Control

Control, Remedy’s 2019 action-adventure, presents a fascinating stress test for the combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. The data shows a system with immense headroom, where the GPU is rarely the limiting factor until the highest resolution and settings are applied. This pairing, ranked 53rd out of 1636 tested combos, demonstrates that the older CPU can still keep pace with one of the most powerful consumer GPUs ever made, but the scaling patterns reveal a complex interplay between settings, resolution, and the game’s engine.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable, yet revealing, pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases. At the Low preset, the average frame rate drops from 230.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 207.2 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 137.1 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a significant 40.6% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K. This steep decline is a clear indicator that the rendering load is scaling heavily with pixel count, which is expected for a GPU-bound scenario. However, the fact that the system still manages over 137 FPS at 4K Low suggests that the RTX 4090 is not being fully saturated at lower settings, even at this high resolution.

The scaling is even more dramatic when examining the Ultra preset. Here, the average FPS moves from 151.7 at 1080p to 114.1 at 1440p, and then drops to 76.6 at 4K. The percentage drop from 1440p to 4K is 32.9%, which is less severe than the Low preset’s drop from 1440p to 4K (33.9%). This is a curious data point. It suggests that at Ultra settings, the game’s visual effects and geometry are adding a baseline cost that is less dependent on resolution, whereas at Low settings, the cost is almost purely pixel-driven. The data implies that at 4K Ultra, the game is finally presenting a workload that engages the RTX 4090’s full capabilities, with the average FPS falling below the 100 FPS threshold. The 90 FPS average at 4K High further confirms this, showing that the GPU is the primary bottleneck in the highest resolution scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear picture of the performance cost associated with each preset. At 1920x1080, all presets deliver an exceptionally smooth experience, with even the Ultra preset achieving an average of 151.7 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 79.2 FPS, a substantial gap that speaks to the graphical fidelity on offer. For players with high-refresh-rate 1080p monitors, the High preset at 172.8 FPS offers a strong balance, though the Medium preset at 195.2 FPS or Low at 230.9 FPS could be used to push frame rates even higher for competitive play.

Moving to 2560x1440, the High preset’s 129.5 FPS average is still excellent for a smooth experience. The Ultra preset, at 114.1 FPS, remains perfectly playable and offers the most visually rich experience. The data suggests that for 1440p, High is the sweet spot, providing a 15.4 FPS advantage over Ultra while likely offering very similar visual quality in most scenes. At 3840x2160, the choices become more critical. The Ultra preset’s 76.6 FPS average is playable, but the High preset’s 90 FPS average is a more comfortable target for maintaining a solid frame rate. Given the 13.4 FPS difference between High and Ultra at 4K, the High preset appears to be the recommended choice for a 4K experience, as it provides a significant performance buffer without a massive visual compromise. The data shows that the Medium preset at 4K yields 99.3 FPS, which is also a strong option, but High offers the best balance of quality and performance in this resolution range.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is a behemoth, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. Its specifications are staggering: 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 render output units. The GPU also features 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores, and it operates on a 384-bit memory bus with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory, delivering a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. The base clock is 2235 MHz with a boost clock of 2520 MHz, and the memory runs at an effective 21 Gbps. These specifications are central to understanding its performance in Control.

The benchmark results show that the RTX 4090’s percentile ranking among all GPUs is 91, with an average benchmark score of 66,473. Its nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA Tesla T4, with a delta of -0.4%, and the NVIDIA Quadro P6000, which is 1.3% behind. This context is vital; it shows that while the RTX 4090 is a top-tier gaming card, the database’s average benchmark places it in a cohort with professional and data-center GPUs, highlighting its immense compute power. In Control, the GPU’s massive memory bandwidth and compute capabilities are what allow the game to run at such high frame rates. The 24 GB VRAM buffer is far more than Control requires, even at 4K Ultra, indicating that memory capacity is not a limiting factor. The data suggests the GPU’s raw processing power, rather than its memory, is the primary driver of performance, and it is only at the highest resolution and preset that its limits are approached.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete matrix of performance across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 151.7 at Ultra to 230.9 at Low. The Medium preset delivers 195.2 FPS, while High achieves 172.8 FPS. This shows a wide performance envelope at 1080p, with all settings providing a very fluid experience. At 2560x1440, the averages are 114.1 for Ultra, 129.5 for High, 150.1 for Medium, and 207.2 for Low. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows slightly compared to 1080p, but Low still offers a massive 93.1 FPS advantage over Ultra. At 3840x2160, the averages are 76.6 for Ultra, 90 for High, 99.3 for Medium, and 137.1 for Low. The scaling here is the most pronounced, with the Ultra preset being the only one that dips below the 90 FPS mark.

The data tells a story of a system that is overwhelmingly powerful for 1080p and 1440p gaming. At these resolutions, the RTX 4090 is so fast that even the most demanding preset is rendered with ease. The 4K results are more interesting, as they show the GPU beginning to work harder. The drop from 137.1 FPS at Low to 76.6 FPS at Ultra represents a 44.1% performance penalty for enabling the highest visual settings, a significant trade-off for the improved fidelity. The absence of minFps and maxFps data in the pack means we can only analyze the average FPS, but this is sufficient to draw clear conclusions about the relative performance of each setting.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a rank of 53 out of 1,636 combos. This places it in the top 3.2% of all tested systems, which is an exceptional result. The high rank reflects the raw power of the RTX 4090, but it also suggests that the Ryzen 9 5900X is not holding the system back in a significant way. If the CPU were a major bottleneck, we would expect the combo’s rank to be lower, as other, newer CPUs paired with the same GPU would score higher.

The CPU’s own benchmark data supports this. The Ryzen 9 5900X has a percentile ranking of 90 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 39,453. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8845HS, has an average score of 39,747, which is only 0.7% higher. The Intel Core i7-13700F is 0.9% behind, and the AMD EPYC 4245P is a mere 0.2% behind. This shows that the 5900X is a highly competitive processor, even against newer parts. The fact that this combo ranks so highly in Control suggests that the game’s engine is well-optimized for multi-threaded CPUs and that the Ryzen 9 5900X’s 12 cores and 24 threads are sufficient to feed the RTX 4090 the data it needs.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Vermeer. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz, and it supports DDR4 memory in a dual-channel configuration, providing a memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. The CPU’s 64 MB of L3 cache is a significant asset for gaming, as it can hold more of the game’s working set, reducing the need to access slower system memory. Its benchmark scores are impressive, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 33,150 and a single-core score of 4,680.

In Control, the CPU’s role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw calls. The data suggests that the Ryzen 9 5900X is more than capable of this task. The frame rates at 1080p, where the CPU is often the bottleneck in other games, are exceptionally high. This indicates that the CPU is not limiting performance at this resolution. The fact that the FPS scales down as resolution increases, rather than remaining flat, is a classic sign of a GPU-bound workload. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect the FPS to be similar across all resolutions. The data shows this is not the case, with a large drop from 1080p to 4K, confirming that the GPU is the primary constraint in most scenarios. The CPU’s high single-thread performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R20 score of 1,965, is likely key to handling the game’s main thread efficiently.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo can achieve in Control?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 230.9, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low preset.

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X a bottleneck for the RTX 4090 in Control?

A: The data indicates it is not a significant bottleneck. The FPS drops substantially as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound workload, not a CPU-bound one.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset achieves an average of 137.1 FPS, while the Ultra preset achieves 76.6 FPS, a difference of 60.5 FPS.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: This combination of CPU and GPU ranks 53rd out of 1,636 tested combos for Control, placing it in the top 3.2% of all systems.

Q: Which preset at 2560x1440 offers the best experience?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers 129.5 FPS, which provides a smooth experience. The Ultra preset at 114.1 FPS is also playable, but High offers a better performance margin.

Q: Does the RTX 4090's 24 GB of VRAM matter for Control?

A: The data does not show VRAM capacity to be a limiting factor. The game runs at high frame rates even at 4K Ultra, suggesting that the 24 GB buffer is more than sufficient for this title.