Control

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Control with the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT reveal a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the combo produces 98 FPS average. Moving to 2560x1440 Ultra drops this to 74 FPS, a reduction of approximately 24%. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average falls further to 50 FPS, which is roughly 32% lower than the 1440p result and 49% lower than the 1080p figure. This progressive decline indicates that the rendering load is scaling with pixel count, which is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario at higher resolutions.

The scaling trend is even more pronounced when examining the Low preset across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 179 FPS average, which is an exceptionally high figure. At 1440p Low, the average drops to 136 FPS, and at 4K Low, it settles at 92 FPS. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p Low is about 24%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K Low is approximately 32%. These consistent percentage reductions across different settings strongly suggest that the graphics card is the primary limiting factor when resolution increases, rather than the CPU.

The data also shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (179 FPS) and Ultra (98 FPS) is 81 FPS. At 1440p, that gap narrows to 62 FPS (136 versus 74). At 4K, the gap further narrows to 42 FPS (92 versus 50). This narrowing gap at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU is becoming more saturated, leaving less headroom for additional graphical effects to impact performance. The benchmark results indicate that at 4K, even the Low preset cannot push far beyond 92 FPS, which confirms the GPU is the bottleneck in this configuration for Control at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT ranks 1183 out of 3720 tested combos in Control. This places the pairing in the upper portion of the database, roughly in the 68th percentile of all tested configurations. The rank reflects the overall capability of this hardware pairing for this specific title, considering both the CPU and GPU contributions.

The GPU itself holds an 85th percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards, which is notably higher than the combo's overall rank. This discrepancy suggests that while the RX 6800 XT is a strong performer in isolation, the specific interaction with the Ryzen 9 5900X and Control's engine characteristics may not extract the full potential of the graphics card. The CPU's 87th percentile ranking among all processors is similarly strong, yet the combo rank falls below both individual component percentiles, indicating some degree of performance limitation in this particular game.

When comparing the GPU to its nearest rivals in the database, the RX 6800 XT shows a 1.5% advantage over the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile in average benchmark scores. However, it trails the Intel Arc A550M by 2.5%, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti by 3%, and the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 by 3%. These small percentage differences suggest that the RX 6800 XT sits in a tightly contested performance band, where minor architectural differences can shift rankings. For Control specifically, the measured FPS figures indicate that this GPU is well-suited to the game's demands, though not at the absolute top tier of performance.

The CPU's nearest rivals show even smaller margins, with the Ryzen 9 5900X being 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 7 366H and 0.4% ahead of both the Intel Core Ultra 7 356H and AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 440. It trails the Intel Core i7-14650HX by 0.5%. These negligible differences imply that CPU choice within this performance class has minimal impact on overall combo ranking for Control, with the GPU likely dominating the performance equation.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT brings substantial hardware resources to Control, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is more than sufficient for the game's textures and assets, even at 4K resolution. The GPU's 4608 shading units, 288 texture mapping units, and 128 render output units provide the raw compute and fill rate needed for the game's particle effects and physics-based destruction.

Clock speeds play a significant role in the GPU's performance. The base clock runs at 1825 MHz, with a game clock of 2015 MHz and a boost clock of 2250 MHz. The memory operates at 2000 MHz, which translates to 16 Gbps effective. These clock figures, combined with the 72 ray tracing cores, allow the GPU to handle Control's DirectX 12 Ultimate workload, which includes ray-traced reflections and indirect lighting. The pixel rate of 288.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 648.0 GTexel/s are directly relevant to how quickly the GPU can fill the screen with rendered geometry and apply textures.

The benchmark results show the GPU achieving a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3689, along with Geekbench scores of 181337 in Metal, 171304 in OpenCL, and 136875 in Vulkan. The PassMark G3D score of 24980 and GPU compute score of 13245 further characterize the card's capabilities. These synthetic benchmarks align with the measured FPS in Control, where the GPU demonstrates strong performance particularly at 1080p and 1440p resolutions. The 16 GB VRAM capacity ensures that even the Ultra preset at 4K will not encounter memory capacity limitations, though the average FPS of 50 at that configuration suggests compute throughput is the binding constraint.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS across settings shows a clear hierarchy. The Low preset delivers 179 FPS average, which is exceptional for a demanding title like Control. Medium settings produce 127 FPS average, with a minimum of 108 FPS and maximum of 146 FPS. High settings yield 113 FPS average, while Ultra settings drop to 98 FPS average. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1080p represents a 45% reduction in frame rate, from 179 to 98 FPS, which quantifies the cost of enabling the game's highest visual features.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but shows the expected decline. Low settings achieve 136 FPS average, which is still very smooth for competitive play. Medium settings average 96 FPS, with a minimum of 82 FPS and maximum of 111 FPS. High settings produce 86 FPS average, and Ultra settings fall to 74 FPS average. The drop from Low to Ultra at 1440p is approximately 46%, consistent with the 1080p scaling pattern.

At 3840x2160, the 4K results demonstrate the GPU's limits. Low settings average 92 FPS, which is playable but notably lower than the lower resolutions. Medium settings average 65 FPS, with a minimum of 55 FPS and maximum of 75 FPS. High settings produce 58 FPS average, and Ultra settings drop to 50 FPS average. The Ultra 4K result of 50 FPS is right at the edge of smooth gameplay, with the Medium preset's 55 FPS minimum indicating potential stutter in demanding scenes.

The Medium preset is the only configuration with recorded minimum and maximum FPS values across all resolutions. At 1080p, the range is 108 to 146 FPS, at 1440p it is 82 to 111 FPS, and at 4K it is 55 to 75 FPS. These ranges provide insight into frame time consistency, with the 4K Medium showing the tightest absolute range of 20 FPS, suggesting more consistent frame pacing at that setting despite the lower average.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for most users. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 127 FPS average, which is well above the threshold for high refresh rate displays while still providing enhanced visual effects over Low settings. The 108 FPS minimum at this setting ensures that even the most demanding scenes remain smooth. At 2560x1440, Medium produces 96 FPS average with an 82 FPS minimum, which is suitable for 60 Hz and 144 Hz displays alike.

For users with 4K displays, the Medium preset at 3840x2160 yields 65 FPS average with a 55 FPS minimum. This is a playable experience for a single-player action adventure game, though the 55 FPS minimum suggests occasional dips during intense combat sequences. The High preset at 4K drops to 58 FPS average, which is still technically playable but leaves less headroom for frame time spikes. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that falls below 60 FPS average, at 50 FPS, which may cause noticeable judder on standard 60 Hz displays.

At 1080p, the High preset provides 113 FPS average, which is a reasonable alternative for users who want higher visual fidelity than Medium without the full performance cost of Ultra. The Ultra preset at 1080p, at 98 FPS average, is still highly playable and offers the complete visual experience as intended by the developers. However, the data indicates that the Medium preset provides the most consistent frame delivery, as evidenced by the recorded minimum FPS values, making it the recommended starting point for most configurations.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X contributes to Control's performance through its 12 cores and 24 threads, based on the Zen 3 architecture codenamed Vermeer. This processor operates at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosts up to 4.80 GHz, providing substantial single-thread performance that is crucial for game logic and physics calculations. The 64 MB of L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, which benefits the game's streaming and object management systems.

The CPU's benchmark scores demonstrate its capability. In Cinebench R23, it scores 16262 in multicore and 1527 in single-core tests. Geekbench results show 14118 in multicore and 2083 in single-core performance. The PassMark multithread score of 39002, along with a single-thread score of 3469, further quantify its processing power. The 3DMark results, including 10075 at max threads and 941 at single thread, indicate strong multi-threaded scaling that can handle Control's parallel workloads.

The Ryzen 9 5900X's nearest rivals in the database are all recent mobile processors, with the Intel Core Ultra 7 366H and 356H, AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 440, and Intel Core i7-14650HX showing performance within 0.5% of the 5900X. This tight grouping suggests that for Control, the CPU is not the primary bottleneck in most configurations. The measured FPS differences between Low and Ultra settings across all resolutions are more consistent with GPU-bound performance, indicating that the 5900X provides sufficient processing headroom to feed the RX 6800 XT effectively.

The CPU's 87th percentile ranking among all processors, combined with its 105 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth, positions it as a capable partner for the RX 6800 XT in Control. The architecture's 7 nm process node and 8,300 million transistors on dual 74 mm² dies contribute to its efficiency and performance characteristics. The benchmark data confirms that the 5900X does not limit the GPU in this game, as evidenced by the high FPS figures at lower resolutions where CPU overhead would be more apparent.