Control

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 presents a stark study in bottleneck dynamics within Control. The data indicates a configuration where the CPU’s substantial 12-core, 24-thread processing power is largely held in check by the GPU’s Pascal-era architecture at higher resolutions, while the system shows its best relative performance at 1080p. This analysis breaks down the measured frame rates to explain where the limiting component lies and how this specific combination ranks among all tested hardware pairings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate trajectory from 1080p to 4K reveals a textbook GPU-bound scenario. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces an average of 62.7 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops performance to 44.1 FPS, a reduction of approximately 30%. The leap to 3840x2160 is more punishing, yielding just 29.5 FPS — a further 33% decline from the 1440p result and less than half the 1080p figure. This steep, consistent decline as pixel count rises points directly at the GTX 1070 as the performance ceiling; the Ryzen 9 5900X’s compute capacity is not the constraint in this scaling pattern.

The scaling pattern holds across all quality presets. At Low settings, the system manages 99.3 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 71.4 FPS at 1440p and then to 51.3 FPS at 4K. The absolute FPS loss from 1080p to 4K is 48 FPS at Low settings, 33.2 FPS at High, and 30 FPS at Ultra. Notably, the percentage drop is steeper at higher quality presets: the 4K-to-1080p ratio at Ultra is roughly 46% of the baseline, while at Low it is approximately 52%. This suggests that as settings increase, the GPU’s fill-rate and shading limitations become more pronounced, reinforcing that the GTX 1070’s 8 GB of GDDR5 memory and 256-bit bus are the primary governors of performance at 4K.

Interestingly, the gap between 1440p and 4K is narrower at lower settings. At Low, the difference is 20.1 FPS (71.4 to 51.3), whereas at Ultra it is 13.2 FPS (39.2 to 26). This compression at the high end indicates that even at 1440p Ultra, the GPU is already nearing its limits, so the additional resolution scaling yields diminishing returns. Conversely, the 1080p to 1440p transition shows a larger absolute drop at Ultra (16.8 FPS), suggesting that 1440p Ultra is where the GTX 1070 begins to struggle significantly. The data strongly implies that for smooth gameplay, 1080p is the practical ceiling for this combo, with 1440p requiring reduced settings to approach 60 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS is 56. This is the lowest 1080p result among the four presets, with High at 62.7, Medium at 68, and Low at 99.3.

Q: How does the GTX 1070’s benchmark score compare to its nearest rival?

A: The GPU’s average benchmark score is 12331. Its closest competitor, the NVIDIA Quadro K4200, scores 12241, which is a 0.7% delta. The GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER scores 12504, putting the 1070 1.4% behind that card.

Q: What is the best 4K performance achievable with this combination?

A: The highest average FPS at 3840x2160 is 51.3, achieved only at Low settings. Medium yields 37.2, High drops to 29.5, and Ultra falls to 26 FPS, all of which are below the 30 FPS threshold for playable 4K.

Q: Does the CPU show any signs of bottlenecking in this game?

A: No. The Ryzen 9 5900X’s 12 cores and 24 threads, with a boost clock of 4.80 GHz, provide ample headroom. The frame rate scaling with resolution is consistent with a GPU-limited workload, and the CPU’s 90th percentile ranking versus all CPUs indicates it is not the weak link.

*Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in Control?*

A: It ranks 1383 out of 1636 tested combos, placing it in the lower percentile of all pairings. This is driven primarily by the GTX 1070’s mid-range standing, as the GPU ranks in the 51st percentile versus all GPUs.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 2560x1440?

A: The difference is 32.2 FPS. Low settings produce 71.4 FPS, while Ultra drops to 39.2 FPS. This represents a 45% performance penalty for maxing out quality at 1440p.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 9 5900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Vermeer. It operates with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz, with 64 MB of L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, it achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 33150 and a single-core score of 4680, alongside a Geekbench multicore score of 11877. These figures place the CPU in the 90th percentile versus all tested CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 39453. Its nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 4245P, scores 39383, a negligible 0.2% difference, while the Intel Core i7-13700 is 1% ahead.

In the context of Control, this CPU’s role is to feed the GPU without becoming a limiting factor. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU-bound behavior: frame rates decline smoothly with increasing resolution, which is the signature of a GPU-limited pipeline. Even at 1080p Low, where the system achieves 99.3 FPS, the CPU’s single-thread performance (passmark single-thread score of 3469) is sufficient to maintain high frame delivery. The game’s action-adventure genre typically relies on a few heavily threaded tasks, and the 5900X’s 24 threads provide far more parallel capacity than Control is likely to utilize.

The CPU’s memory support is dual-channel DDR4 with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, which is adequate for feeding the GTX 1070’s 256.3 GB/s of video memory bandwidth. The PCIe Gen 4 interface on the CPU is backward-compatible with the GPU’s PCIe 3.0 x16 bus, meaning no bandwidth starvation occurs at the interface level. The data suggests that the 5900X’s role here is purely supportive; it never becomes the arbiter of frame rate. The bottleneck rests entirely on the GTX 1070’s 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 107.7 GPixel/s pixel rate, which are the metrics that scale most directly with resolution and settings in a game like Control.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full dataset provides a clear matrix of performance across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers playable frame rates in all settings. Low settings yield 99.3 FPS, Medium produces 68 FPS, High reaches 62.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 56 FPS. This is the only resolution where Ultra settings maintain a frame rate above 50 FPS, indicating that 1080p is the sweet spot for this pairing.

At 2560x1440, the system begins to show strain. Low settings still manage 71.4 FPS, which is playable, but Medium drops to 53.3 FPS. High settings fall to 44.1 FPS, and Ultra dips to 39.2 FPS. The transition from High to Ultra at 1440p costs only 4.9 FPS, suggesting that the GPU’s memory bandwidth is the limiting factor rather than raw shader throughput, as the incremental cost of Ultra effects is relatively small. For a 60 FPS target at 1440p, the user must remain at Low settings, as even Medium falls short by 6.7 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the combo is firmly in slideshow territory for most presets. Low settings produce 51.3 FPS, which is the only 4K result above 40 FPS. Medium drops to 37.2 FPS, High falls to 29.5 FPS, and Ultra reaches just 26 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 25.3 FPS, which is a 49% performance penalty. This indicates that the GTX 1070’s 8 GB frame buffer is likely being exhausted at 4K Ultra, leading to severe memory pressure that compounds the compute limitations. The data suggests that 4K gaming with this combo is only viable at Low settings, and even then, the 51.3 FPS average would experience noticeable dips in demanding scenes.

How This Combo Ranks

Among all 1636 tested combinations in Control, this pairing of the Ryzen 9 5900X and GTX 1070 ranks 1383rd. This places it in the bottom 15% of all configurations, which is a direct consequence of the GPU’s modest standing. The GTX 1070 ranks in the 51st percentile versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 12331. Its nearest rivals include the Quadro K4200 (0.7% ahead), the GTX 1650 SUPER (1.4% ahead), and the Tesla K20Xm (1.7% ahead). This clustering around the 12300-12500 score range indicates that the GTX 1070 sits at the boundary between mid-range and high-end performance from a few generations ago.

The CPU’s high ranking (90th percentile) does little to boost the combo’s overall position, as the game’s frame rate is overwhelmingly GPU-dependent. The rank of 1383 out of 1636 suggests that most other tested pairings include either a more modern GPU or a GPU with higher compute throughput. In practical terms, this combo delivers performance that is competitive with systems using a GTX 1650 SUPER, based on the rival deltaPct of -1.4%, but it falls short of configurations with newer mid-range cards. The 1383rd rank is not a reflection of a broken pairing, but rather a realistic outcome of matching a high-end 2020 CPU with a 2016 mid-range GPU. The CPU ensures that the system never feels CPU-limited, but the GPU caps the experience at 1080p Ultra or 1440p Low for a consistent 60 FPS in Control.