Control

# Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured frame rates for this AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 combination in Control reveal a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution increases. At 1080p with High settings, the combo delivers 91.1 FPS, which drops to 68.2 FPS at 1440p and further to 43.5 FPS at 4K. That represents a 25% loss from 1080p to 1440p, but a steeper 36% decline from 1440p to 4K, indicating the GPU is shouldering an increasingly heavy load as pixel count rises.

The Low settings row tells a more interesting story. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 140.2 FPS, a figure that suggests the RTX 4060 has headroom to spare when the render load is light. At 1440p Low, performance drops to 107.6 FPS, and at 4K Low it falls to 72.4 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p Low is a 23% reduction, nearly identical to the High preset's 25% drop. However, the 4K Low figure of 72.4 FPS versus 4K High's 43.5 FPS shows a 66% performance gap purely from settings, which points to the GPU's memory bandwidth and shading resources being the decisive factor at higher resolutions.

Looking at the Medium and Ultra presets reinforces this interpretation. At 4K, Medium produces 51.3 FPS while Ultra drops to 41.5 FPS — a 19% penalty for the highest quality tier. The RTX 4060's 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 272.0 GB/s bandwidth appears to be the constraint at 4K, as the data shows diminishing returns from lowering settings below Medium at that resolution. The fact that 1080p Ultra (75.9 FPS) still outperforms 4K Low (72.4 FPS) is a strong indicator that the GPU's pixel throughput, not the CPU, is the limiting component in this pairing.

FAQ

*Q: How does this combo rank among all tested CPU+GPU pairs in Control?*

A: The combination ranks 905th out of 1,636 tested combos, placing it in the 55th percentile of all configurations measured in this game.

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves at 1080p?

A: The maximum measured figure is 140.2 FPS at 1080p with Low settings. At Medium, it reaches 102.8 FPS, and at High it produces 91.1 FPS.

Q: Is 4K playable with this hardware?

A: At 4K Ultra, the combo averages 41.5 FPS, which is below typical smoothness thresholds. Dropping to 4K High yields 43.5 FPS, while 4K Medium reaches 51.3 FPS. Only 4K Low, at 72.4 FPS, crosses into comfortably playable territory.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in aggregate benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4060's average benchmark score of 23,181 sits 0.6% below the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23,321) and 0.7% below the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (23,338). It outperforms the Intel Arc B580 by 0.7% and the AMD Radeon 760M by 0.8%.

Q: What CPU benchmark scores support the 5800XT's performance class?

A: The CPU scores 23,794 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 3,359 in single-core. In 3DMark, it produces 7,683 with 16 threads and 959 in single-thread tests. Its average benchmark score is 29,774, placing it in the 86th percentile of all CPUs.

Q: Which setting preset offers the largest FPS jump relative to Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 1440p, moving from Ultra (56.9 FPS) to High (68.2 FPS) gains 11.3 FPS (20%). Dropping further to Medium (77.0 FPS) adds another 8.8 FPS, and Low (107.6 FPS) provides a total 89% improvement over Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The rank of 905 out of 1,636 tested combos in Control places this pairing in the lower-middle portion of the database. This is somewhat surprising given the CPU's strong 86th percentile standing among all processors and the GPU's 66th percentile rank. The delta suggests that Control's rendering demands interact with this specific CPU-GPU combination in a way that does not fully translate the components' aggregate benchmark strengths.

The Ryzen 7 5800XT's nearest CPU rivals in aggregate scoring — the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE (29,740, 0.1% lower), AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS (29,856, 0.3% higher), AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 (29,682, 0.3% lower), and AMD Ryzen 7 7840H (29,868, 0.3% higher) — all score within a narrow band. Yet the combo's rank in Control suggests that game-specific factors, such as the RTX 4060's 8 GB VRAM capacity and 128-bit memory bus, may be holding back what is otherwise a well-matched processor. The GPU's nearest rivals — the RX 6600M, GTX 780 Ti, Arc B580, and Radeon 760M — all sit within 0.8% of its aggregate score, yet the measured FPS data indicates the RTX 4060's real-world performance in Control is more variable than those synthetic deltas imply.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings sweep shows: Low 140.2 FPS, Medium 102.8 FPS, High 91.1 FPS, and Ultra 75.9 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 11.7 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 15.2 FPS, meaning the Ultra preset costs roughly 17% performance over High at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the figures compress: Low 107.6 FPS, Medium 77.0 FPS, High 68.2 FPS, and Ultra 56.9 FPS. The percentage loss from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across presets — 23% for Low, 25% for Medium, 25% for High, and 25% for Ultra — indicating a uniform scaling penalty as pixel count increases by 78%.

At 3840x2160, the scaling becomes more punishing: Low 72.4 FPS, Medium 51.3 FPS, High 43.5 FPS, and Ultra 41.5 FPS. The 1440p-to-4K transition costs 33% at Low, 33% at Medium, 36% at High, and 27% at Ultra. Notably, the Ultra preset's decline from 1440p to 4K is the smallest percentage drop, suggesting that at Ultra settings the GPU is already saturated at 1440p and the additional resolution has less marginal impact.

Settings Recommendations

The data indicates that High settings at 1080p (91.1 FPS) and 1440p (68.2 FPS) provide the best balance of visual quality and frame rate for this combo. At 1080p, Ultra's 75.9 FPS may be acceptable for slower-paced sections, but the 20% drop from High makes it a questionable trade for the marginal visual gain. At 1440p, High's 68.2 FPS is playable, while Medium's 77.0 FPS offers a safer margin for demanding scenes.

For 4K, the measured rows show that Medium (51.3 FPS) is the highest preset that stays above the 50 FPS threshold. High at 4K (43.5 FPS) and Ultra (41.5 FPS) both dip below that mark, suggesting that players targeting 4K should start at Medium and only consider High if they can tolerate occasional drops. Low at 4K (72.4 FPS) provides the smoothest experience but likely sacrifices too much visual fidelity for most users. The 8 GB VRAM and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth appear to be the limiting factors at 4K, as the GPU's FP32 throughput of 15.11 TFLOPS is sufficient for higher frame rates if memory capacity were not a constraint.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT brings 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 (Vermeer) architecture, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 4.80 GHz. This 7 nm TSMC chip features 4,150 million transistors on a 74 mm² die, with 32 MB of L3 cache. Its benchmark scores — 23,794 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 3,359 in single-core — place it in the 86th percentile of all CPUs.

In Control, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU at most settings. The 1080p Low result of 140.2 FPS suggests the 5800XT is capable of feeding the RTX 4060 well beyond typical gaming thresholds. The CPU's 3DMark scores — 7,683 with 16 threads and 959 single-thread — indicate strong multi-threaded performance that aligns with Control's ability to use multiple cores for physics and AI. However, the fact that 1080p Ultra (75.9 FPS) is much closer to 4K Low (72.4 FPS) than to 1080p Low (140.2 FPS) implies the CPU is rarely the bottleneck; instead, the GPU's rendering pipeline dominates. The 16 threads and 4.80 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom for this title, and the CPU's 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth on DDR4 dual-channel is sufficient to avoid starving the GPU at any measured setting.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 uses the AD107 chip on TSMC's 5 nm process, with 18,900 million transistors on a 159 mm² die. It operates at a base clock of 1830 MHz and boost clock of 2460 MHz, with memory running at 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective). The 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus delivers 272.0 GB/s bandwidth, which is the most likely constraint in Control's higher resolution presets.

The GPU's 3,072 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 48 ROPs produce a pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s. Its FP32 performance of 15.11 TFLOPS is competitive, yet the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (41.5 FPS) versus 1080p Ultra (75.9 FPS) shows a 45% drop that cannot be explained by pixel count alone — 4K has four times the pixels of 1080p. This suggests memory bandwidth saturation: the 272.0 GB/s figure is far below what would be needed to maintain proportional throughput at 4K. The GPU's 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are present but do not appear in the measured FPS data, meaning the game's rasterization load is the primary factor. The RTX 4060's aggregate benchmark scores (23,181 average, 66th percentile) understate its Control performance at 1080p, where it achieves over 90 FPS on High, but overstate its 4K viability, where it struggles to maintain 50 FPS on Medium.