Control

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 delivers a highly capable Control experience, with measured frame rates that highlight a clear performance hierarchy across the game’s four presets. The data shows that the Ultra preset, while visually demanding, remains playable, but the High preset offers the most balanced combination of visual fidelity and frame rate headroom for this specific pairing.

Settings Recommendations

Benchmark results indicate that the High preset is the optimal choice for this combination across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, High yields an average of 116.2 FPS, which is a substantial 15.5 FPS improvement over the Ultra preset’s 100.7 FPS. This delta grows more pronounced at higher resolutions, where the visual difference between High and Ultra often narrows but the performance cost remains significant.

At 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 84.7 FPS, comfortably above the 73.8 FPS achieved on Ultra. The Medium preset at this resolution produces 100.6 FPS, but the step down from High to Medium sacrifices more visual quality than the step up from High to Ultra gains. For users with 1440p displays, the High preset is the clear recommendation, as it maintains fluid motion while preserving most of the game’s atmospheric effects.

The 3840x2160 results reinforce this pattern. High averages 59.4 FPS, which is only slightly below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, while Ultra drops to 50.6 FPS. The Low preset at 4K reaches 96.2 FPS, but this requires disabling many of the visual features that define Control’s aesthetic. The data suggests that High is the only preset that balances framerate and image quality at 4K for this hardware.

For maximum frame rates, the Low preset provides the highest headroom, reaching 180.3 FPS at 1080p and 137.8 FPS at 1440p. However, this setting removes too much of the game’s visual character. The Medium preset, which averages 129.7 FPS at 1080p and 100.6 FPS at 1440p, serves as a strong alternative for competitive play or high-refresh-rate displays, but High remains the best overall experience per the measured rows.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 9 5900X and RX 9070 ranks 528th out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the upper third of all configurations. This percentile positioning reflects a system that is more than capable of running the game well, though it does not sit at the absolute top tier where the most extreme hardware combinations reside.

The CPU component of this pairing shows a percentile rank of 90 against all CPUs, indicating that the Ryzen 9 5900X is a very strong processor for this workload. Its average benchmark score of 39453 places it nearly even with the AMD EPYC 4245P, which scores 39383, a mere 0.2% difference. The Intel Core i7-13700F trails slightly with a score of 39095, putting it 0.9% behind the 5900X. Conversely, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8845HS scores 39747, edging ahead by 0.7%, and the Intel Core i7-13700 reaches 39857, a 1% advantage. These margins are minimal, indicating that the 5900X provides performance on par with modern mid-range and high-end rivals.

The GPU component ranks at the 79th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 34780. This places the RX 9070 close to the NVIDIA A2, which scores 34866, a 0.2% difference, and the NVIDIA Quadro GV100 at 34677, which is 0.3% behind. The AMD Radeon HD 7970 and Radeon PRO W6400 are also within a percentage point, scoring 34541 and 34511 respectively. While these rivals are not direct gaming competitors, the data shows that the RX 9070’s raw compute performance sits in a consistent band.

The combined rank of 528 out of 1636 suggests that while each component is strong individually, the pair is well-matched for Control, delivering smooth performance without any single component becoming an obvious bottleneck at the tested settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combination achieves at 1080p?

A: The highest measured average is 180.3 FPS, achieved with the Low preset at 1920x1080. The High preset reaches 116.2 FPS at this resolution.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset averages 84.7 FPS, while Ultra averages 73.8 FPS. This represents an 11 FPS drop, or roughly a 13% reduction in frame rate, for the higher visual fidelity.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this hardware?

A: Yes, but only with the High preset, which averages 59.4 FPS at 3840x2160. The Ultra preset drops to 50.6 FPS, which is below the ideal smoothness threshold, while Medium reaches 67.5 FPS and Low reaches 96.2 FPS.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 5900X’s multi-core performance compare to the Intel Core i7-13700?

A: The Ryzen 9 5900X has an average benchmark score of 39453, while the Intel Core i7-13700 scores 39857. This puts the Intel chip ahead by approximately 1%, a negligible difference in real-world gaming.

Q: What is the RX 9070’s percentile rank among all GPUs?

A: The RX 9070 is at the 79th percentile, with an average benchmark score of 34780. This places it above the majority of GPUs but below the top-tier flagship models.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 96.2 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 50.6 FPS. This represents a 45.6 FPS gap, showing the significant performance cost of the Ultra settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of how this combination performs across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the frame rates start at 180.3 FPS on Low and scale down through 129.7 FPS on Medium, 116.2 FPS on High, and 100.7 FPS on Ultra. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a total reduction of 79.6 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium at 50.6 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the same settings produce 137.8 FPS on Low, 100.6 FPS on Medium, 84.7 FPS on High, and 73.8 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra here is 64 FPS. The transition from Medium to High costs 15.9 FPS, while High to Ultra costs 10.9 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results are 96.2 FPS on Low, 67.5 FPS on Medium, 59.4 FPS on High, and 50.6 FPS on Ultra. The total range from Low to Ultra is 45.6 FPS. Notably, the jump from Low to Medium at 4K costs 28.7 FPS, which is the largest single-setting penalty across all resolutions.

The data shows a consistent pattern where the Low preset provides the highest headroom, Medium offers a substantial improvement in visual quality at a moderate cost, and High delivers the best balance. Ultra consistently costs between 10 and 16 FPS over High, regardless of resolution, suggesting that the GPU is being pushed to its limits at the highest settings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important characteristics about the limiting component in this system. At High settings, the performance drops from 116.2 FPS at 1920x1080 to 84.7 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 31.5 FPS or approximately 27%. Moving from 1440p to 4K, the frame rate falls from 84.7 FPS to 59.4 FPS, a further drop of 25.3 FPS or about 30%.

This scaling pattern indicates that the RX 9070 is the primary limiting factor as resolution increases. The consistent percentage drops between resolutions suggest that the GPU is handling the additional pixel load in a predictable manner, without the CPU becoming a bottleneck at lower resolutions and then suddenly constraining performance at higher ones.

On the Low preset, the scaling is more aggressive: 180.3 FPS at 1080p drops to 137.8 FPS at 1440p, a 23.6% reduction, and then to 96.2 FPS at 4K, a 30.2% reduction from 1440p. This steeper drop at 4K on Low settings indicates that even with reduced graphical load, the GPU’s pixel throughput becomes the dominant constraint at 3840x2160.

The Ultra preset shows the most moderate scaling in absolute terms, from 100.7 FPS at 1080p to 73.8 FPS at 1440p and 50.6 FPS at 4K. This flattening of the curve suggests that at the highest settings, the GPU is already working near its limits even at 1080p, and the additional resolution has a proportionally smaller impact. Overall, the data points to the RX 9070 as the performance limiter, with the Ryzen 9 5900X providing ample headroom at all tested configurations.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X brings 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz. This configuration, coupled with 64 MB of L3 cache, provides strong multi-threaded performance that is well-suited for modern game engines. Its 3DMark max threads score of 10075 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 33150 demonstrate substantial parallel processing capability.

In Control, the CPU’s role appears to be secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the resolution scaling data. The fact that frame rates scale consistently with resolution across all presets indicates that the processor is not introducing a bottleneck at any tested setting. The 5900X’s single-thread performance, as shown by its 3DMark single-thread score of 941 and Geekbench single-core score of 2202, is sufficient to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic data without limiting frame rates.

The CPU’s 90th percentile ranking against all CPUs further reinforces that this processor is not a weak link in the system. Its nearest rivals, including the AMD EPYC 4245P and Intel Core i7-13700F, score within 1% of the 5900X, confirming that it sits in a competitive performance tier. For a game like Control, which relies on a mix of physics, AI, and rendering tasks, the 12-core configuration ensures that background threads never starve the main game thread, allowing the RX 9070 to operate at its full potential across all measured settings and resolutions.