Control

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER produces a playable but constrained experience in Control, with the GPU acting as the definitive bottleneck across all tested resolutions. The data shows that the 1080p High preset is the only configuration achieving a 60 FPS average, while the 4K Ultra preset falls to 27.6 FPS, indicating that this combination is best suited for 1080p gaming with settings dialed to High or Medium.

Settings Recommendations

For a 60 FPS target, the measured data points to the 1920x1080 High preset, which delivers an average of exactly 60 FPS. This is the optimal choice for balancing visual fidelity with smooth frame pacing; pushing to Ultra at the same resolution drops the average to 50.1 FPS, a 16% reduction that sacrifices the 60 FPS threshold for marginal graphical gains. The Medium preset at 1080p yields 63 FPS, a mere 5% improvement over High, making High the better value in terms of image quality per frame.

At 2560x1440, no preset reaches 60 FPS. The Low setting provides 67.7 FPS, which is the only playable option for high refresh rate monitors, but it requires a significant visual compromise. The High preset at 1440p delivers 43.4 FPS, which is smooth enough for slower-paced exploration but will feel stuttery during combat encounters. For 4K, the results are uniformly below playable thresholds; the Low preset at 46.5 FPS is the only option above 30 FPS, and even that struggles with the demanding visual effects of the game.

The verdict is clear: use 1080p High for the best overall experience. If a higher frame rate is desired, 1080p Low at 89.5 FPS offers a massive 49% boost over High, but the visual downgrade in a game known for its atmospheric lighting and particle effects may not be worth the trade-off. At 1440p and above, the data suggests the GPU cannot sustain playable frame rates at high quality settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 4 (Raphael) architecture, built on a 5 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock of 4.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz provide exceptional single-thread performance, as evidenced by its 3DMark single-thread score of 1093 and Geekbench single-core score of 2952. This raw speed is more than sufficient for Control, which is a heavily GPU-bound title at the tested settings.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are equally impressive, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 43695 and a PassMark multithread score of 51406. However, these resources remain largely underutilized in this game. The benchmark data reveals that frame rates scale almost entirely with resolution and GPU load, not CPU throughput. For instance, dropping from 1080p Ultra (50.1 FPS) to 1440p Ultra (36.8 FPS) represents a 26% decrease, a pattern consistent with GPU saturation rather than CPU limitation.

The processor sits in the 93rd percentile versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 50556. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 5 235, scores 50598, a delta of -0.1%, meaning performance is effectively identical. This confirms that the 7900X is not a limiting factor in this configuration; the data indicates it is providing ample headroom for the GTX 1660 SUPER to operate at its full potential. The CPU's 64 MB of shared L3 cache and DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth ensure that data feeding the GPU is never a bottleneck.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is the clear performance ceiling in this pairing. Based on the TU116 chip with Turing architecture on a 12 nm process, it features 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 render output units. Its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth, with a base clock of 1530 MHz and a boost clock of 1785 MHz.

The GPU's compute capabilities are modest by modern standards, delivering 5.027 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. This is reflected in its PassMark G3D score of 12699, placing it in the 55th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are surprisingly close: the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 scores 14314 (a -0.2% delta), and the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics scores 14315 (-0.2%), indicating that the 1660 SUPER sits at a competitive but not dominant position in its performance tier.

In Control, the GPU's 6 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K results suggest memory bandwidth and pixel throughput become critical. The 4K High preset yields 26.8 FPS, while the 4K Ultra preset yields 27.6 FPS, a negligible difference that indicates the GPU is completely saturated. The texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s are simply insufficient for the game's high-resolution effects. The data strongly suggests that the GPU, not the CPU, dictates all performance characteristics in this benchmark.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER ranks 1455 out of 1636 tested combos in Control. This places it in the bottom 11% of all combinations, reflecting the substantial imbalance between the high-end processor and the mid-range graphics card. The ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU's limitations; the 7900X's 93rd percentile CPU ranking is effectively nullified by the 55th percentile GPU.

The performance delta between this combo and others is stark. The CPU's nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i9-13980HX (avg score 50944, delta -0.8%), show that processor performance is nearly interchangeable. However, the GPU's position near the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (avg score 14389, delta -0.7%) highlights the bottleneck. The data indicates that pairing this CPU with a significantly more powerful GPU would yield dramatically higher frame rates, but as configured, the combo is constrained to lower resolutions and settings.

For context, the combo's rank of 1455 out of 1636 means that 181 other combinations perform worse. This is a crucial insight: while the combo is not the worst, it is firmly in the lower quartile, and the benchmark results confirm that it is unsuitable for high-refresh-rate or high-resolution gaming in Control.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K provides a clear picture of the limiting component. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 60 at 1920x1080 to 43.4 at 2560x1440 (a 28% decrease), and then to 26.8 at 3840x2160 (a 55% decrease from 1440p). This steep decline is classic GPU-bound behavior; if the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would remain relatively constant across resolutions.

The Low settings show a similar pattern: 89.5 FPS at 1080p, 67.7 FPS at 1440p (a 24% drop), and 46.5 FPS at 4K (a 31% drop from 1440p). The percentage reductions are slightly smaller at Low settings, which suggests that the GPU is still the primary constraint but has slightly more headroom to process the less demanding visuals. The Ultra preset shows the most severe scaling: 50.1 FPS at 1080p, 36.8 FPS at 1440p (a 27% drop), and 27.6 FPS at 4K (a 25% drop from 1440p). The diminishing drop from 1440p to 4K at Ultra indicates the GPU is hitting a hard performance floor.

The data conclusively shows that the GTX 1660 SUPER is the limiting component. The 7900X has ample compute headroom, as evidenced by its ability to maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions. The scaling curve is entirely dictated by the GPU's pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth, which are exhausted at higher resolutions.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combo run Control at 60 FPS?*

A: Yes, but only at 1920x1080 with High settings, which achieves exactly 60 FPS average. The Medium preset at 1080p reaches 63 FPS, while all 1440p and 4K presets fall below 60 FPS.

Q: What is the best resolution for this setup?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the only resolution where a 60 FPS target is achievable. At 2560x1440, the highest average is 67.7 FPS on Low settings, while 3840x2160 never exceeds 46.5 FPS on Low.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 7900X or the GTX 1660 SUPER the bottleneck?

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is entirely the bottleneck. The CPU's performance is in the 93rd percentile, while the GPU sits in the 55th percentile. Frame rates drop steeply with resolution, which is characteristic of GPU saturation.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to others?

A: It ranks 1455 out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the bottom 11% of all combinations. This low rank is due to the GPU's limitations relative to the high-end CPU.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 89.5 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 50.1 FPS. This represents a 44% performance decrease for the highest visual quality settings.

Q: Does the 6 GB VRAM cause issues at 4K?

A: The 4K results show very low frame rates (26.8 to 46.5 FPS depending on settings), but the data does not isolate VRAM capacity as the cause. The GPU's overall compute and memory bandwidth are insufficient for 4K in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data for the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER in Control is as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 89.5 FPS average
• Medium: 63 FPS average
• High: 60 FPS average
• Ultra: 50.1 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 67.7 FPS average
• Medium: 51.1 FPS average
• High: 43.4 FPS average
• Ultra: 36.8 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 46.5 FPS average
• Medium: 34.7 FPS average
• High: 26.8 FPS average
• Ultra: 27.6 FPS average

The data reveals a consistent pattern: at each resolution, the Low preset provides the highest frame rate, followed by Medium, then High, with Ultra being the most demanding. The gap between Low and Ultra widens at lower resolutions, from a 39.4 FPS difference at 1080p to an 18.9 FPS difference at 4K. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is so heavily loaded that even reducing settings has diminishing returns on performance. The 1080p Low preset at 89.5 FPS is the only configuration that approaches high-refresh-rate territory, while the 1440p Low preset at 67.7 FPS is the only viable option for 1440p gaming with this hardware combination.