Control

Control, Remedy’s 2019 action-adventure, presents a demanding mix of physics-heavy environments and particle effects. The benchmark data for the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT combination reveals a configuration that is heavily skewed toward GPU performance, with the processor providing ample headroom across all tested settings and resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern as resolution increases. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces an average of 131.7 FPS. Moving to 1440p reduces this to 101.9 FPS, a drop of approximately 23% from the 1080p figure. The transition to 4K is more punishing, with the average falling to 69.7 FPS, which is roughly 32% lower than the 1440p result and 47% lower than the 1080p baseline. This steep decline at 4K indicates that the rendering workload is expanding faster than the GPU’s pixel throughput can accommodate, despite the card’s substantial 800.0 GB/s memory bandwidth.

The scaling pattern across the Low preset further clarifies the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 205.9 FPS, which drops to 159.6 FPS at 1440p and 108.6 FPS at 4K. The relative drops from 1080p to 1440p (22%) and from 1440p to 4K (32%) are nearly identical to those seen at High settings. This consistency suggests that even at Low settings, where the CPU workload is relatively heavier, the GPU remains the primary limiter. The fact that 4K Low (108.6 FPS) is still faster than 1080p Ultra (115.2 FPS) is telling; it demonstrates that the GPU has enough raw power to handle a higher resolution as long as the visual complexity is reduced, but the frame rate ceiling is ultimately dictated by the graphics card’s ability to process fragments and shaders.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this pairing. Its specifications are substantial: 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, with a memory clock of 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective) yielding that 800.0 GB/s bandwidth. The GPU has 5376 shading units, 336 TMUs, and 192 ROPs, with a boost clock of 2394 MHz. These figures translate to a pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s, which are the metrics most relevant to Control’s environment-heavy rendering.

The benchmark data shows that the GPU’s performance ceiling is reached at the Ultra preset. At 4K Ultra, the system averages 58.2 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS threshold many consider playable. At 1440p Ultra, the average rises to 87.9 FPS, and at 1080p Ultra it reaches 115.2 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra settings is significant: at 4K, High yields 69.7 FPS versus 58.2 FPS for Ultra, a difference of 11.5 FPS. This suggests that Ultra settings impose a particularly heavy load on the GPU’s shader units, likely due to enhanced volumetric lighting and reflection effects that are characteristic of the game’s brutalist architecture. The GPU’s 82nd percentile ranking among all GPUs and its average benchmark score of 38358 confirm that it is a high-end part, but Control’s Ultra preset still manages to push it to its limits at 4K.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, is not the limiting factor in this game. Its base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 4.70 GHz, combined with a 32 MB L3 cache, provide ample single-thread performance for the game’s logic and physics calculations. The CPU’s benchmark scores support this: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23571 and a single-core score of 3327. In 3DMark’s 16-thread test, it scores 7586, while the single-thread test yields 943.

The evidence from the measured FPS rows points to CPU headroom. At 1080p Low, where the GPU load is lightest, the system produces 205.9 FPS. This is a very high frame rate, but it is not limited by the CPU; if the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar frame rates at higher resolutions for the same settings, which is not the case. The CPU’s 84th percentile ranking among all CPUs and its average benchmark score of 27606 place it in the upper tier, but its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5800 (deltaPct 0.3) and the Intel Core i5-12600KF (deltaPct -0.8). These close margins indicate that the 5800X is a solid, if not exceptional, performer in synthetic tests. In Control, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU without stalling, and the data suggests it does so effectively, as the frame rates scale down smoothly with resolution rather than hitting a flat CPU-imposed cap.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5800X and RX 7900 XT ranks 304th out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 18.6% of all configurations. This is a strong result, though not a top-tier one. The ranking suggests that while the GPU is powerful enough to deliver high frame rates, the pairing is not optimized for absolute maximum performance in this specific title, likely because Control’s engine favors certain GPU architectures or because the CPU, while capable, does not boost the combo into the top 100.

Comparing the components individually, the GPU’s average benchmark score of 38358 is nearly identical to that of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (38349, deltaPct 0) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (38135, deltaPct 0.6). This places the RX 7900 XT in the same performance tier as those mobile parts in synthetic tests, but in actual gaming, desktop parts often have an advantage due to higher sustained clocks and thermal headroom. The CPU’s average score of 27606 is slightly above the AMD Ryzen 7 5800 (27535, deltaPct 0.3) and slightly below the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE (27708, deltaPct -0.4). In the context of Control, the combo’s 304th rank out of 1636 is respectable, and the measured FPS data shows that it can handle 1440p High (101.9 FPS) and 4K High (69.7 FPS) with ease, which are the settings most users would consider for a modern title.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal balance of visual quality and performance is found at the High preset. At 1440p High, the system delivers 101.9 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS standard and provides a smooth experience with detailed textures and effects. At 4K High, the average of 69.7 FPS is still playable and offers a significant visual upgrade over Medium, which yields 72.3 FPS at 4K. The difference between High and Ultra is substantial, with Ultra dropping to 58.2 FPS at 4K and 87.9 FPS at 1440p, while offering only marginal visual improvements that are difficult to discern in fast-paced action sequences.

For users targeting 1080p, the High preset at 131.7 FPS is excellent, but the data shows that even Medium (149.7 FPS) and Low (205.9 FPS) are viable if higher refresh rates are desired. However, the jump from High to Ultra at 1080p reduces the frame rate to 115.2 FPS, which is still smooth but represents a 12.5% performance cost. The Low preset at 1080p produces 205.9 FPS, which is more than enough for any high-refresh-rate monitor, but it sacrifices the game’s atmospheric lighting and particle effects. The recommendation is to prioritize High settings for the best visual fidelity per frame, and only drop to Medium if the 4K resolution is the primary goal and the user prefers a higher frame rate headroom, as Medium at 4K (72.3 FPS) is only slightly faster than High at 4K (69.7 FPS) but looks noticeably worse.