Control

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti sits at rank 981 out of 3720 tested combos in Control. That places this pairing in roughly the top 26% of all tested configurations, which is a solid position for a game that leans heavily on both CPU and GPU throughput. The rank reflects the balance this combo strikes: the CPU is not the fastest single-thread performer on the market, but its large L3 cache and 8-core layout keep frame pacing stable, while the GPU provides enough raw rasterization power to push high resolutions.

In percentile terms, the CPU ranks at the 80th percentile among all processors, while the GPU ranks at the 83rd percentile among all graphics cards. When combined, the pair slightly exceeds the average expectation for their individual positions, suggesting no major bottleneck in either direction for this title. The measured FPS data confirms this: at 1440p High, the combo delivers 92 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play, and at 4K High it still holds 62 FPS, indicating that the GPU is doing the heavy lifting at higher resolutions without the CPU holding it back.

Relative to the nearest CPU rivals, the 5800X3D posts an average benchmark score of 27896, which is virtually identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (27887, delta 0%) and the Intel Core i9-10900K (27872, delta 0.1%). It is also within 0.3% of the Intel Core i5-12600KF (27799) and 0.1% below the AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 (27932). These deltas are so small that they fall within run-to-run variance, meaning the 5800X3D is functionally tied with those parts in synthetic multi-threaded workloads. For gaming, however, the 3D V-Cache architecture often gives it an edge in titles that benefit from large cache, which the benchmark scores do not fully capture.

On the GPU side, the RTX 3080 Ti averages 41187 across its benchmark suite, placing it slightly above the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (40870, delta 0.8%) and below the NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB (41707, delta -1.2%) and Tesla M40 (41897, delta -1.7%). The closest modern rival is the GeForce RTX 5070 at 40377, which is 2% slower in these aggregate metrics. For Control specifically, the 3080 Ti's 12 GB of VRAM and 384-bit memory bus are more than sufficient, and the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (54 FPS) shows the ceiling of this combo without upscaling.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows cover four presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—at three resolutions. The data shows a clear pattern: High is the sweet spot for visual fidelity versus performance. At 1080p High, the combo delivers 121 FPS, which is nearly double the 60 FPS target and leaves headroom for V-sync or recording. At 1440p High, it drops to 92 FPS, still comfortably above 60. At 4K High, it hits 62 FPS, which is just barely on the right side of the 60 FPS line, but with occasional dips possible.

Ultra settings are only viable at lower resolutions. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 105 FPS, which is fine, but at 1440p Ultra it falls to 80 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it drops to 54 FPS—below the 60 FPS threshold. If you want a locked 60 FPS at 4K, Ultra is not the right choice; High is the maximum preset that achieves it. Medium settings provide a larger margin, with 136 FPS at 1080p, 103 FPS at 1440p, and 70 FPS at 4K, but the visual jump from Medium to High is often more noticeable than from High to Ultra in this title, so the extra performance cost of Ultra is rarely justified.

The recommendation is therefore: use High for the best balance across all resolutions. For 1080p and 1440p, High gives you well over 90 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh displays. For 4K, High is the only preset that stays above 60 FPS on average. If you have a 144 Hz monitor and play at 1080p, Medium at 136 FPS is a reasonable fallback if you prefer maximum frame rates over shadows and reflections. Low settings at 192 FPS (1080p) are only useful for esports-style play or benchmarking, as the visual downgrade is substantial.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies. At High settings, the average FPS goes from 121 at 1080p to 92 at 1440p (a 24% reduction) and then to 62 at 4K (a 49% reduction from 1440p). This scaling curve is typical of a GPU-bound scenario: the CPU is capable of feeding frames at 1080p, but as resolution increases, the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth become the limiting factors.

The RTX 3080 Ti has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus with 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth. That is ample for Control at 4K, which is why the drop from 1440p to 4K is not catastrophic—it is a 33% decrease, which aligns with the pixel count increase from 3.7 million to 8.3 million pixels (a 2.25x pixel increase) but is mitigated by the GPU's raw compute. The fact that 4K High still hits 62 FPS indicates that the GPU has enough headroom, but there is no extra capacity for Ultra at that resolution.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more pronounced: 192 FPS at 1080p, 145 FPS at 1440p (a 24% drop), and 98 FPS at 4K (a 32% drop from 1440p). This shows that even at low graphical loads, the GPU is still the primary limiter—the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are not maxing out, as evidenced by the fact that the frame rate scales almost exactly with pixel count. If the CPU were the bottleneck, you would see a plateau at higher resolutions, but the data shows continuous scaling.

The 4K Low result of 98 FPS is particularly telling: it is higher than 1440p High (92 FPS), which means that if you prioritize frame rate over visuals, dropping settings at a higher resolution can yield better performance than raising settings at a lower resolution. This is a classic sign of a GPU with strong memory bandwidth and compute, but also suggests that the CPU is not stressed even at 4K Low.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Control?

A: Based on the measured data, 1440p High (92 FPS) offers the best balance of visual quality and performance, with 4K High (62 FPS) being viable for 60 Hz displays. 1080p High (121 FPS) is best for high-refresh monitors.

Q: Can this combo run Control at 4K 60 FPS?

A: Yes, at High settings it averages 62 FPS. At Ultra, it drops to 54 FPS, which is below 60. Medium at 4K gives 70 FPS, so there is headroom, but High is the recommended preset for a locked 60 FPS experience.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 5800X3D has an average benchmark score of 27896, which is within 0.3% of the Intel Core i5-12600KF (27799), 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (27887), and 0.1% of the Intel Core i9-10900K (27872). It trails the AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 (27932) by 0.1%.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti averages 41187, which is 0.8% above the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (40870), 1.2% below the NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB (41707), 1.7% below the NVIDIA Tesla M40 (41897), and 2% above the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 (40377).

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

A: The data indicates GPU-bound behavior. The FPS scales consistently with resolution changes (e.g., 121 to 92 to 62 FPS at High from 1080p to 1440p to 4K), which is the signature of a GPU bottleneck. The CPU's 8 cores and 96 MB L3 cache are sufficient to feed the GPU at all tested settings.

Q: What is the CPU's single-thread performance?

A: The 5800X3D scores 884 in 3DMark single-thread, 241 in Cinebench R15 single-core, 1452 in Cinebench R23 single-core, and 2017 in Geekbench single-core. These are moderate scores for a gaming CPU, but the large cache compensates in game workloads.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is built on the GA102 chip with Ampere architecture, manufactured on Samsung's 8 nm process. It has 10240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs, along with 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 186.5 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 532.8 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance at 34.10 TFLOPS and FP16 at the same rate (1:1).

The memory subsystem is a key strength: 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, running at an effective 19 Gbps, yields 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth. For Control, which features detailed environments and particle effects, this bandwidth is critical at 4K. The measured FPS at 4K High (62 FPS) and 4K Medium (70 FPS) shows that the GPU can handle the memory load without stuttering, as the minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 59, which is close to the average.

The GPU's clock speeds are 1365 MHz base and 1665 MHz boost. The boost clock is modest compared to some other Ampere cards, but the high core count compensates. The card draws up to 350 W and requires a 750 W PSU, with a dual-slot cooler and a single 12-pin connector. In terms of synthetic benchmarks, it scores 26896 in PassMark G3D, 170037 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 192697 in Geekbench Vulkan. These numbers place it in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs.

The GPU's role in Control is to provide the raw fill rate and memory bandwidth needed for high-resolution rendering. At 1080p, it is overkill, but at 4K it is just enough to hit 60 FPS on High. The 12 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor in this game, as even 4K Ultra does not exceed it, but the 54 FPS at 4K Ultra shows that the compute and ROP throughput are the ceiling, not the memory capacity.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a Zen 3 Vermeer part on the AM4 socket, with 8 cores and 16 threads. Its base clock is 3.40 GHz and boost clock is 4.50 GHz, with a TDP of 105 W. The standout feature is the 96 MB of shared L3 cache, which is three times larger than the standard Ryzen 7 5800X's 32 MB. This cache is designed to reduce memory latency in gaming workloads.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 14317 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1452 in single-core, 11765 in Geekbench multi-core and 2017 in single-core, and 7299 in 3DMark 16-thread. The PassMark multithread score is 28309, with a single-thread score of 3234. These numbers are competitive with the nearest rivals, as noted in the rank section.

For Control, the CPU's role is to handle the game's physics, AI, and scene management. The game is not particularly CPU-intensive compared to strategy titles, but the 8 cores ensure that background tasks do not cause frame drops. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (192 FPS) is far above what the GPU can render at higher settings, which means the CPU is never the bottleneck. Even at 4K Ultra (54 FPS), the CPU has headroom, as the frame rate is limited by the GPU's pixel throughput.

The 5800X3D's L3 cache is especially beneficial in games with large world segments or many draw calls, but Control's linear levels do not appear to leverage it heavily. The 3DMark scores show a strong scaling from 2 threads (1746) to 4 threads (3392) to 8 threads (5906), but the jump to 16 threads (7299) is modest, indicating that the game and benchmarks are not fully utilizing all threads. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s on a dual-channel DDR4 bus is adequate, but not exceptional.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers four presets at three resolutions, with average FPS for all, plus minimum and maximum FPS for Medium settings. Here is the full breakdown:

At 1920x1080: Low averages 192 FPS. Medium averages 136 FPS, with a minimum of 116 and maximum of 157. High averages 121 FPS. Ultra averages 105 FPS.

At 2560x1440: Low averages 145 FPS. Medium averages 103 FPS, with a minimum of 88 and maximum of 118. High averages 92 FPS. Ultra averages 80 FPS.

At 3840x2160: Low averages 98 FPS. Medium averages 70 FPS, with a minimum of 59 and maximum of 80. High averages 62 FPS. Ultra averages 54 FPS.

The Medium preset is the only one with min/max data, which shows that the frame time variance is relatively tight: at 1080p, the range is 116-157 FPS (a 35% spread), at 1440p it is 88-118 FPS (a 34% spread), and at 4K it is 59-80 FPS (a 36% spread). This consistency indicates that the combo does not suffer from stutters, even at 4K where the minimum is close to the average.

The FPS scaling from Low to Ultra at each resolution is uniform: at 1080p, Low (192) to Medium (136) is a 29% drop, Medium to High (121) is an 11% drop, High to Ultra (105) is a 13% drop. At 1440p, the drops are 29%, 11%, and 13% respectively. At 4K, the drops are 29%, 11%, and 13% as well. This consistency suggests that each preset tier has a similar cost in terms of GPU workload, and the CPU is not introducing any scaling anomalies.

For a 60 Hz display, the 4K High average of 62 FPS is just above the refresh rate, but the 4K Medium minimum of 59 FPS shows that there can be dips below 60. If you want a guaranteed 60 FPS at 4K, Medium is safer, as its average is 70 FPS and its minimum is 59. For 1440p, High at 92 FPS is excellent, and even Ultra at 80 FPS is above 60. For 1080p, all presets except Ultra are above 120 FPS, meaning the combo is well-suited for 144 Hz monitors at that resolution.