Control

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 produces a distinctive performance profile in Control, one that clearly delineates the responsibilities of each component. The data shows a system that scales predictably with resolution, though the magnitude of that scaling reveals a configuration where the GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher fidelity settings. This analysis breaks down the measured frames per second, the underlying hardware roles, and where this combination stands among the 1636 tested configurations.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and consistent, indicating a classic GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 119.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 93.1 FPS at 2560x1440, a decline of 26.8 FPS, and then further to 59.4 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a total reduction of 60.5 FPS from the 1080p baseline. This pattern—where the 1440p result sits roughly midway between the 1080p and 4K figures—suggests the rendering pipeline is scaling with pixel count, which is the hallmark of a GPU-limited workload.

The scaling behavior is even more pronounced at the lower settings. At Low settings, the spread from 190.5 FPS at 1080p to 144.5 FPS at 1440p and finally 99.4 FPS at 4K shows a 91.1 FPS total drop, a percentage decline of approximately 48%. This larger absolute drop at Low settings indicates that when the GPU is less burdened by shading work, the frame rate gains more from reduced resolution, confirming that the graphics card is the limiting factor even when the workload is lightened. Conversely, at Ultra settings, the drop from 108.6 FPS at 1080p to 77.9 FPS at 1440p and 52.8 FPS at 4K shows a smaller total decline of 55.8 FPS, which implies that at the highest quality, other bottlenecks—possibly in the game's rendering logic or memory subsystem—begin to temper the GPU's raw throughput advantage.

The data strongly indicates that the RTX 4070 is the component that governs scaling across resolutions. The consistent, near-linear FPS reduction with each step up in resolution—from 1080p to 1440p to 2160p—is exactly what is expected when the GPU's fillrate and shading capacity are the primary determinants of performance. The CPU's role becomes more apparent at 1080p, where the frame rates are high enough that the processor's ability to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations could start to matter, but the measured results do not show any unusual stalling or plateaus that would suggest a CPU ceiling at this resolution.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, built on the Zen 5 architecture with a 4 nm process, brings 8 cores and 16 threads to the system. Its base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz are competitive for gaming workloads. In Control, which is an action-adventure title with significant physics and particle effects, the CPU's single-thread and multi-thread performance both play a role. The benchmark data for the CPU shows a 3dmark single-thread score of 1280 and a 3dmark max-threads score of 9771, indicating strong per-core performance and solid scaling across its 16 threads.

For this game, the CPU's 8-core, 16-thread configuration is well-suited to the workload. The passmark multithread score of 37161 and the cinebench r23 multicore score of 31588 suggest that the processor can handle the game's background simulation tasks without becoming a bottleneck. However, the measured FPS data at 4K, where the average at High settings is 59.4 FPS, shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor at that resolution. The GPU is clearly saturated, as evidenced by the sharp FPS reductions when moving from 1440p to 4K.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s with dual-channel DDR5 support is adequate for feeding the GPU's 12 GB of GDDR6X memory. The processor's 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps with the game's level streaming and object management. In the context of the nearestRivals for the CPU, the Ryzen 7 9700X has an average benchmark score of 36029, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core i5-14500HX (score 35940) and 0.6% higher than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (score 35802). It sits slightly below the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H (score 36165) by 0.4% and the Intel Core Ultra 5 225H (score 36328) by 0.8%. These marginal differences in synthetic benchmarks suggest that the CPU choice among these rivals would have a negligible impact on the game's frame rates, given that the GPU is the dominant factor in this configuration.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, based on the Ada Lovelace architecture and fabricated on a 5 nm process, is the primary driver of the frame rates in this analysis. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s, which is crucial for the high-resolution textures and effects in Control. The GPU's boost clock of 2475 MHz and its 5888 shading units deliver a raw compute throughput of 29.15 TFLOPS for FP32 operations.

The GPU's role is clearly dominant in this pairing, as the measured FPS figures demonstrate. At 4K Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops to 52.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that many users consider smooth. This is directly attributable to the RTX 4070's limitations at this extreme resolution, as the GPU is working at its maximum capacity to render the game's complex lighting and reflection effects. The passmark g3d score of 26927 and the 3dmark steel nomad score of 3854 place the GPU in the 81st percentile of all GPUs, indicating it is a capable upper-midrange part but not a flagship.

Comparing the GPU to its nearestRivals, the RTX 4070's average benchmark score of 37283 is 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (score 37507), 1.9% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A (score 38008), and 2.2% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (score 38135). It is 2.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 5300M (score 36371). These deltas are small, but the RTX 4070's advantage in features like ray tracing and DLSS, which are not captured in these synthetic scores, may make a difference in Control's visual quality settings. The GPU's 46 RT cores are particularly relevant for this game, which introduced ray-traced reflections and indirect diffuse lighting as headline features.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates range from 190.5 FPS at Low settings to 108.6 FPS at Ultra settings. The High and Medium settings produce 119.9 FPS and 134.8 FPS, respectively. This indicates that at 1080p, the system can easily maintain high refresh rates, with even the Ultra preset exceeding 100 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are still strong but show the GPU beginning to work harder. Low settings deliver an average of 144.5 FPS, while Medium and High settings produce 101.8 FPS and 93.1 FPS, respectively. The Ultra preset drops to 77.9 FPS, which is still playable but puts the system below the 144 Hz refresh rate that some high-end monitors offer.

At 3840x2160, the system's limitations become apparent. Low settings yield an average of 99.4 FPS, which is respectable, but High settings fall to 59.4 FPS, and Medium settings produce 67.8 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 52.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay. This breakdown confirms that the RTX 4070 is the bottleneck at 4K, as the CPU has ample headroom at these lower frame rates.

The difference between Low and Ultra settings at each resolution is notable. At 1080p, the gap is 81.9 FPS (from 190.5 to 108.6), at 1440p it is 66.6 FPS (from 144.5 to 77.9), and at 4K it is 46.6 FPS (from 99.4 to 52.8). This narrowing gap with increasing resolution further confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the relative cost of higher settings diminishes when the GPU is already saturated by pixel throughput.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks 467th out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 71.5th percentile of all configurations. This is a solid mid-to-upper ranking, indicating that this pairing delivers above-average performance for the game. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU's strong computational capabilities and the GPU's capable but not top-tier rendering performance.

Given the GPU's 81st percentile ranking among all GPUs and the CPU's 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs, one might expect a higher overall combo rank. However, the game's specific requirements at higher resolutions pull the combined result down, as the RTX 4070 cannot maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra settings. The data suggests that this combo is best suited for 1440p gaming, where it can achieve an average of 93.1 FPS at High settings, or for 1080p gaming where it can push well beyond 144 FPS at most settings.

The combo rank of 467 also indicates that there are 1169 other combinations that perform better in this game. These are likely to include pairings with higher-end GPUs like the RTX 4080 or RTX 4090, which would provide the additional GPU headroom needed to maintain higher frame rates at 4K. Conversely, the 467th rank out of 1636 means this combo outperforms the majority of tested systems, making it a viable choice for gamers who prioritize 1440p high-refresh-rate play over 4K maximum settings. The measured FPS data, which is confirmed as directly measured, provides a reliable basis for this ranking, and the consistency of the scaling across resolutions reinforces the conclusion that the GPU is the primary determinant of this combo's position in the overall hierarchy.