduces performance to 118 FPS, a drop of about 24%. Going further to 4K High yields 79 FPS, another 33% reduction from 1440p. This scaling is typical for a game like Control, which uses heavy post-processing and particle effects that stress the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth as pixel count increases.

At Low settings, the same progression appears: 226 FPS at 1080p, 186 FPS at 1440p (down 18%), and 126 FPS at 4K (down 32% from 1440p). The 4K-to-1080p ratio at Low is 55.8%, meaning 4K delivers just over half the frame rate of 1080p. At High settings, the 4K-to-1080p ratio is 50.6%, indicating that higher quality presets amplify the resolution penalty slightly—the GPU is working harder per pixel, so adding pixels costs more proportionally.

The Medium preset tells a similar story with min/max data available: at 1080p Medium, the range is 149-201 FPS with a 175 FPS average; at 1440p Medium, it's 113-152 FPS with a 132 FPS average; at 4K Medium, it's 76-103 FPS with an 89 FPS average. The frame time consistency, inferred from the min/max spread, tightens at higher resolutions—the 4K Medium range is 27 FPS wide versus 52 FPS at 1080p—suggesting that at 4K the GPU is saturated and frame pacing becomes more uniform, while at 1080p CPU or driver overhead introduces more variance.

The bottleneck analysis is straightforward. At 1080p Low, 226 FPS is far beyond what most 60 Hz or 144 Hz displays can show, and the CPU's single-thread performance becomes the limiting factor. At 4K Ultra, 69 FPS is below the 70 FPS threshold that many gamers consider the floor for smooth play, and the RTX 4080's 716.8 GB/s memory bandwidth and 9728 shading units are clearly the constraint. The sweet spot for this combo is 1440p, where even Ultra settings maintain 102 FPS, but the data shows the GPU still has headroom at 1080p for those chasing maximum refresh rates.

Settings Recommendations

For 1440p displays, the High preset at 118 FPS is the balanced choice—it provides a 16% improvement over Ultra's 102 FPS while maintaining visual quality that most players would find indistinguishable in fast-paced action. The Medium preset at 132 FPS offers another 12% gain over High, but the visual cutbacks in Control's lighting and reflection quality are noticeable in darker environments. If a player owns a 144 Hz 1440p monitor, Medium's 132 FPS average (with a 113 FPS minimum) is the only preset that consistently stays above the refresh ceiling.

At 4K, the situation is different. Ultra at 69 FPS is below the 70 FPS marker, so dropping to High at 79 FPS is mandatory for a smooth experience. Medium at 89 FPS is the best option for 4K gamers with 60 Hz displays—it keeps the average well above the refresh rate and the 76 FPS minimum ensures no drops below 60. Low at 126 FPS is overkill for most 4K panels and sacrifices too much visual fidelity for no practical benefit.

For 1080p, the data shows that even Ultra at 135 FPS is sufficient for 120 Hz displays, and High at 156 FPS covers 144 Hz panels. The Low preset at 226 FPS only matters for 240 Hz esports-style monitors, but Control is a single-player action game where visual quality matters more than raw frame rate. The recommendation is to start at High for 1080p, raise to Ultra if the display supports it, and only drop to Medium if the 149 FPS minimum at that preset is needed for a specific refresh rate target.

The measured rows don't include ray tracing or DLSS settings, which Control supports, but the base presets indicate that the RTX 4080 has enough raw throughput to enable those features at 1440p without dropping below 60 FPS. The 16 GB of VRAM is not a limiting factor at any resolution in this data—the frame rate differences between presets are driven by compute load, not memory capacity.

GPU Role

The RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this pairing for Control, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling across resolutions. The GPU's 9728 shading units and 304 texture mapping units, combined with a 256-bit memory bus feeding 16 GB of GDDR6X at 716.8 GB/s, provide the bandwidth necessary for Control's texture streaming and volumetric effects. The boost clock of 2505 MHz and base clock of 2205 MHz are relatively close, indicating the card maintains high clocks under sustained load.

The GPU's benchmark profile reinforces its capability: a PassMark G3D score of 34,457 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,567 place it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 54,247 is nearly identical to the RTX 4080 SUPER (54,209, a 0.1% delta), meaning this card performs within a rounding error of its successor. The nearest rivals in the benchmark data are the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54,828, 1.1% higher) and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698, 2.6% higher), though those are workstation and lower-tier gaming cards respectively—the RTX 4080's real competition is the SUPER variant, which offers no measurable advantage in synthetic tests.

In Control specifically, the GPU's 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 280.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are the key specifications. At 4K, the 8.3 million pixels per frame require substantial pixel shading throughput, and the card's 112 ROPs handle the final output. The 76 RT cores are present but not directly exercised in the measured presets, which don't include ray tracing—if enabled, expect a significant frame rate hit based on the card's RT capabilities, but the data here is for rasterized rendering only.

The GPU's 320 W TDP and triple-slot cooler mean this is a power-hungry, physically large card (310 mm long), but the performance per watt is excellent for the era. The 1x 16-pin power connector and 700 W suggested PSU are worth noting for system builders. The card's End-of-life production status and launch MSRP of 1,199 USD position it as a high-end part that has since been superseded, but the benchmark data shows it remains competitive with current offerings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 325 out of 3,720 tested combinations places this pairing in the top 8.7% of all CPU-GPU combos for Control. This is a strong result, but not elite—the top ranks are typically occupied by newer CPUs like the Ryzen 7000 series or Intel 13th/14th gen paired with RTX 4090-class GPUs. The 5700X is a Zen 3 part from 2022, and while it holds its own, the 4-year-old architecture limits the combo's ceiling.

The rank reflects the balance between CPU and GPU. The RTX 4080 is a top-tier GPU, and the 5700X is a solid mid-range to upper-mid-range CPU from its generation. In a game like Control, which is not heavily CPU-threaded beyond 8 cores, the 5700X's 8 cores and 16 threads are sufficient, but the single-thread performance (3DMark single-thread score of 921, Cinebench R23 single-core of 1,499) is what matters most for frame pacing at high FPS.

Compared to the CPU's nearest rivals, the 5700X's average benchmark score of 27,578 exactly matches the Intel Core i5-12600K (0% delta), is 0.2% above the AMD Ryzen 7 5800 (27,535), and 0.2% below the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X (27,636). These are all within noise, meaning the CPU choice among these four won't meaningfully change Control's frame rates—the GPU is the deciding factor. The 5700X's 79th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms it's above average, but not a top-tier part.

The GPU's rank is more impressive: 86th percentile, with an average score of 54,247 that's within 0.1% of the RTX 4080 SUPER. This means the combo's 325th rank is not due to GPU weakness—it's the CPU holding back the pairing's overall position. In Control's measured FPS, the 1080p Low result of 226 FPS is likely CPU-limited, as the GPU could push higher if the CPU could feed it faster.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 5700X contributes 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, clocked at 3.40 GHz base and 4.60 GHz boost. Its 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 4 MB of L2 (512 KB per core) provide ample on-die storage for game data. The 7 nm TSMC process node and 4,150 million transistors on a 74 mm² die enable efficient operation at a 65 W TDP, making this a power-sipping CPU that doesn't require exotic cooling.

In Control, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics updates. The game's engine, Remedy's Northlight, is known for using multiple threads effectively, but the 5700X's single-thread performance (3DMark single-thread score of 921, Geekbench single-core of 2,016, PassMark single-thread of 3,385) determines the maximum FPS ceiling at lower resolutions. The 1080p Low result of 226 FPS is likely near this ceiling, as the GPU is not fully utilized at that resolution and settings.

The multi-threaded benchmarks show the CPU's capability: Cinebench R23 multicore of 13,184 and 3DMark max-thread score of 6,850. These scores indicate the 5700X can handle Control's thread distribution, which typically uses 4-8 threads for game logic, rendering, and audio. The 3DMark 8-thread score of 5,768 versus the max-thread score of 6,850 shows that scaling beyond 8 threads yields only a 19% improvement, meaning Control likely doesn't benefit from the full 16 threads.

The CPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores are all within 0.3% of its average, so any of these CPUs would perform nearly identically in Control. This means the 5700X is not a bottleneck in most scenarios—the GPU is the limiting factor above 1080p Medium. At 1080p Low, the CPU's single-thread performance becomes relevant, and the 4.60 GHz boost clock is sufficient to drive high frame rates, but a newer CPU like the Ryzen 5 7600X (with its 0.2% higher average score) might push a few more FPS in that specific scenario.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and AM4 socket compatibility make it an easy drop-in upgrade for existing builds, and its 4,150 million transistors on 7 nm give it excellent efficiency. The 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth from dual-channel DDR4 is adequate for Control, though DDR5 platforms would offer slightly higher bandwidth—the game's data shows no memory-bound behavior at the tested settings.

FAQ

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 118 FPS at 2560x1440 with the High preset. This is well above 60 FPS and suitable for 120 Hz displays. The Ultra preset drops to 102 FPS, while Medium reaches 132 FPS.

Q: Is this combo capable of 4K gaming in Control?

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 4K High, the average is 79 FPS, and at Medium it's 89 FPS with a 76 FPS minimum. Ultra drops to 69 FPS, which is below the 70 FPS threshold for smooth play. For 60 Hz 4K displays, Medium or High is recommended.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 in this combo compare to the RTX 4080 SUPER?

A: In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 4080 scores 54,247 on average, while the RTX 4080 SUPER scores 54,209—a delta of 0.1% in favor of the standard 4080, which is within measurement noise. In practice, there is no meaningful performance difference.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 5700X a bottleneck for the RTX 4080 in this game?

A: Only at 1080p Low settings, where the average FPS of 226 likely approaches the CPU's single-thread limit. At 1440p and 4K, the GPU is the limiting factor, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling—the 4K High result of 79 FPS is 49% lower than 1080p High's 156 FPS, indicating GPU-bound behavior.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 144 Hz 1440p monitor?

A: The Medium preset at 132 FPS average, with a 113 FPS minimum, is the only preset that keeps the frame rate above 144 Hz consistently. High at 118 FPS will dip below 144 Hz at times. Ultra at 102 FPS is not sufficient for 144 Hz.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all tested CPU-GPU pairings?

A: It ranks 325th out of 3,720 combos, placing it in the top 8.7% of all tested systems for Control. The CPU's 79th percentile and GPU's 86th percentile rankings show that the GPU is the stronger component, but the pairing is well-balanced for this game.