Control

# Control with AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT + AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT — Performance Analysis

Control, Remedy's 2019 action-adventure title, places heavy demands on both GPU and CPU depending on the settings and resolution you choose. This pairing — an AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT (8 cores, 16 threads, Zen 3) with an AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT (16 GB GDDR6, RDNA 3) — delivers a playable experience across most configurations, but the frame rate story is far from uniform. The measured data shows that at 1080p, this combo can push well past 120 FPS on low settings, while at 4K Ultra, it drops to 35 FPS average. The gap between low and ultra presets is substantial, and understanding where the bottleneck shifts is key to tuning the experience.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and tells a clear story about where the RX 7600 XT becomes the limiting factor. At 1080p High, the combo averages 78 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, that figure falls to 59 FPS — a 24% reduction. At 4K High, the average is 40 FPS, which is 49% below the 1080p High result. This scaling pattern is typical for a GPU with 2048 shading units and a 128-bit memory bus; the RX 7600 XT's 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth and 22.57 TFLOPS of FP32 compute are simply not enough to sustain high frame rates at 4K with demanding settings.

The low preset scaling is even more revealing. At 1080p Low, the system averages 124 FPS. At 1440p Low, that drops to 94 FPS (a 24% decrease), and at 4K Low, it falls to 63 FPS (a 49% drop from 1080p). The consistency of the percentage drops across presets suggests that resolution scaling is largely resolution-bound, not settings-bound — the GPU is the primary constraint at higher resolutions regardless of quality level.

Compare this to the Ultra preset: 1080p Ultra yields 68 FPS, 1440p Ultra drops to 51 FPS (25% lower), and 4K Ultra lands at 35 FPS (a 49% drop from 1080p). The pattern is remarkably uniform — roughly a quarter loss per step up in resolution, then another quarter loss going from 1440p to 4K. This indicates that the Ryzen 7 5800XT is not the limiting factor in most scenarios; if it were, the scaling would flatten out at higher resolutions as the CPU became less relevant.

The 4K Medium result, with a minimum of 38 FPS and a maximum of 52 FPS, shows that even at medium settings the GPU is working hard. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 28 FPS (63 vs 35), which is a 44% performance spread — substantial, but not as wide as the 56 FPS gap at 1080p (124 vs 68). This narrowing at higher resolutions confirms that the GPU is the dominant bottleneck once pixel count rises.

FAQ

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

A: Based on measured data, 1440p is the sweet spot. At 1440p High, the system averages 59 FPS, which is smooth for most players. 1080p High delivers 78 FPS, but 4K High drops to 40 FPS, which may feel sluggish for action gameplay. The 1440p Medium setting, at 67 FPS average, is a good balance if you want higher refresh rates.

Q: How much of a performance difference is there between Low and Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p, the difference is 56 FPS (124 vs 68 — an 82% improvement from Ultra to Low). At 1440p, the gap is 43 FPS (94 vs 51). At 4K, the gap narrows to 28 FPS (63 vs 35), because the GPU is already saturated at higher resolutions, so reducing settings has less relative impact.

Q: Does the RX 7600 XT's 16 GB VRAM matter in this game?

A: The 16 GB frame buffer is more than enough for Control at any resolution in this dataset. Even at 4K Ultra, the GPU is compute-limited rather than memory-limited, as evidenced by the 35 FPS average — a VRAM shortage would typically cause stutters or crashes, not just low frame rates. The 288.0 GB/s bandwidth is the more relevant constraint.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 5800XT holding back the RX 7600 XT?

A: The data suggests no. The CPU's 3DMark max-thread score of 7680 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23794 indicate strong multi-threaded performance. In Control, the consistent resolution scaling (roughly 25% per step) points to GPU-bound behavior at all tested resolutions. The CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at 1080p Low (124 FPS) without bottlenecking.

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 4K with medium settings?

A: The measured 4K Medium result is 45 FPS average, with a minimum of 38 FPS and a maximum of 52 FPS. This is playable but not ideal for fast-paced combat. If you want 60 FPS at 4K, you would need to drop to Low settings (63 FPS average), which is the only 4K preset that clears 60 FPS.

Q: How does this combo compare to other GPU pairings in the same performance class?

A: The RX 7600 XT's average benchmark score of 17083 places it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (17208, a 0.7% difference) and well above the AMD Radeon HD 7970M (17019, a 0.4% difference). In Control specifically, the combo ranks 2363 out of 3720 tested combinations, which is in the lower-middle tier — this is a mainstream pairing, not a high-end one.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is built on the RDNA 3 architecture with the Navi 33 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 6 nm process. It packs 13,300 million transistors into a 204 mm² die, with a transistor density of 65.2M per mm². The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory sits on a 128-bit bus, delivering 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth — a figure that, while adequate for 1080p and 1440p, becomes a limiting factor at 4K with high-quality textures and effects.

Clock speeds are respectable: a base clock of 1980 MHz, a game clock of 2470 MHz, and a boost clock of 2755 MHz. The memory runs at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective). With 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, the card delivers a pixel rate of 176.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 352.6 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput of 22.57 TFLOPS is identical to FP16 (1:1 ratio), which is typical for RDNA 3.

In Control, the GPU's role is dominant. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (35 FPS) is only 51% of the 1080p Ultra figure (68 FPS), and the pattern is consistent across all presets. The 32 ray-tracing cores are present but not directly measured in this dataset; Control's optional ray-traced reflections would likely tax the GPU further, but those results are not included here. The card's 60th percentile ranking among all GPUs (based on its average benchmark score of 17083) places it in the mid-range tier, which aligns with its performance in this game.

The RX 7600 XT's 190 W TDP and single 8-pin power connector are moderate, and the suggested 450 W PSU is reasonable for this class. The dual-slot, 204 mm length (8 inches) makes it a compact fit for most cases. The GPU's PCIe 4.0 x8 interface is sufficient, though notably, the Ryzen 7 5800XT provides Gen 4, 20 lanes from the CPU, so the x8 link is not a bottleneck in this pairing.

Settings Recommendations

For a smooth experience at 1080p, the High preset (78 FPS average) is the best choice — it clears 60 FPS with headroom and looks noticeably better than Medium (88 FPS) or Low (124 FPS), though those are viable if you have a high-refresh monitor. The Ultra preset at 1080p (68 FPS) is also playable, but the visual gains over High are typically marginal in Control, so High is the recommended starting point.

At 1440p, the Medium preset (67 FPS average, with a 57 FPS minimum) is the sweet spot. High drops to 59 FPS, which is still playable but closer to the edge; Ultra at 51 FPS may feel sluggish during intense firefights. If you prefer visual fidelity over frame rate, High is acceptable, but Medium offers the best balance of smoothness and quality.

At 4K, the situation is different. Low (63 FPS) is the only preset that consistently stays above 60 FPS. Medium (45 FPS) and High (40 FPS) are playable but will require some adaptation to lower frame pacing. Ultra (35 FPS) is best reserved for screenshot moments or slow exploration. The 4K Medium minimum of 38 FPS suggests occasional dips that could be jarring in combat.

The measured data shows that the RX 7600 XT's 16 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor at any settings level, so you don't need to worry about texture memory. Instead, focus on reducing shadow quality, volumetric effects, and other compute-heavy settings to boost frame rates. For most players, the recommendation is: 1080p High (78 FPS), 1440p Medium (67 FPS), and 4K Low (63 FPS) as the default starting points.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full dataset of measured frame rates is as follows:

1080p (1920x1080):

• Low: 124 FPS average
• Medium: 88 FPS average, 75 FPS minimum, 101 FPS maximum
• High: 78 FPS average
• Ultra: 68 FPS average

1440p (2560x1440):

• Low: 94 FPS average
• Medium: 67 FPS average, 57 FPS minimum, 76 FPS maximum
• High: 59 FPS average
• Ultra: 51 FPS average

4K (3840x2160):

• Low: 63 FPS average
• Medium: 45 FPS average, 38 FPS minimum, 52 FPS maximum
• High: 40 FPS average
• Ultra: 35 FPS average

The Medium preset is the only one with min/max data for all three resolutions, which gives insight into frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the range is 75–101 FPS, a 26 FPS spread. At 1440p Medium, the range is 57–76 FPS, a 19 FPS spread. At 4K Medium, the range is 38–52 FPS, a 14 FPS spread. The narrowing range at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU is more consistently saturated, reducing frame time variance.

The performance deltas between presets are consistent: at 1080p, moving from Low to Medium costs 36 FPS, from Medium to High costs 10 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs another 10 FPS. At 1440p, the step from Low to Medium is 27 FPS, Medium to High is 8 FPS, and High to Ultra is 8 FPS. At 4K, Low to Medium is 18 FPS, Medium to High is 5 FPS, and High to Ultra is 5 FPS. The diminishing returns of higher settings are clear — the biggest jump is always from Low to Medium.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (codenamed Vermeer), manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz, with a 105 W TDP. The CPU supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel configuration, with a memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. It has 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and a shared 32 MB L3 cache. The socket is AM4, and it was released on 2024-07-30 with a launch MSRP of $249.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 5800XT shows strong multi-threaded performance: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23794 and a single-core score of 3359. Its 3DMark scores are 7683 (16 threads), 7680 (max threads), 6141 (8 threads), 3603 (4 threads), 1879 (2 threads), and 959 (single thread). The PassMark multi-thread score is 28053, with a single-thread score of 3535. These numbers place it at the 81st percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 29879. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H (29868, 0% delta), AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (29955, -0.3%), and AMD Ryzen 5 9600X (29713, 0.6%).

In Control, the CPU's role is supportive rather than dominant. The fact that frame rates scale almost perfectly with resolution (roughly 25% per step) indicates the GPU is the bottleneck at all tested settings. The Ryzen 7 5800XT's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for Control's engine, which is not particularly CPU-heavy at these settings. The 124 FPS at 1080p Low is evidence that the CPU can feed the GPU at high frame rates without becoming the limiting factor.

The CPU's 32 MB of L3 cache and high boost clock of 4.80 GHz help maintain consistent frame times, which is reflected in the relatively tight min/max ranges at Medium settings. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 7683, nearly identical to the max-thread score of 7680, suggests that the CPU is fully utilized across all cores in threaded workloads, but Control does not appear to stress it to that degree. For this pairing, the CPU is a capable partner that does not hold back the RX 7600 XT in any measurable way.