Control

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Low settings for this combo?

A: The measured average FPS is 65, making it the highest result across all tested settings and resolutions in the data.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390 compare to its nearest rival in GPU benchmarks?

A: The Arc B390 scores 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, which is 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463). It also trails the GT 625 OEM by 2.5% and the GT 710 by 2.7%.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among tested combinations in Control?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X + Intel Arc B390 ranks 2551 out of 2888 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 12% of all configurations.

Q: Does the CPU outperform its nearest rivals in average benchmark score?

A: Yes, the Ryzen 9 5900X has an average benchmark score of 41376, which is 0.3% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 7 366H (41263) and 0.4% higher than both the Core Ultra 7 356H and AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 440.

Q: What is the FPS drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low?

A: The average FPS drops from 65 at 1080p Low to 33 at 4K Low, representing a 49% reduction in frame rate.

Q: Which settings preset provides the most balanced experience at 1440p?

A: Medium settings at 2560x1440 deliver 35 FPS average with a minimum of 30 and maximum of 40, offering the best combination of playability and visual quality among 1440p presets.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel's 3 nm process node. Its base clock runs at 300 MHz, boosting up to 2500 MHz, with a TDP of 80 W. The GPU has 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster operation units, along with 12 ray tracing cores. Pixel rate is rated at 60.00 GPixel/s, texture rate at 120.0 GTexel/s, and FP32 performance at 7.680 TFLOPS.

Memory is system shared, meaning the GPU draws from the host CPU's DDR4 memory rather than having dedicated VRAM. Memory bandwidth is listed as system dependent, which makes its performance heavily reliant on the rest of the platform. This shared memory configuration has a direct impact on Control's results, as the game's texture streaming and geometry demands must compete with CPU memory traffic.

The GPU's benchmark presence is minimal — only one score exists in the database: 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. This places the Arc B390 at the 9th percentile among all GPUs, indicating it sits near the bottom of the performance distribution. Its nearest rivals are all legacy NVIDIA parts: the GT 520MX (1463, 1.3% slower), 800M (1460, 1.5% slower), GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5% slower), and GT 710 (1443, 2.7% slower). The Arc B390 edges out all of these, but the margins are slim, and all five GPUs cluster within a 3% band.

In Control, the GPU's limitations become apparent immediately. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 65 FPS, which is playable. However, the frame rate collapses quickly as settings increase: 46 FPS at Medium, 41 FPS at High, and 36 FPS at Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows the resolution scaling curve, suggesting the GPU is the primary bottleneck even at the lowest settings. The 12 ray tracing cores are present in hardware, but the measured data shows no ray tracing-specific benchmarks for this game, so their practical impact cannot be assessed from this dataset.

The shared memory architecture means the GPU has no dedicated VRAM pool, which typically hurts performance in memory-intensive scenes common in action-adventure titles like Control. The system-dependent bandwidth further compounds this, as the GPU's ability to fetch textures and geometry is constrained by the CPU's memory controller and the speed of installed DDR4 modules.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep resolution scaling curve across all four settings presets. At Low settings, the average FPS progresses from 65 at 1080p to 50 at 1440p to 33 at 4K — a drop of 15 FPS (23%) from 1080p to 1440p, and another 17 FPS (34%) from 1440p to 4K. This indicates the GPU is heavily pixel-bound; each resolution increase demands significantly more fill rate and memory bandwidth than the integrated solution can provide.

At Medium settings, the progression is 46 FPS at 1080p, 35 FPS at 1440p, and 24 FPS at 4K. The frame rate drops by 11 FPS (24%) from 1080p to 1440p, then another 11 FPS (31%) from 1440p to 4K. The consistent percentage drops suggest the GPU's compute and memory resources are being saturated uniformly across resolutions, with no single resolution acting as an outlier.

High settings show 41 FPS at 1080p, 31 FPS at 1440p, and 21 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 10 FPS (24%), and from 1440p to 4K is another 10 FPS (32%). Ultra settings follow a similar pattern: 36 FPS at 1080p, 27 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K, with drops of 9 FPS (25%) and 9 FPS (33%) respectively.

The data shows that the limiting component is unequivocally the GPU. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain relatively flat across resolutions, as the CPU's workload does not change with pixel count. Instead, the consistent 24-25% drop from 1080p to 1440p and 31-34% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates that the Arc B390's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are the binding constraints. The Ryzen 9 5900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, has ample processing headroom for this title, but it cannot compensate for the GPU's rendering limits.

The resolution scaling also suggests that 1080p is the only viable resolution for consistent playability. At 1440p, only the Low preset exceeds 50 FPS, while Medium dips to 35 FPS. At 4K, even Low settings only reach 33 FPS, which falls below the typical 60 FPS target for smooth action gameplay.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings preset depends on the target resolution and the acceptable frame rate threshold.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 65 FPS average, which is the only setting that approaches a 60 FPS experience. Medium drops to 46 FPS, High to 41 FPS, and Ultra to 36 FPS. For players prioritizing smoothness, Low at 1080p is the clear choice, offering a 19 FPS advantage over Medium. However, if visual fidelity is more important and frame rates in the 36-46 FPS range are tolerable, Medium provides the best balance — it maintains a minimum of 40 FPS and a maximum of 53 FPS, which is the only preset at any resolution with a recorded minimum above 30 FPS.

At 2560x1440, Low is the only preset that breaks 50 FPS, hitting 50 FPS average. Medium averages 35 FPS with a minimum of 30 and maximum of 40, which is playable but not smooth by modern standards. High sits at 31 FPS, and Ultra at 27 FPS. The data suggests that 1440p is only feasible with Low settings, and even then, the frame rate is 15 FPS lower than 1080p Low.

At 3840x2160, all presets fall below 35 FPS. Low averages 33 FPS, Medium 24 FPS, High 21 FPS, and Ultra 18 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K has a recorded minimum of 20 FPS and maximum of 27 FPS, indicating significant frame time variance. No 4K preset provides a consistently playable experience.

The best experience per the measured rows is 1080p Low, which delivers 65 FPS average. The second-best option is 1080p Medium at 46 FPS, but the 19 FPS gap between Low and Medium suggests that the performance cost of the Medium preset is substantial relative to its visual benefit. For players who want the highest frame rate possible, 1080p Low is the only sensible choice. For those who accept lower frame rates, 1080p Medium offers the highest settings at which the minimum FPS stays above 40.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X + Intel Arc B390 combination ranks 2551 out of 2888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 88th percentile of worst-performing configurations. This rank reflects the GPU's severe performance limitation rather than any deficiency in the CPU, as the Ryzen 9 5900X is a high-end desktop processor.

The CPU's percentile vs all CPUs is 87, meaning it outperforms 87% of all processors in the benchmark database. Its average benchmark score of 41376 places it in a tight cluster with four rivals: the Intel Core Ultra 7 366H (41263, 0.3% slower), Core Ultra 7 356H (41215, 0.4% slower), AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 440 (41208, 0.4% slower), and Intel Core i7-14650HX (41576, 0.5% faster). This indicates the CPU is competitive with modern mid-range mobile and desktop processors.

In contrast, the GPU's percentile vs all GPUs is 9, meaning it outperforms only 9% of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 1482 is within 3% of four legacy NVIDIA parts, all of which are over a decade old. The stark contrast between the CPU's 87th percentile and GPU's 9th percentile creates an extreme bottleneck scenario where the GPU limits the entire system's gaming performance.

The combo rank of 2551 out of 2888 means that 87% of tested configurations perform better in Control. This is expected given the GPU's position in the performance hierarchy. The rank also suggests that pairing this high-end CPU with an integrated GPU is a severely imbalanced configuration for gaming, as the CPU's capabilities are largely wasted in this title. The data shows no other combos in the immediate ranking vicinity, but the percentile position is sufficient to contextualize the performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS across settings is as follows: Low averages 65 FPS, Medium averages 46 FPS with a minimum of 40 and maximum of 53, High averages 41 FPS, and Ultra averages 36 FPS. The 1080p resolution provides the highest frame rates across all settings, with the Low preset being the only one to exceed 60 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the data shows: Low averages 50 FPS, Medium averages 35 FPS with a minimum of 30 and maximum of 40, High averages 31 FPS, and Ultra averages 27 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across settings, with an average reduction of approximately 10-15 FPS depending on the preset.

At 3840x2160, the measured FPS is: Low averages 33 FPS, Medium averages 24 FPS with a minimum of 20 and maximum of 27, High averages 21 FPS, and Ultra averages 18 FPS. The 4K results show that even the lowest settings cannot maintain 35 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to nearly unplayable levels.

The FPS deltas between consecutive settings at the same resolution are relatively uniform. At 1080p, the drop from Low to Medium is 19 FPS, from Medium to High is 5 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 5 FPS. At 1440p, the drops are 15 FPS (Low to Medium), 4 FPS (Medium to High), and 4 FPS (High to Ultra). At 4K, the drops are 9 FPS (Low to Medium), 3 FPS (Medium to High), and 3 FPS (High to Ultra). This pattern reveals that the largest performance hit comes from moving from Low to Medium, while the increments from Medium to High and High to Ultra are comparatively smaller in absolute terms.

The minimum FPS data is only recorded for Medium settings at each resolution: 40 FPS at 1080p, 30 FPS at 1440p, and 20 FPS at 4K. The maximum FPS for Medium settings is 53 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 27 FPS at 4K. These ranges indicate that frame pacing is relatively stable at 1080p Medium, with a 13 FPS spread, but becomes more variable at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (codename Vermeer), manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process node. It features a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz, with a TDP of 105 W. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 64 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR4 with dual-channel interface, providing 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth.

The CPU's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 16262, Geekbench multicore scores 14118, and PassMark multithread scores 39002. Single-thread performance is also respectable, with Cinebench R23 singlecore at 1527, Geekbench singlecore at 2083, and PassMark singlethread at 3469. The 3DMark tests show scaling from 1852 in 2-thread to 10075 in max-thread, indicating good thread scaling.

In Control, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls, physics calculations, and game logic. The 12 cores and 24 threads provide substantial headroom for the game's multi-threaded workloads, and the 64 MB of L3 cache helps reduce memory latency for frequently accessed data. However, the measured FPS data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this combo. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 65 FPS, which is far below what the CPU is capable of supporting — a processor with 3DMark max-thread score of 10075 and PassMark physics score of 1994 should be able to drive frame rates well above 100 FPS in most titles.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score are all newer mobile or desktop parts, but the Ryzen 9 5900X holds its own with a 0.3-0.5% delta against all of them. This confirms that the CPU remains competitive despite being released in 2020. The launch MSRP was $549.

The GPU's system shared memory architecture means the CPU's dual-channel DDR4 memory bandwidth (51.2 GB/s) must be shared between the game's CPU workloads and the GPU's texture and geometry needs. This contention could further limit performance, as the GPU's memory bandwidth is listed as system dependent. The CPU's strong memory bandwidth and large L3 cache help mitigate this, but they cannot overcome the GPU's fundamental rendering limitations.

The data shows that the Ryzen 9 5900X is performing its role adequately — the FPS scaling across resolutions follows GPU-bound behavior, with consistent drops as pixel count increases. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar FPS at 1080p and 1440p, but instead we see a 23-25% drop, which is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario. The CPU's 87th percentile ranking among all processors, combined with the GPU's 9th percentile ranking, makes it clear that the Arc B390 is the constraining component in this configuration.