Control

Control, the 2019 action-adventure title, presents an interesting case study for the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination. The measured frame rates across resolutions and settings reveal a system that is overwhelmingly capable, but the scaling patterns show where the performance boundaries lie. This analysis walks through the data to interpret what these numbers mean for this specific hardware pairing.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K shows a significant performance drop, but the magnitude of that drop varies dramatically based on the graphics preset. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 273.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 141.0 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of roughly 48.5%. This steep decline indicates that even at the lowest settings, the GPU is becoming the limiting factor as pixel count increases. The RTX 4090’s 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are being taxed by the sheer pixel throughput required at 4K.

Moving to High settings, the scaling is less severe in absolute terms but still substantial: the average drops from 173.3 FPS at 1080p to 130.2 FPS at 1440p, then to 87.2 FPS at 4K. This represents a 49.7% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The pattern suggests that while the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, the CPU’s role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions where the frame rates are much higher.

The most telling data point is the Medium preset, where 1080p yields 195.4 FPS, 1440p yields 145.2 FPS, and 4K yields 101.3 FPS. The consistent drop of roughly 25% going from 1080p to 1440p, and another 30% going from 1440p to 4K, indicates a well-balanced scaling curve that places most of the rendering burden on the GPU. The RTX 4090’s 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is clearly being utilized heavily at these resolutions, but the fact that 1080p Low hits 273.9 FPS suggests the CPU is still keeping pace without becoming a hard bottleneck.

Settings Recommendations

The data shows that Ultra settings, while visually demanding, still deliver playable frame rates across all tested resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the average is 79.9 FPS, which is above the threshold for smooth gameplay in a single-player action title. However, the jump from High to Ultra at 4K costs 7.3 FPS (87.2 to 79.9), which is a relatively modest penalty for the additional visual fidelity.

At 1440p, the High preset delivers 130.2 FPS, which is a strong target for high-refresh-rate monitors. The difference between High and Medium at this resolution is 15.0 FPS (130.2 vs 145.2), suggesting that High is a reasonable middle ground if visual quality is prioritized. For 1080p users, even Ultra settings at 151.2 FPS provide excellent headroom, making Ultra the clear choice for this resolution.

The Low preset at all resolutions offers the highest frame rates, with 4K hitting 141.0 FPS and 1080p reaching 273.9 FPS. This makes Low a viable option for competitive play or for users with very high refresh rate displays, but the visual trade-offs are substantial. The measured data indicates that High at 1440p or Ultra at 1080p offers the best balance of frame rate and image quality for most users, as the 4K High result of 87.2 FPS is still very playable for a game of this genre.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its 64 MB of shared L3 cache and DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth provide a strong foundation for gaming workloads. The benchmark data shows a single-thread score of 1093 in 3dmark and 6168 in Cinebench R23, indicating excellent per-core performance.

In Control, the CPU’s role is most evident at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the system produces 273.9 FPS, which is a demanding scenario for any processor to feed the GPU. The Ryzen 9 7900X’s 12 cores and high boost clock allow it to maintain these high frame rates without becoming the limiting factor. The multi-threaded performance, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 43695, ensures that background tasks and game logic threads do not interfere with frame delivery.

The 3dmark scores further illustrate the CPU’s capability: 10972 for 16 threads and 12536 for max threads. This indicates strong scaling across cores, which is relevant for games that utilize multiple threads for physics and AI. The 7900X sits in the 93rd percentile for all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 50556, placing it just 0.1% behind the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and 0.8% behind the Intel Core i9-13980HX in the nearest rivals comparison.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 32nd out of 1636 tested combos for Control. This places the combo in the top 2% of all tested configurations, indicating that this pairing is highly optimized for this game. The rank reflects the synergy between the CPU’s high single-thread performance and the GPU’s massive compute capability.

Relative to other combos, this pairing outperforms the vast majority of alternatives, with only 31 configurations achieving higher average frame rates. The ranking is particularly impressive given that the RTX 4090 is already a top-tier GPU, and the 7900X ensures that no CPU bottleneck prevents the GPU from reaching its potential. The data shows that this combo is well-balanced for Control, with the CPU capable of feeding the GPU at all tested resolutions and settings.

The fact that this combo ranks 32nd despite having a GPU that is at the top of its class suggests that the remaining 31 combos likely feature even more powerful CPUs or more specialized configurations. However, for most users, a rank of 32 out of 1636 represents exceptional performance that will handle Control with ease at any resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process node from TSMC, featuring 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die. Its base clock of 2235 MHz and boost clock of 2520 MHz, combined with 16384 shading units, deliver substantial compute throughput. The 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores provide dedicated hardware for ray tracing and AI-accelerated features, though the measured data here focuses on standard rasterization.

The GPU’s 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for high-resolution textures and effects in Control. The passmark G3D score of 38194 and 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9223 confirm its top-tier status, with a percentile rank of 91 among all GPUs. The nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla T4 at -0.4% and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 at -0.9%, though these are professional and older workstation cards, respectively.

In Control, the GPU’s role is dominant at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra result of 79.9 FPS shows that even the most demanding settings are playable, while the 4K Low result of 141.0 FPS demonstrates the GPU’s raw throughput when visual effects are reduced. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at High settings (173.3 to 87.2 FPS) indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, which is expected given the pixel count increase.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset provides a clear picture of performance across all tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 273.9 FPS, Medium reaches 195.4 FPS, High produces 173.3 FPS, and Ultra delivers 151.2 FPS. These figures show that even at the most demanding settings, the system has substantial headroom for high-refresh-rate displays.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong: Low hits 204.3 FPS, Medium achieves 145.2 FPS, High produces 130.2 FPS, and Ultra delivers 115.5 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p ranges from 25.4% at Low settings to 23.6% at Ultra settings, showing consistent scaling.

At 3840x2160, the performance is still very playable: Low reaches 141.0 FPS, Medium hits 101.3 FPS, High produces 87.2 FPS, and Ultra delivers 79.9 FPS. The reduction from 1440p to 4K is more pronounced, with Low dropping by 31.0% and Ultra dropping by 30.8%. This indicates that the GPU is increasingly stressed as resolution increases, but the RTX 4090’s capabilities ensure that no configuration falls below 79.9 FPS, which is a solid result for 4K gaming in a title like Control.