Control

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D and Radeon RX 6700 XT combination delivers a solid, if not spectacular, experience in Control, a 2019 Action Adventure title. The measured data reveals a system that prioritizes high refresh rates at 1080p and 1440p, while 4K requires careful settings management to stay playable. This analysis breaks down the measured frame rates, the GPU's role, and the best settings for this pairing.

Settings Recommendations

For this specific CPU and GPU pairing, the benchmark data suggests that Medium settings provide the optimal balance between visual fidelity and performance across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium yields an average of 100.8 FPS, which is a substantial 23.3% improvement over High settings (89.8 FPS) while retaining a significant portion of the visual upgrades that push the game to its Ultra preset.

The case for Medium becomes even stronger at higher resolutions. At 2560x1440, Medium produces 77.1 FPS, comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, whereas High dips to 66 FPS and Ultra falls to 59.2 FPS. At 3840x2160, Medium is the only preset besides Low that manages to keep the average frame rate above 50 FPS, hitting 51.1 FPS.

While Ultra settings are tempting, the data shows a clear penalty. At 1440p, Ultra is 30.2% slower than Medium, and at 4K, the gap widens to a 31.4% deficit. For players with high-refresh-rate monitors at 1080p or 1440p, the jump from Medium to High is not worth the average frame rate loss of 11 FPS and 11.1 FPS, respectively. Low settings should be reserved for competitive play or when targeting maximum frame rates, as it unlocks 144.8 FPS at 1080p and 108.3 FPS at 1440p, but sacrifices the game's atmospheric lighting and detail.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the primary driver of performance in Control, as evidenced by the scaling of frame rates with resolution. The GPU's 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, is sufficient for the game's assets at all tested settings. The card's 2560 shading units and 160 TMUs, paired with a boost clock of 2581 MHz, deliver a pixel rate of 165.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 413.0 GTexel/s, which are the resources being taxed by the game's physics and particle effects.

The data indicates that the GPU's raw compute power, rated at 13.21 TFLOPS FP32, is the limiting factor as resolution increases. The transition from 1080p to 1440p on High settings results in a 26.5% frame rate drop (89.8 to 66 FPS), and moving to 4K on the same preset causes a further 33.5% drop (66 to 43.9 FPS). This consistent degradation across resolutions points directly at the graphics card being the bottleneck, rather than the CPU. The Ryzen 7 5700X3D, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, appears to be feeding the GPU adequately, as the frame rate scales predictably with the rendering load.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and predictable performance curve as resolution scales from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. On the High preset, the average frame rate drops from 89.8 FPS at 1080p, to 66 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 43.9 FPS at 4K. This represents a 51% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K. The pattern is consistent across all settings presets.

For Medium settings, the drop is from 100.8 FPS at 1080p to 77.1 FPS at 1440p (a 23.5% decrease), and then to 51.1 FPS at 4K (a further 33.7% decrease). The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling loss, falling from 77.5 FPS at 1080p to 59.2 FPS at 1440p and then to 38.9 FPS at 4K. This steep decline at 4K, particularly on higher presets, confirms that the RX 6700 XT's 192-bit memory interface and compute resources are overwhelmed by the pixel count. The game becomes increasingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, and the frame rate scaling reflects this physical limitation. The fact that Low settings at 4K (71.5 FPS) still outpaces High at 4K (43.9 FPS) by 62.9% highlights how much of the GPU's budget is consumed by the High and Ultra presets' effects.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured average frame rates for this configuration is as follows:

1920x1080

• Low: 144.8 FPS
• Medium: 100.8 FPS
• High: 89.8 FPS
• Ultra: 77.5 FPS

2560x1440

• Low: 108.3 FPS
• Medium: 77.1 FPS
• High: 66 FPS
• Ultra: 59.2 FPS

3840x2160

• Low: 71.5 FPS
• Medium: 51.1 FPS
• High: 43.9 FPS
• Ultra: 38.9 FPS

At 1080p, the system is highly capable, with even Ultra settings clearing the 60 FPS mark. The 144.8 FPS result on Low suggests this pairing can drive high-refresh-rate 1080p displays in this title. Moving to 1440p, the system remains viable for High settings at 66 FPS, but Medium is the safer choice for maintaining a higher average. At 4K, the data shows that only Low settings provide a fully smooth experience above 60 FPS, with Medium being the maximum playable preset at just over 50 FPS. The performance delta between Low and Ultra at 4K is 45.6%, demonstrating the significant cost of the Ultra preset's advanced rendering features.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best overall settings preset for this CPU/GPU combo in Control?*

A: The data suggests Medium is the optimal choice, as it delivers 100.8 FPS at 1080p, 77.1 FPS at 1440p, and 51.1 FPS at 4K, striking the best balance between the Low and High presets' performance and visual quality.

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

A: Yes, but with caveats. The measured data shows 4K is playable only on Low (71.5 FPS) or Medium (51.1 FPS) settings. High and Ultra presets fall below 44 FPS, which is not ideal for smooth gameplay.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: On the High preset, the average frame rate drops from 89.8 FPS to 66 FPS, a 26.5% decrease. The relative drop is similar across all presets, indicating a consistent GPU-bound scaling pattern.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is the clear bottleneck. This is evidenced by the significant frame rate drops at higher resolutions (e.g., 51% reduction from 1080p to 4K on High), which is a classic sign of graphics card limitation, not CPU performance.

*Q: Is the RX 6700 XT's 12 GB of VRAM sufficient for Control?*

A: Yes, the 12 GB of GDDR6 memory with 384.0 GB/s bandwidth appears to be sufficient, as the frame rate scaling is consistent with compute limitations rather than memory capacity or bandwidth constraints at the tested settings.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems for this game?

A: This specific pairing ranks 903 out of 1636 total tested combinations in the game's benchmark database, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all system configurations.