Control

# Control with AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

The pairing of AMD's 8-core Ryzen 7 5800XT with NVIDIA's flagship RTX 5090 produces a fascinating dataset in Control, a 2019 Action Adventure title that remains demanding at high resolutions. The measured frames per second reveal a system that scales predictably with resolution, yet the relationship between settings and performance is not always linear. This combination ranks 21st out of 1,636 tested combos in this game, placing it firmly in the top tier of configurations, though the data suggests the RTX 5090 is doing the heavy lifting while the 5800XT keeps pace without bottlenecking at most settings. The benchmark rows show a GPU that is clearly capable of pushing well beyond 200 FPS at 1080p, but the question becomes whether the CPU can feed it consistently as resolution drops.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial but not uniform across settings, which tells a clear story about where the bottleneck shifts. At Low settings, the system delivers 235.6 FPS at 1920x1080, 215.8 FPS at 2560x1440, and 146.6 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 37.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating that even at Low settings, the GPU is still the primary constraint at the highest resolution. The 1080p to 1440p drop is only 8.4%, suggesting the CPU can maintain high frame rates when the GPU has less work per frame.

At High settings, the scaling is steeper: 176.8 FPS at 1080p, 134.5 FPS at 1440p, and 89.1 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 4K drop here is 49.6%, nearly half the performance lost. This indicates that as settings increase, the GPU becomes progressively more loaded, and the gap between resolutions widens. The 1440p to 4K transition at High settings loses 33.7% of performance, while the 1080p to 1440p step loses 23.9%. This pattern suggests the RTX 5090 is the limiting component at 4K, but at 1080p, the Ryzen 7 5800XT's 8 cores and 16 threads may be approaching their ceiling, preventing the GPU from reaching its full potential.

Ultra settings show the most dramatic resolution scaling: 153.9 FPS at 1080p, 116.6 FPS at 1440p, and 79.4 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 4K loss is 48.4%, remarkably similar to High settings. This consistency across High and Ultra suggests that Control's rendering pipeline at higher presets adds a nearly fixed cost per pixel, rather than introducing new bottlenecks. The data implies that for players targeting 4K, the RTX 5090 is definitively the limiting factor, while at 1080p, the CPU's influence becomes more apparent with frame rates clustering between 153.9 and 235.6 regardless of settings.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves a combo rank of 21 out of 1,636 tested configurations in Control. That places it in the 98.7th percentile of all tested combos, meaning only 20 other pairings deliver higher average frame rates in this game. The ranking is particularly notable because the CPU is a mid-2024 release with a solid but not class-leading average benchmark score of 29,774, while the GPU's average benchmark score of 84,306 and 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs suggests it is near the top of the performance hierarchy.

The CPU's nearest rivals in general benchmarks include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE with a delta of 0.1%, the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS at -0.3%, the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 at 0.3%, and the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H at -0.3%. These deltas are all within a fraction of a percent, indicating that the 5800XT's raw processing power is virtually indistinguishable from these competitors in synthetic tests. Yet in Control, the combo ranking suggests that the GPU choice dominates the outcome, as the RTX 5090's nearest rivals in GPU benchmarks—the RTX 5090 D at 0.1% delta, RTX 5050 Mobile at 0.2%, AMD Radeon PRO W6600 at 1.3%, and NVIDIA CMP 40HX at -1.6%—show similarly tight clustering.

The high combo rank despite the CPU's mid-pack standing implies that Control is not heavily CPU-bound at most tested settings. The data indicates that even with a less powerful processor, this GPU would likely still rank highly, making the 5800XT a sufficient but not exceptional partner for the RTX 5090 in this specific title.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090 brings an enormous memory footprint to Control, with 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, yielding 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. Control is not a game known for extreme VRAM consumption, but the sheer capacity means texture streaming and high-resolution assets are unlikely to ever hit memory limits. The GPU's base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost of 2407 MHz, and its 21,760 shading units provide substantial raw compute for the game's physics-heavy combat sequences.

The benchmark results show the GPU's compute capabilities translating directly into frame rates. At 1080p Low, the system hits 235.6 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's practical limit for this title. The GPU's 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance suggests it could go higher if unconstrained, but the CPU's 8 cores at 3.80 GHz base and 4.80 GHz boost become the ceiling. At 4K Ultra, the 79.4 FPS result reflects the GPU's need to render 8.3 million pixels with full effects, and the 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth becomes critical for feeding the 32 GB frame buffer.

The GPU's pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s are directly relevant to Control's visual effects, which include heavy use of volumetric lighting and particle systems. The measured FPS at 4K High (89.1) versus 4K Medium (104) shows a 14.3% performance penalty for moving from Medium to High, while the jump from High to Ultra costs another 10.9%. This incremental scaling suggests the GPU's 176 ROPs are the limiting factor at 4K, as resolution increases place more demand on pixel throughput.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on which preset offers the best experience for different display configurations. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 203 FPS, which is only 13.8% lower than Low (235.6) but 15% higher than High (176.8) and 31.9% higher than Ultra (153.9). This makes Medium the sweet spot at 1080p, offering most of the visual fidelity with a frame rate that exceeds the refresh rate of virtually all monitors.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset's 154 FPS is 28.6% lower than Low (215.8) but 14.5% higher than High (134.5) and 32.1% higher than Ultra (116.6). For 1440p gamers with high-refresh displays, Medium provides a frame rate that keeps the experience fluid, while High remains viable at 134.5 FPS for those prioritizing visuals. The 4K data suggests a different approach: Medium at 104 FPS is 29% lower than Low (146.6) but 16.7% higher than High (89.1) and 30.1% higher than Ultra (79.4). At 3840x2160, Medium is the only preset that consistently stays above 100 FPS, while High and Ultra drop into the 79-89 FPS range.

The data implies that for the RTX 5090 in Control, Medium is the recommended preset for all resolutions if the goal is maintaining high frame rates. The visual quality difference between Medium and High in Control is significant but not transformative, and the performance trade-off is measurable in every resolution. Players with 120 Hz or higher displays at 4K should strongly consider Medium, while those at 1080p could arguably use Ultra and still stay above 150 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset shows a consistent pattern of performance scaling across all four presets and three resolutions. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 153.9 at Ultra to 235.6 at Low, with Medium at 203 and High at 176.8. The spread from lowest to highest preset is 81.7 FPS, representing a 53.1% improvement from Ultra to Low. At 2560x1440, the range narrows to 116.6 at Ultra, 134.5 at High, 154 at Medium, and 215.8 at Low, a spread of 99.2 FPS or 85.1% improvement from Ultra to Low.

At 3840x2160, the values compress further: 79.4 at Ultra, 89.1 at High, 104 at Medium, and 146.6 at Low. The spread here is 67.2 FPS, or 84.6% improvement from Ultra to Low. The relative gap between Low and Ultra actually widens at higher resolutions, from 53.1% at 1080p to 85.1% at 1440p and 84.6% at 4K. This suggests that Low settings at 4K (146.6 FPS) are far more viable than Ultra at 1080p (153.9 FPS), and the performance cost of Ultra becomes more pronounced as resolution increases.

The 1080p Medium result of 203 FPS is higher than the 1440p Low result of 215.8 FPS by a small margin, indicating that resolution has a greater impact on performance than preset choice at these levels. The 4K Low result of 146.6 FPS is nearly identical to the 1080p High result of 176.8 FPS, showing that dropping resolution by two steps is roughly equivalent to dropping preset by two steps in terms of frame rate impact.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1920x1080 delivers the highest frame rates across all presets, with a peak of 235.6 FPS at Low and 153.9 FPS at Ultra. At 4K, the maximum is 146.6 FPS at Low, so 1080p is the only resolution that consistently exceeds 150 FPS at all settings.

Q: Does the RTX 5090 bottleneck at 1080p with this CPU?

A: The measured data indicates that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 235.6 FPS, and the difference between Low and Medium is only 13.8%, suggesting the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are limiting performance, as the GPU should theoretically scale further with lower settings.

Q: How much performance is lost going from 1080p to 4K?

A: At High settings, the drop is from 176.8 FPS at 1080p to 89.1 FPS at 4K, a 49.6% reduction. At Low settings, the drop is from 235.6 to 146.6 FPS, a 37.8% reduction.

Q: Is Ultra settings playable at 4K?

A: The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra is 79.4, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay but may not satisfy players with high-refresh 4K monitors.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested configurations?

A: This combo ranks 21st out of 1,636 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the top 1.3% of all tested configs.

Q: What is the CPU's benchmark standing relative to its rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 5800XT has an average benchmark score of 29,774 and ranks in the 86th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are within 0.3% delta, including the Ryzen 7 6800HS and Ryzen 7 7840H.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT is a Zen 3 architecture processor codenamed Vermeer, built on TSMC's 7 nm process with 4,150 million transistors on a 74 mm² die. Its 8 cores and 16 threads operate at a base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost up to 4.80 GHz, with a 32 MB L3 cache. The CPU's benchmark results show strong single-thread performance, with a 3dmark single-thread score of 959 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3,359, while multi-thread scores include a Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 23,794.

In Control, the CPU's role becomes evident at lower resolutions where the GPU has spare capacity. At 1080p Low, the 235.6 FPS result likely approaches the CPU's maximum frame rate capability in this game. The 8-core configuration is well-suited to Control's threaded rendering, but the 5800XT's 86th percentile ranking among all CPUs and its average benchmark score of 29,774 place it below the absolute top-tier processors. The nearest rivals, including the Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE and Ryzen 7 7840H, show deltas of only 0.3% or less, indicating that swapping to any of these would yield nearly identical results.

The CPU's 16 threads handle Control's background physics and AI tasks while the GPU renders frames, and the measured FPS at 4K shows the CPU is not the bottleneck at that resolution. The 4K Low result of 146.6 FPS is still 37.8% lower than 1080p Low, confirming the GPU is the primary constraint. However, at 1080p, the CPU's 4.80 GHz boost clock and 32 MB L3 cache help maintain frame rates above 150 FPS even at Ultra, which is a respectable showing for a processor that launched at a $249 MSRP in July 2024. The data suggests that for Control specifically, the 5800XT is a capable partner for the RTX 5090, though the GPU clearly dominates the performance equation at higher resolutions.