Control

Control is a demanding Action Adventure title, and the measured data for this pairing of an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and an AMD Radeon RX 580 shows a system that is firmly bound by the graphics card at nearly every setting. The benchmark results indicate that while the CPU is capable of delivering high frame rates, the GPU’s GCN 4.0 architecture is the primary constraint, making preset selection and resolution targets critical for a playable experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows make it clear that the "Ultra" preset is not a viable option for this configuration. At 1920x1080, Ultra delivers an average of 37.3 FPS, which is only marginally better than the "High" preset's 38.3 FPS, yet it demands more from the hardware. The performance penalty becomes much more severe at higher resolutions, with Ultra dropping to 28.5 FPS at 2560x1440 and a slideshow-like 18.4 FPS at 3840x2160. The data shows that the visual fidelity gains from Ultra do not justify the frame rate cost, especially when High settings provide nearly identical performance at 1080p.

For the best balance of visual quality and fluidity, the "High" preset is the recommended starting point. At 1920x1080, High achieves an average of 38.3 FPS, which is a playable baseline for this genre. However, if a smoother experience is prioritized, dropping to "Medium" yields a 43 FPS average at 1080p, a 12% improvement over High. The jump from Medium to Low is substantial, however, with Low hitting 62.6 FPS at 1080p, which is the only setting in the entire dataset that crosses the 60 FPS threshold. This suggests that for fast-paced combat, the "Low" preset is the only way to ensure a consistently responsive frame rate, while "Medium" offers a compromise for those who want better visuals without sacrificing too much performance.

At 2560x1440, the situation degrades significantly. The High preset averages 28.1 FPS, which is below the threshold for comfortable play. Medium is slightly better at 32.7 FPS, but still not ideal. The data suggests that 1440p is only feasible on the Low preset, which achieves 45.7 FPS. At 4K, even Low settings fail to provide a playable experience, averaging just 34.7 FPS. Therefore, the recommended strategy is to use the Low preset for 1080p and 1440p gaming, or to accept a sub-30 FPS experience on Medium or High if visual fidelity is the absolute priority.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s position in the database is unflattering. With a combo rank of 1524 out of 1636 tested combinations, this pairing sits in the bottom 7% of all systems tested in Control. This low ranking is not a reflection of the CPU, which is a high-end part, but rather a consequence of pairing it with a GPU that is several generations old. The data shows that the combination produces playable results only at 1080p with Low settings, which is a significant bottleneck for a system built around a processor that is in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs.

In terms of raw compute, the GPU’s average benchmark score of 13559 places it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the database are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 and the GTX 950, with score deltas of 0% and 0.1% respectively. This indicates that the RX 580 is performing exactly in line with its expected tier, but that tier is simply too low to drive Control at high settings. The CPU, meanwhile, sits near the AMD EPYC 8024P and Intel Core i9-11900K, with a delta of 0.1% against both, showing that the processor is not the limiting factor in this equation.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the decisive component in this configuration. Its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p textures but becomes strained at higher resolutions. The GPU’s base clock of 1257 MHz and boost clock of 1340 MHz are low by modern standards, and its 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is the hard ceiling for this system. The data confirms this: the frame rates scale almost linearly with resolution and settings, which is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario.

The GPU’s 14 nm process node and 5,700 million transistors are dated, and its performance in Control reflects that. With a pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s, the card is simply overwhelmed by the game’s particle effects and physics calculations at higher presets. The benchmark results show that the GPU’s memory bandwidth is not the primary issue, as the drop from 1080p Low (62.6 FPS) to 1440p Low (45.7 FPS) is a 27% reduction, which aligns with the increase in pixel count. The bottleneck is the shader and texture processing power.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings shows a clear hierarchy. Low settings produce an average of 62.6 FPS, which is the only result above 60 FPS in the entire dataset. Medium settings drop to 43 FPS, a 31% reduction from Low. High settings average 38.3 FPS, which is only 11% lower than Medium, indicating diminishing returns. Ultra settings yield 37.3 FPS, which is nearly identical to High, suggesting that the Ultra preset adds little visual benefit for a measurable performance cost.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates fall across the board. Low settings average 45.7 FPS, which is still playable but a 27% drop from 1080p. Medium settings average 32.7 FPS, and High settings drop to 28.1 FPS. Ultra settings average 28.5 FPS, which is oddly slightly higher than High, but still in the same unusable range. At 3840x2160, the card struggles to maintain 30 FPS on any setting. Low averages 34.7 FPS, Medium averages 25.2 FPS, High averages 21.4 FPS, and Ultra averages 18.4 FPS. These numbers indicate that 4K is not a realistic target for this combination.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this system. At Low settings, the performance drops from 62.6 FPS at 1080p to 45.7 FPS at 1440p, a 27% decrease, and then to 34.7 FPS at 4K, a 45% decrease from 1080p. This pattern is consistent with a GPU that is running out of pixel throughput. The drop from 1440p to 4K at Low settings is a 24% reduction, which is less severe than the 1080p to 1440p drop, suggesting that the card is becoming more bottlenecked by memory bandwidth at higher resolutions.

At High settings, the scaling is less dramatic in percentage terms but equally problematic. The average FPS goes from 38.3 at 1080p to 28.1 at 1440p, a 27% drop, and then to 21.4 at 4K, a 44% drop from 1080p. The data shows that the limiting component is the GPU’s compute units, as the frame rate does not recover when the resolution is lowered. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a smaller performance delta between 1080p and 4K, but the consistent scaling indicates that the RX 580 is maxed out.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a powerful processor that is not being fully utilized in this configuration. With 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, it has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.50 GHz. Its 96 MB of shared L3 cache is a significant asset for gaming, and its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 24063 places it well above the needs of Control. The CPU’s percentile rank of 83rd among all CPUs confirms that it is not the source of the frame rate limitations.

The benchmark results show that the CPU is capable of far higher frame rates than the GPU can deliver. The fact that the 1080p Low preset only achieves 62.6 FPS is not due to the 5800X3D, but rather the RX 580’s inability to push more frames. The CPU’s nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i9-11900K with a delta of 0.1%, are all high-performance parts that would not bottleneck a more modern GPU. In this pairing, the 5800X3D is effectively waiting for the GPU to catch up, which is why the system ranks so low in the combo database. Upgrading the GPU would unlock the CPU’s potential, but as measured, this system is a study in imbalance.