Control

# How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB occupies the 1481st position out of 1636 tested combinations for Control. That places it in the lower tier of systems, roughly in the bottom 10% of all tested configurations. The ranking reflects a substantial bottleneck situation where the GPU's modest capabilities constrain overall performance, despite the CPU being a strong performer.

The data indicates this is not a balanced pairing for this title. The Ryzen 7 7700 sits at the 91st percentile among all tested CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40468. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H with an average score of 40431 (a mere 0.1% difference), the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 at 40262 (0.5% delta), and the Intel Core i9-13905H at 40712 (–0.6% delta). These margins are negligible, placing the 7700 firmly in a competitive cluster of high-end processors. The GPU, by contrast, sits at exactly the 50th percentile among all tested GPUs, with no benchmark scores available for direct comparison. This stark contrast between the CPU's top-tier standing and the GPU's mid-pack positioning explains the low overall ranking.

The measured frame rates across all resolutions and settings reinforce this assessment. At no point does the system achieve what would be considered a high-refresh-rate experience, even at 1080p with low settings. The data shows a system that can manage playable frame rates at 1080p in most settings, but struggles significantly at higher resolutions. This is consistent with a configuration where the GPU is the limiting factor in nearly every scenario tested.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB is built on the Ampere architecture using the GA107 chip, manufactured on Samsung's 8 nm process. The GPU contains 8,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die, with a transistor density of 43.5 million per square millimeter. It operates at a base clock of 1545 MHz and a boost clock of 1740 MHz, with memory running at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective).

The memory subsystem is the most significant constraint. With only 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, the bandwidth totals 192.0 GB/s. This is a limited allocation for a game like Control, which is known for its detailed environments and effects-heavy rendering. At 4K Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops to 22.1 FPS, which is effectively unplayable. The 4 GB VRAM capacity likely forces the engine to swap textures and geometry frequently, contributing to the sharp performance degradation as resolution increases.

The GPU's compute resources are modest: 2048 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 raster operation units. It also includes 16 ray tracing cores and 64 tensor cores, with FP32 performance rated at 7.127 TFLOPS. The pixel rate is 55.68 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 111.4 GTexel/s. These specifications are adequate for 1080p gaming at medium settings in Control, but they are insufficient for high refresh rates or higher resolutions.

The GPU uses a dual-slot cooling solution with a single 6-pin power connector, and its TDP is rated at 90 W. The suggested power supply is 250 W. The card supports PCIe 4.0 x8, DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. It has been marked as end-of-life production status, with the GeForce 40 series as its successor.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 is a Zen 4 architecture processor, codenamed Raphael, built on TSMC's 5 nm process. It features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. The TDP is rated at 65 W, and it uses the AMD Socket AM5 platform with dual-channel DDR5 memory support, providing a memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s. The processor includes 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 7700 demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 29302, while the single-core score is 4136. The Cinebench R20 results show 12306 multicore and 1737 single-core. In 3DMark tests, it scores 8484 in the 16-thread test, 8479 in the max-thread test, and 1049 in the single-thread test. PassMark results include a multithread score of 34470 and a single-thread score of 4063. These figures place the CPU in the 91st percentile among all tested processors.

For Control, the CPU's capabilities are more than sufficient. The game's physics and AI systems benefit from strong single-thread performance, and the 7700's single-core scores are robust. However, the benchmark data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this configuration. The measured frame rates at 1080p Low (85.2 FPS) versus 1080p Ultra (48.0 FPS) demonstrate that the GPU's workload scales with settings, while the CPU maintains headroom. The processor is effectively waiting on the GPU in most scenarios.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system achieves its best results. With Low settings, the average frame rate is 85.2 FPS, which provides a smooth experience for most players. Moving to Medium settings, the average drops to 60.8 FPS, still within a comfortable range. High settings yield 51.1 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 48.0 FPS. The transition from Low to Ultra represents a 43.7% reduction in frame rate, indicating that the GPU is being progressively more taxed as visual fidelity increases.

At 2560x1440, the performance decline is pronounced. Low settings produce 63.6 FPS, which is playable, but Medium drops to 45.1 FPS, High to 40.5 FPS, and Ultra to 36.0 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 43.4%, similar to the 1080p scaling, but the absolute values are lower, reflecting the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles significantly. Low settings achieve 39.7 FPS, Medium drops to 29.2 FPS, High to 27.2 FPS, and Ultra to 22.1 FPS. None of these values are ideal for a game like Control, which benefits from higher frame rates for its fast-paced combat and environmental interactions. The 4K results clearly indicate that this GPU is not suited for this resolution in this title.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this configuration. At Low settings, the drop from 85.2 FPS at 1080p to 39.7 FPS at 4K represents a 53.4% reduction. At Medium settings, the drop is from 60.8 FPS to 29.2 FPS, a 52.0% reduction. High settings fall from 51.1 FPS to 27.2 FPS, a 46.8% reduction. Ultra settings decline from 48.0 FPS to 22.1 FPS, a 54.0% reduction.

These percentages are relatively consistent across settings, suggesting that the GPU's rendering pipeline is uniformly stressed as resolution increases. The 4 GB VRAM capacity likely exacerbates this effect, as the memory bandwidth of 192.0 GB/s becomes a bottleneck when handling larger frame buffers and higher-resolution textures.

The data shows that the CPU's performance headroom is not the issue. The Ryzen 7 7700's strong single-thread and multi-thread scores indicate it can feed the GPU adequately at all resolutions. Instead, the scaling pattern points directly to the RTX 3050 4 GB as the limiting component. The GPU's 128-bit memory bus and 4 GB capacity are insufficient for the demands of 1440p and 4K rendering in Control, particularly at higher settings.

For players targeting 1080p, the system delivers acceptable performance at Medium settings (60.8 FPS) and playable results at High (51.1 FPS). Those seeking 1440p would need to use Low settings to achieve 63.6 FPS, which is a significant compromise on visual quality. The 4K resolution is not viable for this title with this configuration, as even Low settings only reach 39.7 FPS. The overall picture is one of a CPU that is far more capable than the GPU, resulting in a system that cannot fully utilize its processor's potential in this game.