Control

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti delivers a strong Control experience, placing in the 64th percentile of all tested combos. The data shows a clear hierarchy where the RTX 5070 Ti is the dominant component, with the CPU providing ample headroom across all settings and resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show a consistent pattern where the Low preset offers the highest frame rates, but Medium provides the best balance of visual fidelity and performance for most users. At 1920x1080, Low produces 162 FPS, while Medium delivers 115 FPS, a difference of 47 FPS. The jump from Medium to High at 1080p is smaller, with High achieving 102 FPS, just 13 FPS behind Medium. Ultra at 1080p drops to 89 FPS, which is 26 FPS below Medium.

At 2560x1440, the same trend continues. Low hits 123 FPS, Medium averages 87 FPS, High reaches 77 FPS, and Ultra falls to 67 FPS. The gap between Medium and High at 1440p is 10 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is also 10 FPS. For a game like Control, which features fast-paced combat and physics-based destruction, the Medium preset at 1440p provides a smooth experience with a minimum frame rate of 74 FPS, ensuring minimal stutter during intense scenes.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 5070 Ti begins to show its limits. Low averages 83 FPS, Medium drops to 59 FPS, High averages 52 FPS, and Ultra is the only preset below 48 FPS, hitting 45 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K maintains a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 68 FPS, which is the only 4K setting with a recorded minimum above 45 FPS. For players prioritizing frame rate stability at 4K, Medium is the recommended preset, as High and Ultra dip into territory where fast camera movements may feel less responsive.

The data indicates that the Medium preset is the sweet spot across all three resolutions. It offers a substantial improvement over Low in visual quality while remaining well ahead of High and Ultra in frame rate. At 1080p, Medium's 115 FPS is ideal for high-refresh-rate displays, and at 1440p, its 87 FPS is suitable for most gaming monitors. Even at 4K, Medium's 59 FPS average is playable, though users with variable refresh rate displays will benefit most from the 50 FPS minimum.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2452 MHz, with 8960 shading units and 70 RT cores. This hardware configuration is well-suited for Control's requirements, as the game's use of ray tracing and destructible environments places significant demands on both raw compute and memory bandwidth.

The benchmark results show the GPU's capabilities scaling predictably with resolution. At 1080p, the RTX 5070 Ti achieves 162 FPS on Low settings, indicating that the GPU is not the limiting factor at this resolution. The performance drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is from 162 FPS to 83 FPS, a reduction of 79 FPS. This suggests that the GPU's compute throughput and memory bandwidth are being fully utilized as resolution increases.

The RTX 5070 Ti's 16 GB VRAM capacity proves adequate for Control at all tested settings. The game's texture quality and asset streaming do not appear to exceed this allocation, as no memory-related stutter is evident in the minimum frame rates. The Ultra preset at 4K produces a 45 FPS average, which is a 27 FPS drop from the Medium preset at the same resolution, highlighting how the GPU's shading units and RT cores are taxed by higher settings.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 86 places it above most other graphics cards in the database. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, has an average benchmark score 0.1% lower, while the Intel Arc A550M is 0.4% lower. The RTX 5070 Ti also outperforms the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT by 3.1% in average benchmark score. These numbers indicate that the RTX 5070 Ti is a high-tier mobile GPU, though its performance in Control at 4K Ultra (45 FPS) shows that even this hardware cannot max out the game at the highest resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ranks 1036 out of 2888 tested combos in Control. This places it in the 64th percentile of all system configurations, meaning it outperforms roughly two-thirds of the tested setups. The ranking reflects a balanced pairing where neither component severely bottlenecks the other, though the data suggests the GPU is the more impactful part for this game.

The CPU's individual benchmark scores are high, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42713 and a single-core score of 6030. The GPU's PassMark G3D score is 32974, with a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6604. These standalone metrics indicate both components are capable, but their combined performance in Control depends on how well they feed each other.

The combo's rank of 1036 suggests that there are 1035 configurations that achieve higher frame rates in Control. These likely include systems with more powerful desktop GPUs or combinations where a higher-tier GPU is paired with a similar CPU. The 2888 total combos represent a wide range of hardware, and the 64th percentile position shows that this laptop setup is competitive for its class but not at the absolute top tier.

Comparing to the CPU's nearest rivals, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX has an average benchmark score 0.1% higher than the Ryzen 9 8945HX, while the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is 0.6% higher. This marginal difference in CPU performance is unlikely to cause significant frame rate variations in Control, as the game is more GPU-bound at higher resolutions. The GPU's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (2% higher average score), may produce different results in Control, but the RTX 5070 Ti's specific architecture features, like its RT cores, are well-matched to the game's requirements.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 5070 Ti delivers high frame rates across all settings. The Low preset averages 162 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset. Medium averages 115 FPS with a minimum of 98 FPS and a maximum of 132 FPS, providing a stable experience. High averages 102 FPS, while Ultra averages 89 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 73 FPS, showing that each settings tier has a noticeable impact on performance.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but show a clear step down from 1080p. Low averages 123 FPS, Medium averages 87 FPS with a minimum of 74 FPS and a maximum of 100 FPS, High averages 77 FPS, and Ultra averages 67 FPS. The difference between Medium and High at 1440p is 10 FPS, and the difference between High and Ultra is also 10 FPS. This linear scaling suggests that the GPU's resources are being consumed proportionally by each settings tier.

At 3840x2160, performance drops significantly. Low averages 83 FPS, Medium averages 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 68 FPS, High averages 52 FPS, and Ultra averages 45 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 4K is 24 FPS, which is larger than the 8 FPS gap between Medium and High. This indicates that the transition from Low to Medium requires substantially more GPU resources at 4K, likely due to increased texture detail and post-processing effects.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently provides the best minimum frame rates relative to its average. At 1080p, the minimum is 98 FPS, which is 85% of the average. At 1440p, the minimum is 74 FPS, which is 85% of the average. At 4K, the minimum is 50 FPS, which is 85% of the average. This consistency means that Medium offers predictable performance, making it the safest choice for maintaining smooth gameplay.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and reveals the GPU-bound nature of this configuration. At Low settings, the frame rate falls from 162 FPS at 1080p to 83 FPS at 4K, a 49% reduction. At Medium settings, the drop is from 115 FPS to 59 FPS, a 49% reduction. At High settings, the drop is from 102 FPS to 52 FPS, a 49% reduction. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 89 FPS to 45 FPS, a 49% reduction.

This consistent 49% reduction across all settings indicates that the RTX 5070 Ti's performance scales linearly with pixel count. The move from 1080p (1920x1080, approximately 2.07 million pixels) to 4K (3840x2160, approximately 8.29 million pixels) quadruples the pixel count. The fact that frame rates drop by roughly half, rather than a quarter, suggests that the GPU has some headroom at 1080p that allows it to maintain higher utilization at lower resolutions, but at 4K it is fully saturated.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is less severe. At Low settings, the drop is from 123 FPS to 83 FPS, a 33% reduction. At Medium, the drop is from 87 FPS to 59 FPS, a 32% reduction. This indicates that the GPU is more efficiently utilized at 1440p, where it can still achieve high frame rates without being completely constrained by memory bandwidth or compute throughput.

The resolution scaling data points to the RTX 5070 Ti as the limiting component. The CPU's performance, as measured by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42713, is more than sufficient to keep up with the GPU's frame generation at 1080p and 1440p. However, at 4K Ultra, where the GPU produces only 45 FPS, the CPU is likely idle waiting for the GPU to complete its rendering tasks. This is typical for a game like Control, which has complex visual effects and physics simulations that heavily load the GPU.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. It has 64 MB of L3 cache and supports DDR5 memory, with a dual-channel memory bus providing 83.2 GB/s of bandwidth. This processor is designed for high-performance mobile systems, and its benchmark scores reflect its capability.

In Control, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics calculations, and draw call submissions. The game's action-adventure genre involves numerous interactive elements, and the 16 cores and 32 threads provide ample parallel processing power. The CPU's single-thread performance, as measured by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6030, is also strong, which is important for games that rely on a single main thread for rendering commands.

The data shows that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this configuration. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 162 FPS, which is a high frame rate that would require significant CPU throughput to maintain. The fact that the frame rate drops to 123 FPS at 1440p Low and 83 FPS at 4K Low indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU's workload does not change significantly with resolution.

The CPU's nearest rivals show it is well-positioned in the market. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX has an average benchmark score that is 0.1% higher, placing them essentially at parity. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is 0.6% higher, likely due to its 3D V-Cache technology, but this advantage does not manifest in Control's frame rates since the GPU is the primary constraint.

The CPU's 55 W TDP is relatively low for a 16-core processor, but its 5 nm process node from TSMC allows for efficient power usage. This efficiency means the CPU can sustain high boost clocks without thermal throttling, ensuring consistent performance during extended gaming sessions. The combination of high core count, strong single-thread performance, and efficient power delivery makes the Ryzen 9 8945HX a capable partner for the RTX 5070 Ti in Control, allowing the GPU to operate at its full potential without waiting on the CPU.