Control

Control’s benchmark results for the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combination reveal a system that scales predictably with resolution, but with notable performance cliffs at the highest settings. The data shows a clear transition from a CPU-bound scenario at 1080p to a GPU-bound one at 4K, with the RTX 5070’s capabilities becoming the primary limiter as pixel count rises.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS across resolutions tells a story of diminishing returns as settings increase. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 206.1 FPS, which drops to 155.5 FPS at 1440p (a 24.6% reduction) and further to 106 FPS at 4K (a 48.6% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU is beginning to feel the pressure of higher resolutions, though the CPU still has headroom to push frame rates well above 100 FPS at 4K.

Moving to High settings, the scaling is steeper. The combo delivers 130.3 FPS at 1080p, 97.3 FPS at 1440p, and 69.2 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is 46.9%, slightly less than at Low settings, suggesting that the GPU workload is becoming more dominant. At Ultra settings, the pattern continues: 118.1 FPS at 1080p, 87.1 FPS at 1440p, and 59.6 FPS at 4K, representing a 49.5% reduction from 1080p to 4K.

The most telling data point is the gap between Low and Ultra at each resolution. At 1080p, the difference is 88 FPS (206.1 vs 118.1), but at 4K it narrows to 46.4 FPS (106 vs 59.6). This compression indicates that at 4K, the GPU is the limiting component regardless of settings, whereas at 1080p, the CPU can still extract significant performance from lower settings. The RTX 5070’s 12 GB of GDDR7 memory and 672.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for this title, but the pixel throughput demands at 4K Ultra push the card to its limits, resulting in sub-60 FPS territory at 59.6 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

In Control’s benchmark database, this CPU-GPU pairing holds the 327th position out of 1,636 tested combinations, placing it in the top 20% of all configs. This rank reflects a balanced pairing where neither component dramatically bottlenecks the other in most scenarios. The Ryzen 9 9900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads based on Zen 5 architecture, sits at the 94th percentile among all CPUs, while the RTX 5070 ranks at the 83rd percentile among GPUs. The slight discrepancy in percentiles suggests the GPU is the more limiting factor in this pairing.

Looking at the CPU’s nearest rivals, the Ryzen 9 9900X posts an average benchmark score of 54,450, which is just 0.4% behind the Ryzen 9 9900X3D (54,681) and 0.7% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700F (54,097). The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K and 245KF are 1.5% and 1.8% ahead, respectively, with scores of 55,304 and 55,421. These tight margins indicate that the 9900X is competitively positioned, and in Control specifically, the game’s engine appears to favor the CPU’s single-threaded strength, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6,555.

For the GPU, the RTX 5070’s average benchmark score of 41,687 places it 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (41,610) and 0.6% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (41,441), while trailing the Tesla M40 by 0.5% (41,897) and the Radeon Pro 580X by 0.7% (41,991). These comparisons are based on synthetic workloads, but in Control, the RTX 5070’s real-time performance at 4K Ultra (59.6 FPS) suggests it is operating near its practical ceiling for this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimizing the Control experience. At 1080p, all settings presets deliver playable frame rates, with even Ultra hitting 118.1 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra at 1080p costs 12.2 FPS (130.3 to 118.1), which is a modest penalty for the visual fidelity gain. For players prioritizing maximum smoothness, Low settings at 1080p yield 206.1 FPS, which is excessive for most displays but demonstrates the CPU’s headroom.

At 1440p, the sweet spot appears to be High settings at 97.3 FPS, which offers a good balance between visual quality and performance. Ultra at 1440p drops to 87.1 FPS, still playable but with a 10.2 FPS penalty over High. Medium settings at 109.4 FPS provide a comfortable margin above 60 FPS, while Low at 155.5 FPS is overkill for most 1440p monitors.

The 4K results are where compromises become necessary. High settings at 69.2 FPS is the only preset that clears the 60 FPS threshold comfortably, while Medium at 74.8 FPS offers slightly better performance but with reduced visual quality. Ultra at 59.6 FPS dips just below 60 FPS, which may be noticeable on high-refresh displays. Low at 106 FPS is playable but sacrifices the game’s atmospheric visuals, which are a key part of Control’s appeal. The recommendation is clear: for 4K, High settings provide the best experience without significant performance trade-offs.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset offers a granular view of performance across all twelve tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the combo produces 206.1 FPS on Low, 150.9 FPS on Medium, 130.3 FPS on High, and 118.1 FPS on Ultra. The progression shows a 55.2 FPS drop from Low to Medium, a further 20.6 FPS drop to High, and a final 12.2 FPS reduction at Ultra. This pattern indicates that the largest performance hit occurs when moving from Low to Medium, suggesting that certain medium-tier effects (likely related to the game’s physics and particle systems) are particularly demanding.

At 2560x1440, the numbers are 155.5 FPS (Low), 109.4 FPS (Medium), 97.3 FPS (High), and 87.1 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Medium widens to 46.1 FPS, while the High-to-Ultra penalty narrows to 10.2 FPS. This suggests that at higher resolutions, the GPU is absorbing more of the workload, and the incremental cost of Ultra over High becomes less pronounced.

At 3840x2160, the results are 106 FPS (Low), 74.8 FPS (Medium), 69.2 FPS (High), and 59.6 FPS (Ultra). The Low-to-Medium gap shrinks to 31.2 FPS, and the High-to-Ultra gap narrows to 9.6 FPS. The diminishing differences between presets at 4K reinforce that the GPU is the primary constraint, with the RTX 5070’s 30.87 TFLOPS FP32 performance being the limiting factor rather than the CPU’s compute capabilities.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 plays a pivotal role in this combo’s Control performance, particularly at higher resolutions. The card features 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is sufficient for Control’s textures and effects at 4K, as evidenced by the consistent frame rates across settings. The GPU’s base clock of 2325 MHz and boost clock of 2512 MHz, combined with 6,144 shading units and 192 tensor cores, provide the raw compute needed for the game’s physics-heavy environments.

The RTX 5070’s benchmark percentile of 83 places it solidly in the upper tier of GPUs, but its 4K Ultra performance in Control (59.6 FPS) shows that it is not a 4K-max-settings card for this title. The GPU’s nearest rival, the RTX 3090, scores within 0.6% of the 5070 in synthetic benchmarks, yet the 5070’s newer Blackwell 2.0 architecture with 48 RT cores suggests it should handle Control’s ray-traced elements more efficiently, though the measured data does not isolate RT performance.

The 250 W TDP and dual-slot design indicate a power-efficient card, with the 16-pin connector and 600 W suggested PSU providing ample headroom. The PCIe 5.0 x16 interface ensures no bandwidth bottleneck, and the 5 nm process node from TSMC allows for the 31,100 million transistors packed into a 263 mm² die. For Control specifically, the GPU’s role becomes dominant at 4K, where even lowering settings from High to Ultra only costs 9.6 FPS, confirming that the card is operating near its memory bandwidth and pixel fill rate limits rather than being constrained by the CPU.