Control

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 combination delivers a high-refresh-rate experience in Control, with the data showing a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution and settings scale. Benchmark results across twelve measured configurations indicate that the 12-core processor provides ample headroom at lower resolutions, while the GPU’s memory subsystem becomes increasingly dominant at 4K.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Ryzen 9 9900X is built on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) and manufactured on a 4 nm process by TSMC. It features 12 cores and 24 threads, with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The processor’s cache configuration includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 64 MB L3 cache. This setup, paired with dual-channel DDR5 memory support and 89.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth, provides the foundation for the frame rates seen in this title.

In Control, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p with lower settings. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 262.4 FPS. This is the highest frame rate recorded in the entire dataset, and it demonstrates that the processor can feed the GPU well beyond typical display refresh rates. The single-thread performance is strong, as indicated by a 3DMark single-thread score of 1286 and a PassMark single-thread score of 4672. These scores suggest that the game’s primary simulation and physics threads are well-served, allowing the GPU to operate without stalling.

The processor’s multi-threaded capabilities are also relevant. The 3DMark max-thread score of 13929 and Cinebench R23 multicore score of 46438 show that the 12-core design can handle background tasks and any lightly-threaded game workloads simultaneously. However, the data suggests that Control is not heavily dependent on core count beyond a certain point. The jump from 1080p Low to 1080p High (262.4 FPS to 164.2 FPS) is a 37% reduction, which is primarily driven by increased GPU load rather than a CPU limitation. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 94 vs all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 54450, place it in the upper tier, but its nearest rivals show negligible performance deltas. The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D scores 54681 (deltaPct -0.4%), and the Intel Core i7-14700F scores 54097 (deltaPct 0.7%). These tiny margins confirm that the 9900X is not a bottleneck in this test scenario.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, based on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture (GB203 chip), is the primary driver of frame rates in this pairing. It has 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s. The memory clock is listed as 1875 MHz with 30 Gbps effective speed. The GPU’s boost clock is 2617 MHz, and it has 10752 shading units, 336 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. These specifications, along with 84 RT cores and 336 tensor cores, position it as a high-end part, though its percentile ranking of 89 vs all GPUs suggests it is slightly below the absolute top tier.

In Control, the GPU’s memory bandwidth is a critical factor. At 4K Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 75.5. This is the lowest result in the dataset, and it comes despite the CPU’s ability to push much higher frame rates at lower resolutions. The GDDR7 memory’s 960 GB/s bandwidth is likely being saturated by the game’s texture and effect loads at 4K. The RTX 5080’s nearest rivals in the database include the Intel Arc A570M (avgScore 58239, deltaPct 1.6%) and Intel Arc A580 (avgScore 57756, deltaPct 2.5%), but these are lower-tier parts; the 5080’s PassMark G3D score of 36565 and 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 8637 indicate a much higher absolute performance level.

The GPU’s 16 GB VRAM is sufficient for Control at all tested settings, as there are no signs of memory-related stutters or crashes in the data. The transition from Medium to High settings at 1440p shows a 9.7% FPS drop (from 141.1 to 127.4), which is modest and suggests that the GPU’s compute capabilities are not the limiting factor at this resolution. Instead, the data points to the GPU being the primary constraint at higher resolutions, where the frame rate scales inversely with pixel count.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this combo in Control?*

A: The highest average is 262.4 FPS, recorded at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9900X compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The 9900X has an average benchmark score of 54450, which is 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D (54681) and 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i7-14700F (54097).

Q: What is the RTX 5080’s percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The RTX 5080 ranks in the 89th percentile, with an average benchmark score of 59188.

Q: At which resolution and settings does the combo perform worst?

A: The lowest average FPS is 75.5, achieved at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU appear to be the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the 262.4 FPS result, combined with the CPU’s high single-thread scores, indicates the CPU is not a limiting factor; the GPU is still capable of higher output at lower pixel counts.

Q: How much faster is 1080p Low compared to 4K Ultra?

A: The 1080p Low result (262.4 FPS) is 3.5 times faster than the 4K Ultra result (75.5 FPS).

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured data covers three resolutions and four settings tiers, with all results representing average FPS. At 1920x1080, the combo produces 262.4 FPS on Low, 188.1 FPS on Medium, 164.2 FPS on High, and 145.1 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 117.3 FPS, indicating that the GPU has substantial headroom at this resolution, and the frame rate is heavily influenced by rendering quality.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 194.7 FPS on Low, 141.1 FPS on Medium, 127.4 FPS on High, and 108.7 FPS on Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent: Low falls by 25.8%, Medium by 25.0%, High by 22.4%, and Ultra by 25.1%. This uniform reduction across settings suggests that the GPU’s pixel throughput is the primary scaling factor, with the CPU maintaining its performance lead.

At 3840x2160, the results show a more pronounced impact from the game’s settings. Low yields 133.3 FPS, Medium yields 94.0 FPS, High yields 84.7 FPS, and Ultra yields 75.5 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 57.8 FPS, which is a smaller absolute gap than at 1080p but a larger percentage drop (43.4% reduction). This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is reaching its limits, and the additional load from Ultra settings has a diminishing return on frame rate.

The data also shows that the High setting is consistently the closest to Ultra in performance. At 4K, High (84.7 FPS) is only 12.2% faster than Ultra (75.5 FPS), while Medium (94.0 FPS) is 11.0% faster than High. This suggests that the visual quality difference between High and Ultra comes at a steep performance cost, which is typical for this game’s rendering pipeline.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The resolution scaling behavior is the most revealing aspect of this dataset. From 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, the frame rate drops by 49.2% on Low (262.4 to 133.3 FPS), 50.0% on Medium (188.1 to 94.0 FPS), 48.4% on High (164.2 to 84.7 FPS), and 48.0% on Ultra (145.1 to 75.5 FPS). The fact that the percentage reduction is nearly identical across all settings—hovering around 48-50%—is a strong indicator that the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors at higher resolutions.

If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS to remain relatively flat as resolution increases, since the processor’s workload does not scale with pixel count. Instead, the near-linear scaling with pixel area (4K has 4 times the pixels of 1080p) points to the RTX 5080 being fully utilized at 4K. The GPU’s 960 GB/s bandwidth is likely the constraining resource, as Control is known for its particle effects and destructible environments, which require high memory throughput.

The 1440p results provide a middle ground. At 2560x1440, the FPS drops from 1080p by 25-26% across all settings, which is less than the pixel count increase (1440p has 1.78 times the pixels of 1080p). This suggests that at 1440p, the GPU is still able to maintain high utilization without being fully saturated, and the CPU’s 12 cores provide sufficient headroom. The fact that 1440p High (127.4 FPS) is still above 4K Low (133.3 FPS) shows that the GPU has a performance cliff between these resolutions.

The overall combo rank of 70 out of 1636 combinations (top 4.3%) confirms that this pairing is well-suited for Control. The data indicates that users targeting 4K should expect 75-133 FPS depending on settings, while 1440p users can achieve 108-195 FPS, and 1080p users will rarely see anything below 145 FPS. The limiting component at 4K is clearly the GPU, as evidenced by the uniform scaling and the GPU’s 89th percentile ranking, which, while strong, does not place it in the absolute top tier of graphics cards.