Control

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for this AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D + Radeon RX 5700 XT pairing in Control show a clear and expected trajectory as resolution climbs. At 1080p with High settings, the combo delivers 73 FPS average. Moving to 1440p High drops that to 55 FPS, a 25% reduction. At 4K High, the average falls further to 37 FPS, which is 49% below the 1080p figure. This pattern indicates that the graphics card is the limiting factor at higher resolutions, with the CPU providing ample headroom even at 1080p.

The scaling between Low and Ultra presets at each resolution reinforces this. At 1080p, the spread from Low (115 FPS) to Ultra (63 FPS) is 52 FPS, a substantial gap that shows the GPU is heavily taxed by the game's visual effects. At 1440p, the same preset range spans from 87 FPS (Low) down to 48 FPS (Ultra). At 4K, the Low preset still manages 59 FPS, but Ultra falls to 32 FPS. The fact that 4K Low (59 FPS) is nearly identical to 1440p High (55 FPS) suggests that the GPU's raw throughput is the dominant constraint, not the CPU or memory subsystem.

The 4K Medium preset yields 42 FPS average with a minimum of 36 FPS and a maximum of 48 FPS. This narrow band (12 FPS spread) indicates that the GPU is running near its sustained limit, with little room for variance. In contrast, the 1080p Medium preset shows a wider 24 FPS spread (70 to 94 FPS), which is typical for a system where the GPU has more headroom and frame times fluctuate more freely.

What does this mean for the limiting component? At 1080p, the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient to feed the GPU, as evidenced by the high frame rates even at Ultra. The GPU's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for 1080p but begin to show strain at 1440p and 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 32 FPS is below the 60 FPS target that most gamers prefer, indicating that this combo is best suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming, with 4K reserved for lower presets.

The percentile rankings support this interpretation. The GPU sits at the 59th percentile among all GPUs in the database, while the CPU is at the 80th percentile among all CPUs. This 21-point gap suggests the CPU is the stronger component in this pairing, and the resolution scaling data confirms that the GPU becomes the bottleneck as pixel count rises. At 1080p, the system is likely CPU-bound in some scenes, but the overall trend points to the GPU as the primary limiter for higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of presets for this combo in Control. At 1080p, the High preset delivers 73 FPS average, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The Ultra preset drops to 63 FPS, still playable but with less margin. The Medium preset sits at 82 FPS, offering a good balance between visual fidelity and performance. The Low preset reaches 115 FPS, which is ideal for competitive play or high-refresh-rate monitors, but it sacrifices the game's atmospheric effects.

For 1440p, the High preset produces 55 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS target but still playable for a single-player action game. The Medium preset yields 62 FPS, edging closer to the target. The Low preset hits 87 FPS, providing a smoother experience at the cost of visual quality. The Ultra preset falls to 48 FPS, which may be acceptable for slower-paced exploration but will feel less responsive during combat.

At 4K, the situation becomes more constrained. The Medium preset delivers 42 FPS average with a minimum of 36 FPS, which is on the edge of playability. The Low preset reaches 59 FPS, making it the only 4K option that approaches 60 FPS. The High preset drops to 37 FPS, and Ultra falls to 32 FPS, both of which are likely to feel stuttery during fast action sequences.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on the player's priority. For a consistent 60 FPS experience, 1080p High is the sweet spot, offering 73 FPS with a substantial visual upgrade over Low. For 1440p, Medium at 62 FPS is the recommended choice, as it provides a better frame rate than High (55 FPS) while retaining more detail than Low (87 FPS). For 4K, Low at 59 FPS is the only viable option for near-60 FPS gameplay, though players willing to accept 40-50 FPS may prefer Medium for its improved visuals.

It is notably the Medium preset at each resolution consistently outperforms the High preset by a meaningful margin: 9 FPS at 1080p (82 vs 73), 7 FPS at 1440p (62 vs 55), and 5 FPS at 4K (42 vs 37). This suggests that the game's High preset includes effects that are disproportionately expensive for the GPU, and Medium offers a better performance-to-quality trade-off for this hardware.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the workhorse of this combo, and its specifications directly influence the measured results. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming but may cause texture streaming issues at 4K Ultra, where the 32 FPS result indicates the GPU is running out of both compute and memory headroom.

The GPU's clock speeds are notable: a base clock of 1605 MHz, a game clock of 1755 MHz, and a boost clock of 1905 MHz. These clocks, combined with 2560 shading units and 160 texture mapping units, produce a pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 304.8 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is rated at 9.754 TFLOPS. These numbers explain why the GPU can handle 1080p Ultra at 63 FPS but struggles to maintain 4K High at 37 FPS.

The GPU's 64 ROPs are adequate for the pixel fill demands at 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the ROP count becomes a limiting factor. The 4K Medium result of 42 FPS, with a minimum of 36 FPS, suggests that the GPU is often waiting on memory or ROP throughput, rather than being purely compute-bound. The GPU's position at the 59th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 16361, places it in the mid-range tier. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (0.1% faster), the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (0.3% slower), and the AMD Radeon PRO W7500 (0.3% slower). These deltas are negligible, indicating that the RX 5700 XT's performance is well-characterized and consistent within its class.

The GPU's 7 nm process node and 10,300 million transistors on a 251 mm² die give it a transistor density of 41.0M / mm². This is a mature design that has been on the market since its release in 2019. The GPU supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which covers Control's requirements. The PCIe 4.0 x16 interface ensures no bandwidth bottleneck with the CPU, which also supports PCIe Gen 4.

In practice, the GPU's 8 GB VRAM is the most likely constraint at 4K. The 4K High preset (37 FPS) and 4K Ultra (32 FPS) both fall below 40 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is hitting memory capacity limits or bandwidth saturation. At 1080p and 1440p, the VRAM is sufficient, and the frame rates scale more predictably with preset changes.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for Control, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT ranks 2767 out of 3720 combos. This places it in the 74th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly a quarter of configurations perform better, while three-quarters perform worse. This ranking reflects the GPU's mid-range standing more than the CPU's higher-tier position.

The rank of 2767 indicates that this combo is not a top-tier performer for Control, but it is far from the bottom. The GPU's 59th percentile among all GPUs, combined with the CPU's 80th percentile, suggests that the combo is held back by the graphics card. If the CPU were paired with a stronger GPU, the ranking would likely improve significantly, as the CPU has headroom to drive higher frame rates.

The nearest rival combos in the database, based on average benchmark scores, are not directly comparable to this pairing's in-game rank, but the CPU's rivals provide context. The CPU's average benchmark score of 27896 is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (27887, 0% delta), the Intel Core i9-10900K (27872, 0.1% delta), and the AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 (27932, -0.1% delta). These scores are all within 0.3% of each other, indicating that the 5800X3D is a solid performer in synthetic tests, but the in-game ranking is dominated by the GPU.

The combo rank of 2767 out of 3720 means that for Control specifically, this system is likely to deliver playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but it will not compete with high-end configurations at 4K. The data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor, and users seeking higher rankings would need to upgrade the graphics card first.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a 5000-series processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 3 architecture (codenamed Vermeer). It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.50 GHz, with a TDP of 105 W. The CPU features a 96 MB shared L3 cache, which is a key differentiator for gaming workloads, as it reduces memory latency and improves data locality.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 884 in 3DMark single-thread, 7299 in 16-thread, and 7285 in max-thread tests. Its Cinebench R23 scores are 1452 single-core and 14317 multi-core. Geekbench results show 2017 single-core and 11765 multi-core. These numbers indicate strong multi-threaded performance, which is relevant for Control's physics and AI systems, but the game is not heavily CPU-bound at 1080p, as evidenced by the frame rates.

The CPU's 80th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27896, places it in the upper tier of processors. Its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (0% delta), Intel Core i9-10900K (0.1% delta), and AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 (-0.1% delta). These deltas are so small that they are effectively negligible, meaning the 5800X3D's synthetic performance is on par with these competitors.

In Control, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and handle game logic. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 115 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's limit for this game. At 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 63 FPS, indicating that the GPU is the bottleneck at higher presets. The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for Control, which is not known for extreme CPU demands.

The L3 cache of 96 MB is particularly beneficial for gaming, as it can hold larger portions of the game's working set, reducing the need to access slower system memory. The CPU supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is adequate for the GPU's needs. The PCIe Gen 4 interface with 20 lanes ensures that the GPU has full bandwidth for data transfer.

At 4K, the CPU's performance becomes even less relevant, as the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. The 4K Low result of 59 FPS is likely close to the GPU's maximum at that resolution, with the CPU providing no constraint. This suggests that for users who plan to upgrade the GPU in the future, the 5800X3D has enough headroom to support a more powerful graphics card without becoming a bottleneck.

FAQ

*Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with High settings in Control?*

A: The combo delivers 73 FPS average at 1920x1080 with High settings, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra preset perform?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 32, which is below playable levels for most users. The Low preset at 4K achieves 59 FPS, making it the only 4K option near 60 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1440p?

A: The GPU is the bottleneck at 1440p. The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient, as evidenced by the 55 FPS at High settings, which is limited by the GPU's 8 GB memory and 9.754 TFLOPS compute.

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p gaming?

A: The Medium preset at 1440p yields 62 FPS average with a minimum of 53 FPS, which is the closest to 60 FPS among the presets (High is 55 FPS, Low is 87 FPS, Ultra is 48 FPS).

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

A: It ranks 2767 out of 3720 combos, placing it in the 74th percentile. The GPU's mid-range performance (59th percentile) holds back the CPU's higher-tier standing (80th percentile).

Q: What is the GPU's memory bandwidth and how does it affect 4K performance?

A: The GPU has 448.0 GB/s bandwidth from 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus. At 4K, this bandwidth is insufficient for High and Ultra presets, resulting in 37 FPS and 32 FPS respectively, while the Medium preset manages 42 FPS.