Control

Control, as an Action Adventure title from 2019, presents a demanding environment where the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination demonstrates significant scaling across resolutions and presets. The measured data indicates that this pairing is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher settings, with the CPU’s substantial 12-core, 24-thread configuration providing ample headroom even at 1080p. The optimal experience balances visual fidelity with frame rate consistency, favoring the High preset at 1440p and 4K, while the Ultra preset remains viable for those prioritizing image quality over maximum refresh rates.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results clearly show that the High preset offers the most balanced experience for this hardware configuration. At 3840x2160, High delivers an average of 79 FPS, which is a 14.5% improvement over Ultra’s 69 FPS. This difference is substantial enough to ensure smoother gameplay in action-heavy sequences, where the dip from 102 FPS at Medium 1440p to 69 FPS at Ultra 4K highlights the cost of max settings. For users with high-refresh-rate 1440p displays, High at 117 FPS is the clear choice, as it sits comfortably above the 100 FPS threshold while retaining more visual detail than Medium’s 132 FPS.

At 1080p, the data reveals that the CPU is not a limiting factor, with Low reaching 245 FPS and High at 155 FPS. The High preset is again recommended here, as the 90 FPS gap between High and Low (155 vs 245) is less impactful than the visual degradation of Low settings. The Medium preset provides a middle ground with 174 FPS and a minimum of 148 FPS, but the 19 FPS gain over High does not justify the reduction in texture and shadow quality. For 4K users, Medium at 89 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS is a viable alternative to High, but the 10 FPS advantage of High makes it the superior choice for maintaining frame pacing. The Ultra preset, while offering the highest fidelity, produces the lowest average of 69 FPS at 4K, which falls below the 70 FPS threshold that many consider optimal for this genre.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, is a Zen 4 architecture processor based on the Raphael codename, 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, evidenced by a 3DMark single-thread score of 1093. In Control, this translates to a configuration where the CPU is rarely the bottleneck, even at lower resolutions. The benchmark data supports this: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 245 FPS, which is a 96% increase over 4K High’s 79 FPS. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint, as the CPU’s 24 threads can easily handle the game’s physics and AI workloads.

The CPU’s 64 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth further reduce latency in data-intensive scenes. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 29300 and single-core score of 2016.5 show a balanced profile, with the multicore result placing it 0.6% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700F and 0.2% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7313P in average benchmark scores. However, these synthetic benchmarks do not directly translate to gaming performance, as Control’s engine is more sensitive to GPU throughput. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 10972 and max-thread score of 12536 indicate that even heavy multi-threaded loads are well within the CPU’s capabilities, ensuring no frame drops from CPU stalls. The 91st percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms its high-end status, but the game data shows that at 4K, the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM and 736.3 GB/s bandwidth are the decisive factors.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD103 chip, is the dominant component in this pairing. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for Control’s high-resolution textures. The GPU’s boost clock of 2550 MHz and 10240 shading units deliver 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, enabling the high frame rates observed in the data. At 4K, the GPU’s utilization is evident in the scaling: from Low at 125 FPS to Ultra at 69 FPS, a 45% reduction, which reflects the increasing shading and memory pressure.

The RTX 4080 SUPER’s 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are relevant for Control’s ray-traced reflections and DLSS support, though the measured data does not isolate these features. The passmark G3D score of 34245 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6600 place it in the 86th percentile among all GPUs, with the nearest rival being the RTX 4080 at -0.1% delta. This close margin suggests that the SUPER variant offers minimal performance uplift over the base 4080, but both are well-suited for Control. The GPU’s 320 W TDP and triple-slot cooler design indicate a high-power component, but the measured FPS shows that it can sustain 79 FPS at 4K High without thermal throttling, based on the consistent average.

The 24 GB of VRAM is not a limitation at any settings, as even Ultra at 4K does not exceed the memory capacity. The GPU’s FP16 performance matching FP32 at 52.22 TFLOPS is notable, but Control’s standard rendering pipeline likely uses FP32, making the raw shading rate the primary driver. The data shows that the GPU’s performance scales predictably with resolution, with 1080p High at 155 FPS, 1440p High at 117 FPS (24.5% drop), and 4K High at 79 FPS (32.5% drop from 1440p). This consistent scaling confirms that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the limiting component at all tested settings, as the CPU can maintain higher frame rates than the GPU can produce.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU combo in Control?

A: Based on the measured data, 2560x1440 at High settings offers the best balance, with an average of 117 FPS. This is 48% higher than 4K High’s 79 FPS and only 38 FPS lower than 1080p High’s 155 FPS, providing a sharp image without sacrificing frame rate.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 4K?

A: The Ultra preset at 3840x2160 achieves 69 FPS, which is 10 FPS lower than High’s 79 FPS. This 12.7% reduction in performance likely comes from increased shadow and post-processing effects, making High the recommended setting for smoother gameplay.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important for Control’s performance?

A: The data shows the GPU is the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system hits 245 FPS, but at 4K Low, it drops to 125 FPS (49% reduction). The CPU’s 24 threads are sufficient to feed the GPU at all resolutions, as evidenced by the 1080p High score of 155 FPS, which is 96% higher than 4K High.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in the benchmark?

A: The only settings with recorded minimum FPS are Medium, with 148 FPS at 1080p, 112 FPS at 1440p, and 76 FPS at 4K. These minimums indicate that the Medium preset maintains a stable frame rate, with the 4K minimum still above 60 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to the base RTX 4080?

A: The average benchmark score for the RTX 4080 SUPER is 54209, which is -0.1% lower than the RTX 4080’s 54247. This negligible difference suggests that in Control, the SUPER variant offers no meaningful advantage over the base model, with both performing similarly.

Q: Does the CPU’s cache size affect gaming performance in Control?

A: The Ryzen 9 7900X has 64 MB of shared L3 cache, which helps with data reuse in game engines. However, the benchmark results show that at 4K Ultra, the system still drops to 69 FPS, indicating that cache size does not compensate for GPU limitations. The CPU’s single-thread score of 1093 in 3DMark is more relevant for ensuring high frame rates at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling across resolutions. From 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS drops from 155 to 117, a 24.5% reduction. This is a relatively modest decrease, suggesting that the RTX 4080 SUPER has enough bandwidth to handle the 78% increase in pixel count (from 2.07 million to 3.69 million). However, the jump from 1440p to 4K (8.29 million pixels) results in a more significant drop to 79 FPS, a 32.5% reduction from 1440p. This non-linear scaling indicates that the GPU’s shading units and memory bandwidth become saturated at 4K, with the 736.3 GB/s bandwidth proving insufficient for the 125% increase in pixels.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more pronounced: 1080p Low at 245 FPS, 1440p Low at 185 FPS (24.5% drop), and 4K Low at 125 FPS (32.4% drop from 1440p). The similarity in percentage drops between High and Low settings confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU can maintain high frame rates even at 1080p Low. The Medium preset shows a similar pattern, with 174 FPS at 1080p, 132 FPS at 1440p (24.1% drop), and 89 FPS at 4K (32.6% drop). This consistency across presets suggests that the game’s rendering pipeline scales linearly with resolution, and the RTX 4080 SUPER’s 16 GB VRAM is sufficient, as no settings show abnormal frame rate collapses.

The 4K Ultra setting at 69 FPS represents the worst-case scenario, with a 49% reduction from 1080p Ultra’s 134 FPS. This indicates that Ultra settings add enough computational complexity to exacerbate the resolution penalty. The data suggests that for 4K gaming, High is the optimal preset, as it maintains a 79 FPS average, while Ultra’s 69 FPS dips below the 70 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The 1080p and 1440p results show that the CPU is not a constraint, as the 7900X’s 12 cores and 24 threads can easily drive frame rates above 150 FPS, leaving the GPU as the sole bottleneck.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates its peak performance. The Low preset achieves an average of 245 FPS, which is the highest measured value across all configurations. Medium reduces this to 174 FPS, with a minimum of 148 FPS and a maximum of 200 FPS, showing a 29% drop from Low. High further reduces to 155 FPS, a 10.9% decrease from Medium, while Ultra drops to 134 FPS, an additional 13.5% reduction. These results indicate that at 1080p, the RTX 4080 SUPER is not fully utilized, as even Ultra’s 134 FPS leaves headroom for the CPU to push higher if the GPU could render faster.

At 2560x1440, the scaling becomes more pronounced. Low averages 185 FPS, a 24.5% reduction from 1080p Low. Medium follows at 132 FPS with a minimum of 112 FPS and maximum of 152 FPS, representing a 28.6% drop from Low. High achieves 117 FPS, a 11.4% decrease from Medium, and Ultra drops to 102 FPS, a 12.8% reduction from High. The 1440p results show that the GPU is now the primary constraint, as the 185 FPS Low score is still high but the gap to 1080p Low’s 245 FPS highlights the resolution penalty. The 102 FPS at Ultra is still playable, but the 15 FPS gap to High (117 FPS) makes High the better choice for competitive play.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is heavily taxed. Low averages 125 FPS, a 32.4% drop from 1440p Low. Medium achieves 89 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS and maximum of 102 FPS, reflecting a 28.8% reduction from Low. High reaches 79 FPS, an 11.2% decrease from Medium, and Ultra falls to 69 FPS, a 12.7% drop from High. The 4K data shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER is operating at its limits, with the gap between Low and Ultra being 56 FPS (125 vs 69). The Medium preset’s minimum of 76 FPS ensures that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays above 60 FPS, making it a viable option for 4K. However, the High preset’s 79 FPS average provides a better balance, as the 10 FPS gain over Medium is significant for smooth motion. The Ultra preset’s 69 FPS is the only configuration below 70 FPS, indicating that it should be avoided for this hardware in Control.