Control

# Control with AMD Ryzen 7 9700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

This combo, pairing the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, ranks at position 121 out of 3,720 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the top 3.3% of all systems evaluated. The ranking reflects a pairing where the GPU's immense compute resources are supported by a modern 8-core CPU, though the data reveals that the RTX 4090 is the dominant factor in determining frame rates across most settings and resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 121 out of 3,720 tested configurations in Control places it firmly in the upper echelon of systems, though it does not claim the top spot. This position suggests that while the hardware is exceptionally capable, other combinations—likely those with even higher-end CPUs or more optimized pairings—deliver marginally better results in this specific title. The RTX 4090 sits at the 88th percentile among all GPUs, which is strong but not the absolute pinnacle; this aligns with its ranking position, as the GPU's raw strength is somewhat tempered by the CPU's performance ceiling in certain scenarios.

Looking at the CPU's benchmark context, the Ryzen 7 9700F achieves an average benchmark score of 69,996, landing at the 94th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals in synthetic testing include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX with a score of 69,875 (a 0.2% delta), the Intel Core i7-14700KF at 70,163 (a -0.2% delta), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X at 69,515 (a 0.7% delta), and the Intel Core i7-14700K at 69,355 (a 0.9% delta). These deltas are remarkably tight—all within 1%—indicating that the 9700F's performance is essentially on par with several high-end desktop and mobile flagship CPUs from both AMD and Intel. This near-parity in synthetic benchmarks suggests that the CPU is not a bottleneck in most gaming workloads, though Control's specific engine behavior may favor certain architectures.

The GPU's benchmark context is more heterogeneous. The RTX 4090's average benchmark score of 60,347 places it at the 88th percentile, but its nearest rivals are a mix of professional and workstation cards: the Intel Arc Pro A60 at 60,326 (0.0% delta), the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 at 60,140 (0.3% delta), the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M at 61,896 (-2.5% delta), and the AMD Radeon PRO V710 at 58,657 (2.9% delta). The small deltas here are surprising given the RTX 4090's gaming pedigree, but they reflect the aggregate benchmark scores rather than game-specific performance. In Control specifically, the measured FPS data shows the combo delivering frame rates that align with its high rank, indicating that the benchmark scores translate into real-world playability.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the centerpiece of this configuration, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. It houses 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die, with a transistor density of 125.3M per mm². The GPU operates with a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, while the memory clock runs at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective speed. The 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus delivers a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s, which is crucial for high-resolution textures and complex scenes typical of Control's action-adventure environments.

In terms of compute resources, the RTX 4090 features 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 raster operation processors. Its 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores are particularly relevant for Control, which is known for its physics-based destruction and ray-traced reflections. The GPU's pixel rate is 443.5 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 1,290.2 GTexel/s, with FP32 and FP16 performance both rated at 82.58 TFLOPS. These specifications translate into a card that can handle the most demanding settings in Control without breaking a sweat, as evidenced by the measured FPS data.

The RTX 4090's end-of-life production status and 450 W TDP suggest it draws significant power, with a suggested PSU of 850 W and a single 16-pin connector. Its triple-slot design and 304 mm length make it a substantial physical presence, but the performance payoff is clear in the benchmark results. The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) ensures compatibility with Control's modern rendering features, while Vulkan 1.4 and OpenGL 4.6 provide flexibility for various API paths. The 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth is particularly beneficial at 4K resolution, where the GPU can feed its shading units without stalling on memory access.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a desktop processor from the 9000 series, built on the Zen 5 architecture with the Granite Ridge codename. It uses a 4 nm process from TSMC, with 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die. The CPU features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its 65 W TDP is modest for a high-performance desktop chip, and it supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache, along with 80 KB L1 and 1 MB L2 per core, provides ample cache for gaming workloads.

In Control, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls, physics calculations, and game logic. The 8-core/16-thread configuration is well-suited for modern games that can utilize multiple threads, and the 5.50 GHz boost clock ensures strong single-threaded performance for latency-sensitive tasks. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 4,691 and multithread score of 36,470 indicate balanced performance across both metrics. The 9700F's 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 69,996, places it in the top tier of processors available.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are all within a 1% delta, which suggests that in CPU-bound scenarios, the 9700F will perform nearly identically to the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, Intel Core i7-14700KF, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, and Intel Core i7-14700K. However, in Control, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU is rarely the limiting factor, especially at higher resolutions where the GPU takes on more of the workload. The CPU's support for PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes ensures that the RTX 4090's PCIe 4.0 x16 interface is fully utilized without bandwidth constraints.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo in Control provides a comprehensive picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves an average of 272 FPS on Low settings, 194 FPS on Medium (with a min of 165 and max of 223 FPS), 172 FPS on High, and 149 FPS on Ultra. These frame rates are exceptionally high, indicating that at 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound in some scenarios, as the GPU has ample headroom to render frames much faster than the CPU can issue draw calls.

Moving to 2560x1440, the average FPS drops to 206 on Low, 146 on Medium (min 124, max 168), 130 on High, and 113 on Ultra. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a consistent reduction of roughly 24-25% across all settings, which is typical for a resolution increase that adds 78% more pixels. At 1440p, the GPU begins to play a more significant role, but the frame rates remain high enough for competitive play on any setting.

At 3840x2160 (4K), the average FPS is 139 on Low, 99 on Medium (min 84, max 114), 88 on High, and 76 on Ultra. The 4K resolution represents a 4x pixel increase over 1080p, and the frame rates reflect this: the combo loses approximately 49% of its 1080p Low performance when moving to 4K Low (272 to 139 FPS), and 49% when moving from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra (149 to 76 FPS). These results indicate that the RTX 4090 is powerful enough to maintain playable frame rates at 4K even on Ultra settings, though the gap between Low and Ultra narrows as resolution increases, suggesting a shift from CPU to GPU limitation.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling pattern in Control for this combo reveals important insights about the system's bottleneck characteristics. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS drops by 24.3% on Low (272 to 206), 24.7% on Medium (194 to 146), 24.4% on High (172 to 130), and 24.2% on Ultra (149 to 113). This consistent ~24% reduction across all settings indicates that the scaling is purely resolution-driven, with no significant change in the balance between CPU and GPU load.

From 1440p to 4K, the drops are more pronounced: 32.5% on Low (206 to 139), 32.2% on Medium (146 to 99), 32.3% on High (130 to 88), and 32.7% on Ultra (113 to 76). The larger percentage drop at higher resolutions is expected, as the GPU must render 2.25x more pixels when moving from 1440p to 4K. However, the consistency of the drop across settings (all around 32-33%) suggests that the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor at 4K, regardless of the graphics preset.

The data indicates that at 1080p, the system is CPU-bound, as evidenced by the large frame rates (272 FPS on Low) that exceed what the GPU's raw pixel throughput would suggest. As resolution increases, the GPU's workload grows, and by 4K, the system is firmly GPU-bound, with the CPU's 5.50 GHz boost clock and 8 cores proving sufficient to keep the RTX 4090 fed. This is a well-balanced pairing for high-resolution gaming, where the GPU's 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth and 24 GB VRAM can be fully utilized.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, even Ultra settings deliver 149 FPS average, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on high-end monitors. Players seeking maximum visual fidelity at 1080p can safely use Ultra settings, as the frame rate remains high and the CPU-bound nature of the system means that no setting will cause a significant performance hit.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset delivers 113 FPS average, which is still excellent for most displays. The High preset at 130 FPS offers a 15% improvement over Ultra, and the Medium preset at 146 FPS provides a 29% improvement. For players with 144 Hz or 165 Hz monitors, the Medium preset is the best choice, as it maintains frame rates above 144 FPS while still offering respectable visual quality. The Low preset at 206 FPS is overkill for most displays but could benefit competitive players with 240 Hz monitors.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes. The Ultra preset delivers 76 FPS average, which is playable but may not be smooth enough for all players. The High preset at 88 FPS is a better choice, offering a 15.8% improvement over Ultra with minimal visual degradation. The Medium preset at 99 FPS is the sweet spot for 4K gaming, as it crosses the 90 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for smooth gameplay. The Low preset at 139 FPS is only recommended for players with 120 Hz or higher 4K displays, as the visual quality reduction is noticeable. In summary, the Medium preset at 4K, High at 1440p, and Ultra at 1080p provide the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate across the three resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo's ranking in Control among all tested systems?

A: This combo ranks 121st out of 3,720 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the top 3.3% of all systems evaluated.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F has an average benchmark score of 69,996, which is within 1% of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69,875), Intel Core i7-14700KF (70,163), AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515), and Intel Core i7-14700K (69,355).

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo in Control?

A: The highest average FPS is 272, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The lowest recorded average FPS is 76, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

Q: How does the RTX 4090's memory configuration affect performance?

A: The RTX 4090 features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus with 1.01 TB/s bandwidth, which provides ample capacity and bandwidth for Control's high-resolution textures and ray-traced effects.

Q: Does the combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the combo achieves 76 FPS average at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. While this is below 90 FPS, it is still playable, and the Medium preset at 99 FPS offers a better experience for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the CPU's boost clock and core configuration?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, built on the Zen 5 architecture.