Control

Control with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX delivers a remarkably fluid experience across all tested configurations, with the data clearly indicating that the Ultra preset is the only setting that challenges this hardware combination at 4K. The benchmark results show that this pairing is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while the 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X provides ample headroom to push frame rates to exceptional levels at 1440p and 1080p.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear hierarchy among the four presets, with the most balanced experience found at the High settings. At 3840x2160, High delivers an average of 72 FPS, which is a 14.3% improvement over Ultra's 63 FPS while sacrificing only a modest amount of visual fidelity compared to the maximum preset. This makes High the optimal choice for 4K gaming, as it keeps frame rates comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold without the steep performance cost of Ultra.

For gamers prioritizing maximum visual quality, Ultra at 4K produces an average of 63 FPS, which is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. The Medium preset at 4K offers an average of 82 FPS with a minimum of 69 FPS, providing a safer buffer for competitive play or high-refresh-rate displays. Low at 4K reaches 115 FPS, but the visual compromise is substantial for only a 43 FPS gain over High.

At 2560x1440, the High preset shines with an average of 107 FPS, making it the recommended choice for high-refresh-rate monitors. Ultra at this resolution achieves 93 FPS, which is still excellent, while Medium hits 121 FPS and Low reaches 170 FPS. The scaling from 4K to 1440p shows that the RX 7900 XTX has significant headroom at this resolution, and the data suggests that even Ultra is viable for 1440p gaming.

The 1920x1080 results are exceptional across all presets, with Low reaching 225 FPS, Medium at 160 FPS, High at 142 FPS, and Ultra at 123 FPS. For esports or competitive scenarios, Low at 1080p maximizes frame rates, but the High preset's 142 FPS is more than sufficient for most players. The overall recommendation is to use High settings for the best balance of image quality and performance, with Ultra reserved for 1440p or those who prioritize visuals over raw frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX ranks 536th out of 3,720 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 14.4% of all configurations. This percentile ranking reflects a system that is well above average for this title, though not at the absolute top tier. The rank suggests that while this pairing delivers strong performance, there are more powerful combinations available, likely involving higher-end GPUs or CPUs with better gaming optimizations.

The CPU's benchmark data provides context for this ranking. The Ryzen 9 9900X achieves a 92nd percentile ranking against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 57,498. Its nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 9015, scores 57,555, which is only 0.1% higher, indicating that the 9900X is essentially tied with server-class silicon in general compute tasks. The Intel Core i9-14900 scores 58,115, putting it 1.1% ahead, while the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M leads by 1.4% with a score of 58,323.

The GPU, however, shows a more modest standing. The RX 7900 XTX ranks in the 64th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19,410. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB, scores 19,334, which is 0.4% lower, while the NVIDIA TITAN Xp is 1.2% behind at 19,177. This close grouping suggests that the RX 7900 XTX's general compute performance is comparable to much older hardware, though its gaming-specific capabilities are clearly superior given the measured FPS results.

The discrepancy between the CPU's high percentile and the GPU's lower percentile, combined with the combo's mid-tier rank, indicates that Control's performance is primarily limited by the GPU at higher resolutions. The CPU's exceptional multi-threaded capabilities (32,172 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, 22,174 in Geekbench multi-core) ensure that it never bottlenecks the system, allowing the RX 7900 XTX to operate at its full potential.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Control with this hardware?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 with High settings provides the best overall experience, delivering an average of 107 FPS. This resolution balances the GPU's capabilities with high refresh rates, while 4K at High still achieves a playable 72 FPS average.

Q: How much performance does the Ultra preset cost compared to High?

A: At 4K, Ultra drops the average FPS from 72 to 63, a 12.5% decrease. At 1440p, the drop is from 107 to 93 FPS (13.1% decrease), and at 1080p, Ultra reduces performance from 142 to 123 FPS (13.4% decrease).

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 9900X a bottleneck for the RX 7900 XTX in Control?

A: No, benchmark results indicate the CPU is not a limiting factor. The Ryzen 9 9900X scores in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs, and the FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows consistent GPU-bound behavior, with the CPU providing more than enough headroom.

Q: What is the minimum FPS at 4K Medium settings?

A: The measured minimum FPS at 3840x2160 with Medium settings is 69 FPS, with a maximum of 94 FPS. This is the only configuration in the dataset that includes minimum and maximum values, indicating stable performance.

Q: How does this combo compare to the top-ranked configurations?

A: This combo ranks 536th out of 3,720 tested combinations, placing it in the top 14.4%. While not a top-tier configuration, it outperforms the vast majority of tested systems in Control.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming with ray tracing?

A: The data does not include ray tracing benchmarks. However, the RX 7900 XTX features 96 ray accelerators, and the measured 4K Ultra performance of 63 FPS suggests that enabling ray tracing would require lower settings or resolution to maintain playable frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured average FPS values are 115 for Low, 82 for Medium, 72 for High, and 63 for Ultra. The Medium preset provides the only complete dataset with a minimum of 69 FPS and a maximum of 94 FPS, indicating that the frame times are relatively stable at this setting. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 52 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU has significant performance scaling with settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages increase substantially: Low reaches 170 FPS, Medium hits 121 FPS, High achieves 107 FPS, and Ultra produces 93 FPS. The Medium preset again shows a minimum of 103 FPS and a maximum of 139 FPS. The performance gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 77 FPS, which is larger in absolute terms than at 4K, reflecting the reduced GPU load at this resolution.

At 1920x1080, the results are the highest in the dataset: Low averages 225 FPS, Medium averages 160 FPS, High averages 142 FPS, and Ultra averages 123 FPS. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 136 FPS and a maximum of 184 FPS, which is the highest maximum in the entire dataset. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 102 FPS, indicating that the CPU is capable of driving very high frame rates when the GPU is not the primary constraint.

The data shows a consistent pattern across all resolutions: Medium provides the most complete FPS information, while Low, High, and Ultra only report averages. This suggests that the Medium preset was tested more extensively, possibly as a reference point for stability analysis. Across all settings, the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is substantial, with Ultra showing the smallest absolute drop (from 123 to 63 FPS) and Low showing the largest (from 225 to 115 FPS).

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the system's bottleneck. At High settings, the average FPS decreases from 142 at 1080p to 107 at 1440p (a 24.6% drop) and then to 72 at 4K (a 32.7% drop from 1440p). This progressive decline indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the CPU's performance remains constant across all resolution tests.

For Low settings, the scaling is more dramatic: 225 FPS at 1080p drops to 170 FPS at 1440p (24.4% decrease) and then to 115 FPS at 4K (32.4% decrease from 1440p). This pattern suggests that at 1080p with Low settings, the system is approaching CPU limitations, as the frame rate of 225 FPS is exceptionally high and likely constrained by the CPU's single-thread performance (with a 3DMark single-thread score of 1,286).

The Medium settings show a similar trend: 160 FPS at 1080p, 121 FPS at 1440p (24.4% drop), and 82 FPS at 4K (32.2% drop from 1440p). Ultra settings follow with 123 FPS at 1080p, 93 FPS at 1440p (24.4% drop), and 63 FPS at 4K (32.3% drop from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings—approximately 24-25% from 1080p to 1440p and 32-33% from 1440p to 4K—strongly indicates that the GPU is the sole bottleneck.

The RX 7900 XTX's memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s and 24 GB of GDDR6 memory are more than sufficient for 4K textures, so the performance scaling is purely a function of pixel throughput and shading complexity. The GPU's 61.39 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 479.6 GPixel/s pixel rate dictate the rendering capability, and the measured FPS aligns with what these specifications suggest for a demanding game like Control.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its benchmark scores are impressive: 32,172 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,253 in single-core, along with a Geekbench multi-core score of 22,174 and single-core score of 3,010. These numbers place the CPU in the 92nd percentile of all processors, showing that it has immense computational headroom for gaming workloads.

In Control, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations. The game is an action-adventure title that features complex environmental destruction and particle effects, which can stress multi-threaded performance. The 9900X's 12 cores and 24 threads, combined with 64 MB of L3 cache, provide exceptional multi-threading capability. The PassMark multi-thread score of 54,643 and physics score of 3,381 indicate strong sustained performance under load.

However, the FPS data suggests that even at 1080p with Low settings (225 FPS), the CPU is not fully saturated. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 12,552 and max-thread score of 13,929 show that the processor scales well with thread count, but gaming typically relies on fewer threads. The single-thread performance, with a 3DMark single-thread score of 1,286 and PassMark single-thread score of 4,672, is sufficient to drive frame rates well above 200 FPS.

The 9900X's nearest rivals in benchmark scores—the AMD EPYC 9015 (-0.1%), AMD EPYC 7313 (+0.2%), and Intel Core i9-14900 (-1.1%)—show that it sits in a competitive position for general compute. For Control specifically, the CPU's 5.60 GHz boost clock and 4 nm process node (with 16,630 million transistors) contribute to low latency and high responsiveness, ensuring that frame times remain consistent even in complex scenes. The data confirms that the Ryzen 9 9900X is not the limiting factor in this combination, as the performance scaling across resolutions is purely GPU-bound.