Control

# Control with AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D + AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT produces a striking split personality in Control: at 1080p Low, the combo delivers 142.8 FPS, but at 4K Ultra it falls to 41.7 FPS. This 3.4x performance spread across the measured settings reveals a system where the GPU becomes the overwhelming bottleneck as resolution climbs, while the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads with a 96 MB L3 cache ensure the frame rate ceiling is rarely a processor limitation. The combo ranks 890th out of 1636 tested configurations, placing it in the 54th percentile of all combinations tested for this game.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves in Control?

A: The highest measured average is 142.8 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The lowest is 41.7 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 7 9800X3D scores 37780 average across all benchmarks, sitting 0.1% behind the Intel Xeon 6353P (37811) and 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 (37831). It trails the Intel Core i9-13900HK by 0.6% and the Intel Core i5-13600KF by 0.7%.

Q: What is the GPU's performance percentile relative to all GPUs?

A: The RX 6700 XT ranks in the 77th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 33721. Its closest rival, the RX 6800, scores 33493, just 0.7% lower.

Q: How much does raising settings from Low to Ultra cost in FPS at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings yield 104.7 FPS, while Ultra drops to exactly 60 FPS — a 44.7 FPS reduction, or roughly 43% lower performance.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: The data suggests minimal CPU limitation: at 1080p Low, the combo hits 142.8 FPS while the CPU's single-thread score of 1212 in 3DMark and 4800 in Cinebench R23 indicate ample headroom. The GPU's 13.21 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is the limiting factor as resolution increases.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among all tested configurations?

A: This pairing ranks 890th out of 1636 total combos tested in Control, placing it slightly above the median of tested systems.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 6700 XT carries the primary responsibility for Control's visual output, and its specifications explain the measured FPS pattern. The GPU operates with a base clock of 2321 MHz, a game clock of 2424 MHz, and a boost clock of 2581 MHz, paired with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 384.0 GB/s bandwidth. These figures translate to a pixel rate of 165.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 413.0 GTexel/s, which are the raw throughput limits that govern how many pixels and texture samples the card can process per second.

The 2560 shading units and 64 ROPs determine how efficiently the card handles Control's particle-heavy combat and destructible environments. At 4K Ultra, the card's 13.21 TFLOPS FP32 compute is simply insufficient to maintain fluid motion, producing 41.7 FPS. The data shows a clear linear relationship between GPU workload and FPS: increasing resolution from 1080p to 1440p at High settings drops average FPS from 87.8 to 69.3, and then to 45.7 at 4K. This consistent degradation pattern indicates the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute units are saturated progressively as pixel count grows.

The GPU's benchmark percentile of 77 places it above most contemporary cards, yet its nearest rivals include the RX 6800 (0.7% higher score) and the RTX A5000 (1.3% higher), suggesting it sits in a competitive mid-range tier. For Control specifically, the 12 GB VRAM capacity is adequate for all tested settings since the game's textures at 4K Ultra do not appear to exceed this allocation, given that the card still produces playable (if not ideal) frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

Positioned 890th out of 1636 tested combinations, this pairing ranks in the 54th percentile of all systems evaluated for Control. This mid-pack placement is notable because the CPU is a top-decile performer — the Ryzen 7 9800X3D sits in the 90th percentile of all CPUs — while the GPU's 77th percentile ranking drags the overall combo down. The data implies that the RX 6700 XT is the constraining component in this pairing, as the CPU's capabilities far exceed what the GPU can utilize in this game.

The rank of 890 suggests that the majority of the 746 combos ranked higher likely pair stronger GPUs with comparable or weaker CPUs. This is consistent with Control's GPU-intensive nature: the game's physics and rendering demands scale heavily with pixel count, and the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for the game's threading model. A system with a mid-range CPU and a high-end GPU would likely rank higher in this specific title, highlighting the imbalance in this particular combination.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo demonstrates its ceiling: Low settings produce 142.8 FPS, Medium drops to 101.3, High reduces further to 87.8, and Ultra bottoms out at 76.2. The 1080p Low figure approaches the CPU's potential limit, as even the fastest GPUs would struggle to exceed this significantly without a faster processor.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern shifts toward GPU dominance: Low yields 104.7 FPS, Medium 78.7, High 69.3, and Ultra exactly 60 FPS. The drop from 1080p Low to 1440p Low is 38.1 FPS, a 27% reduction, while 1080p Ultra to 1440p Ultra loses 16.2 FPS, a 21% reduction — indicating that at higher settings, the GPU is already near its limits even at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly overwhelmed: Low produces 71.9 FPS, Medium 52.3, High 45.7, and Ultra 41.7 FPS. The margin between Low and Ultra at 4K is 30.2 FPS, which is smaller than the 66.6 FPS margin at 1080p, demonstrating diminishing returns from setting reductions as resolution increases.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU bottleneck clearly. At Low settings, FPS drops from 142.8 at 1080p to 104.7 at 1440p (a 38.1 FPS loss) and then to 71.9 at 4K (another 32.8 FPS loss). This progressive decline tracks almost perfectly with pixel count: 1440p has 1.78x the pixels of 1080p, and the FPS ratio is 104.7/142.8 = 0.73, close to the expected 0.56 if perfectly pixel-bound, but the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute limits mitigate the full impact.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is shallower: 76.2 FPS at 1080p, 60 at 1440p, and 41.7 at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 16.2 FPS (21%), while 1440p-to-4K drops 18.3 FPS (30%). The fact that 4K Ultra still achieves 41.7 FPS — nearly 55% of the 1080p Ultra figure — suggests that the GPU is not purely pixel-bound but also limited by other factors like draw call processing and shading complexity. The CPU's 96 MB L3 cache likely helps maintain frame pacing during complex scenes, preventing sudden drops that would appear in minimum FPS data (though min/max values are not measured here).

The resolution scaling behavior indicates that at 1080p, the system is close to CPU-limited at Low settings, but at higher settings and resolutions, the GPU's 384.0 GB/s bandwidth and 13.21 TFLOPS become the definitive constraints.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D's specifications suggest it should never be the limiting factor in Control. With 8 cores and 16 threads running at a base clock of 4.70 GHz and boost up to 5.20 GHz, the processor delivers exceptional single-threaded performance — its 3DMark single-thread score of 1212 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4800 place it among the fastest consumer CPUs. The 96 MB shared L3 cache is particularly beneficial for game workloads that reuse data across frames, reducing memory latency.

The CPU's 3DMark multi-threaded scores (10081 for 16 threads, 10067 for max threads) show minimal scaling beyond 8 threads, indicating that Control's engine likely doesn't utilize more than 8 threads effectively. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 34004 demonstrates the CPU's raw throughput, but in gaming, the single-thread performance matters more. The PassMark single-thread score of 4430 confirms this strength.

Given that the combo achieves 142.8 FPS at 1080p Low — a setting where GPU load is minimal — the CPU is clearly capable of feeding frames at this rate. The absence of higher FPS figures (e.g., above 150 FPS) at any tested setting suggests either the game engine has a frame rate cap around 143 FPS, or the GPU's minimum frame time at even Low settings prevents higher output. Since no setting exceeds 142.8 FPS, the CPU likely has headroom that the GPU cannot exploit.

Settings Recommendations

For 1080p displays, High settings at 87.8 FPS offer the best balance of visual quality and smoothness — the jump from High to Ultra costs 11.6 FPS (13%) for marginal visual gains, while dropping to Medium gains only 13.5 FPS (15%) over High. The 76.2 FPS at Ultra is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes.

At 1440p, Medium settings at 78.7 FPS provide the most consistent experience, as High at 69.3 FPS risks dropping below 60 FPS in intense combat, and Ultra at exactly 60 FPS offers no headroom. The 104.7 FPS at Low is unnecessarily fast for a game like Control, where atmospheric lighting and particle effects are central to the experience.

For 4K, Low settings at 71.9 FPS are the only configuration that maintains fluid motion above 60 FPS. Medium at 52.3 FPS and High at 45.7 FPS are playable but below the ideal smoothness threshold, while Ultra at 41.7 FPS should be avoided for action sequences. Given the GPU's 77th percentile ranking, 4K gaming in Control requires compromising heavily on settings, making 1440p Medium the sweet spot for this combo.