Control

The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti combination delivers a robust Control experience, with measured average frame rates ranging from 55.9 FPS at 4K Ultra to 191 FPS at 1080p Low. Across all tested configurations, the data indicates this pairing is well-balanced for high-refresh-rate gaming, though the scaling patterns reveal a clear transition from GPU-bound performance at high resolutions to a more CPU-influenced ceiling at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial but follows an expected curve for a demanding action-adventure title. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 122.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 93.9 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 29 FPS, and then further down to 64.7 FPS at 3840x2160. The gap between 1440p and 4K (29.2 FPS) is nearly identical to the gap between 1080p and 1440p (29 FPS), which suggests a linear scaling pattern typical of GPU-bound workloads. The RTX 3080 Ti’s 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 912.4 GB/s bandwidth are evidently sufficient to maintain consistent throughput as pixel count rises.

Switching to Low settings amplifies this trend. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 191 FPS, but this drops to 147.4 FPS at 1440p (a loss of 43.6 FPS) and then to 95.7 FPS at 4K (a further loss of 51.7 FPS). The larger absolute drops at lower settings indicate that the GPU is still the primary limiter, but the diminishing returns between 1440p and 4K (a 35% reduction from 147.4 to 95.7) compared to the 1080p-to-1440p drop (23%) hint that the CPU’s 8 cores and 16 threads, boosted to 5.00 GHz, are starting to matter more as the render workload shrinks.

Ultra settings provide the clearest signal: the frame rate at 1080p is 108.4 FPS, dropping to 79 FPS at 1440p and 55.9 FPS at 4K. The 4K result is notably low, falling below the 60 FPS threshold, which suggests that Control’s most demanding visual options—likely ray tracing and high-resolution textures—place an extreme load on the GPU’s 10,240 shading units. The data implies that for 4K Ultra, this combination is borderline playable, while 1440p Ultra remains smooth, and 1080p is only limited by the display’s refresh rate.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 93.9 FPS, which places it comfortably above the 60 FPS standard and within range for high-refresh-rate monitors (144Hz or 165Hz).

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming at maximum settings?

A: At 4K Ultra, the average frame rate drops to 55.9 FPS, just below the 60 FPS target. Lowering to High settings at 4K yields 64.7 FPS, indicating that a single-step reduction in quality restores playability.

Q: How does the CPU affect performance at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 191 FPS, but the scaling from 1440p Low (147.4 FPS) suggests the CPU’s 8 cores and boost clock of 5.00 GHz are sufficient to avoid severe bottlenecks, though the 23% drop from 1080p to 1440p implies GPU load is still dominant.

Q: What is the difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: Medium produces 103.6 FPS, while High produces 93.9 FPS—a difference of 9.7 FPS. This gap indicates that High settings add a moderate GPU load without drastically compromising performance.

Q: Is the RTX 3080 Ti’s VRAM sufficient for Control at 4K?

A: With 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and a 384-bit bus, the GPU maintains 64.7 FPS at 4K High. The data shows no signs of memory-related stutters, suggesting the VRAM capacity is adequate for this title’s requirements.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: It ranks 400th out of 1,636 tested combinations, placing it in the top 25% of all configurations for Control specifically.

GPU Role

The RTX 3080 Ti is the clear workhorse in this pairing, especially at higher resolutions. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory operates at 19 Gbps effective, delivering 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth—a figure that supports the high-texture workloads Control is known for. The GPU’s 10,240 shading units and 320 texture mapping units provide the raw compute needed for the game’s physics-heavy environments, while its 80 ray tracing cores suggest the Ultra preset’s visual enhancements are hardware-accelerated.

The benchmark scores reinforce this: the GPU’s passmark G3D score of 26,896 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5,077 place it at the 83rd percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, scores 41,441 in the average benchmark, just 0.5% higher, indicating that the 3080 Ti’s performance is nearly flagship-tier. However, the measured FPS data shows a more nuanced story. At 4K Ultra, the 55.9 FPS average is a 41% reduction from the 1080p Ultra result of 108.4 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU’s 34.10 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is being fully utilized by the game’s highest settings.

The GPU’s 350 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest substantial thermal headroom, but the data does not include temperature measurements. The fact that the GPU holds above 90 FPS at 1440p High (93.9 FPS) across all tested settings except Ultra (79 FPS) indicates that the card’s clock speeds—boosting to 1665 MHz—are stable under sustained load. For a game released in 2019, this GPU clearly exceeds requirements, but the 4K Ultra dip below 60 FPS reveals that even a top-tier Ampere card struggles with the most extreme settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest performance. Low settings produce an average of 191 FPS, Medium 139.7 FPS, High 122.9 FPS, and Ultra 108.4 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is the largest single drop (51.3 FPS), suggesting that Medium enables significant visual effects that tax the GPU. The 1080p results are all above 100 FPS, making this resolution ideal for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 147.4 FPS (Low), 103.6 FPS (Medium), 93.9 FPS (High), and 79 FPS (Ultra). The Medium-to-High gap narrows to 9.7 FPS, compared to 16.8 FPS at 1080p, which indicates that the GPU’s pixel throughput becomes more of a factor as resolution increases. The 1440p Ultra result of 79 FPS is still smooth for most players, but it falls short of the 1080p Ultra figure by 29.4 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results are 95.7 FPS (Low), 67.6 FPS (Medium), 64.7 FPS (High), and 55.9 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Medium at 4K is 28.1 FPS, which is proportionally similar to the 1080p gap (51.3 FPS) but smaller in absolute terms. The 4K High result of 64.7 FPS is the sweet spot, offering a balance between visual fidelity and frame rate, while 4K Ultra dips below 60 FPS, making it the only configuration where the combo fails to hit that standard.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D’s contribution is most visible at 1080p, where the GPU has more headroom. Its 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 4 Raphael architecture, provide the 5 nm process node’s efficiency, with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The CPU’s 96 MB of shared L3 cache is a standout feature, likely reducing memory latency in gameplay scenarios. In the 3DMark 16-thread test, it scores 7,980, and its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29,149 places it at the 87th percentile among all CPUs.

The nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-12700F, averages 31,543 in CPU benchmarks, just 0.1% lower, indicating near-parity in synthetic workloads. However, the game data shows that the 7800X3D’s cache configuration may give it an edge in Control’s physics calculations. At 1080p Low, the 191 FPS average is 43.6 FPS higher than the 1440p Low result, but the 1080p-to-1440p drop of 23% is less severe than the 1440p-to-4K drop of 35% (147.4 to 95.7). This pattern suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at high frame rates, but the GPU still dominates the bottleneck.

The CPU’s 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth and dual-channel DDR5 support are adequate for this title, and its 120 W TDP is modest relative to its performance. The data does not indicate any CPU-bound scenario below 100 FPS, as even the most demanding 1080p Ultra setting achieves 108.4 FPS. This suggests that for Control, the 7800X3D provides ample headroom, and any performance limitations at higher resolutions are firmly attributed to the GPU.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows point to High settings as the optimal balance across all resolutions. At 4K, High delivers 64.7 FPS, which is 8.8 FPS higher than Medium (67.6 FPS) — wait, the data shows Medium at 4K is 67.6 FPS, which is actually higher than High’s 64.7 FPS. This is an anomaly: Medium outperforms High at 4K by 2.9 FPS, suggesting that High enables effects that disproportionately impact the GPU without a proportional visual gain. At 1440p, High (93.9 FPS) is only 9.7 FPS behind Medium (103.6 FPS), making High the better choice for visual quality. At 1080p, High (122.9 FPS) is similarly close to Medium (139.7 FPS), with a 16.8 FPS gap.

For 4K, the data recommends Medium as the highest playable preset, since it exceeds 60 FPS (67.6 FPS) while High falls below the Ultra threshold but still above 60 FPS (64.7 FPS). The Ultra preset at 4K (55.9 FPS) is not recommended for smooth gameplay. At 1440p, High is the sweet spot, offering 93.9 FPS with minimal visual compromise. At 1080p, Ultra (108.4 FPS) is viable for high-refresh displays, but High (122.9 FPS) provides a 14.5 FPS boost for competitive play. Low settings are only recommended for maximum frame rates (191 FPS at 1080p, 147.4 FPS at 1440p, 95.7 FPS at 4K), but the visual degradation is significant.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 400th out of 1,636 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the 75th percentile of all systems. This ranking is notable because both components individually sit at the 83rd (GPU) and 87th (CPU) percentiles of their respective categories, yet the combined rank is slightly lower, suggesting that Control’s engine does not fully utilize the strengths of either component. The GPU’s nearest rival, the RTX 3090, scores only 0.5% higher in average benchmarks, indicating that the 3080 Ti is not the limiting factor in this ranking.

The CPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-12700F, is virtually tied (0.1% difference), but the 7800X3D’s cache advantage may contribute to the measured FPS results. The 400th rank implies that there are 399 other combos that achieve higher frame rates, likely with more powerful GPUs (e.g., RTX 4090-class) or newer architectures. However, the data shows that this combo handles all tested settings at 1080p and 1440p above 79 FPS, which is a strong result for a game of Control’s visual complexity. The 4K Ultra dip to 55.9 FPS is the only weak point, but the combination of a high-percentile CPU and near-flagship GPU ensures a consistently smooth experience across the majority of settings.