Control

Control pairs AMD’s flagship Ryzen 9 9900X3D processor with the long-serving Radeon RX 580 graphics card, creating an extreme generational mismatch. The benchmark data shows a system where the CPU is vastly overqualified for the GPU’s capabilities, resulting in performance that is entirely constrained by the graphics card. At 1080p, the combination manages playable frame rates, but higher resolutions expose the RX 580’s age, pushing the experience into unplayable territory.

Resolution Scaling

The measured average FPS data reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the system averages 63 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops that average to 48 FPS, a 23.8% reduction. Stepping up to 4K at Low settings yields just 32 FPS, which is roughly half the 1080p Low performance. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth of the Radeon RX 580 become the limiting factors.

The gap between 1080p and 1440p is pronounced across all settings. For High settings, the average drops from 40 FPS at 1080p to 30 FPS at 1440p, a 25% loss. Medium settings show a similar trajectory, falling from 45 FPS to 34 FPS. Ultra settings are the most demanding, sliding from 35 FPS at 1080p down to 26 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 18 FPS at 4K.

The 4K results are uniformly poor. Even at Low settings, the average of 32 FPS is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The jump from 1440p to 4K incurs a loss of 33.3% at Low settings, 23.3% at High settings, and a 30.8% drop at Ultra. This indicates that the RX 580’s 256-bit memory bus and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the data demands of 4K rendering in this title. The data strongly suggests that the limiting component at 4K is the GPU, not the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, which has far more compute headroom than the game requires.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear picture of what settings are viable for this combination. The only configuration that achieves an average FPS above 60 is 1080p with Low settings, hitting 63 FPS. This is the single playable high-refresh option in the dataset. For gamers prioritizing smoothness over visual fidelity at 1080p, Low is the only choice that reaches that mark.

If visual quality is a priority, 1080p Medium offers a reasonable compromise with an average of 45 FPS. This is a 28.6% drop from Low, but the visual uplift from Medium over Low is typically substantial. The minimum FPS recorded at 1080p Medium is 38, which means the experience remains mostly fluid, though drops below 40 FPS can be noticeable. 1080p High yields 40 FPS average, and Ultra produces 35 FPS average; both are playable but not ideal for fast-paced action sequences.

At 1440p, the situation becomes more difficult. Low settings produce a 48 FPS average, which is playable but not smooth. Medium at 1440p averages 34 FPS, with a minimum of 29 FPS, indicating frequent dips below the 30 FPS line. High and Ultra at 1440p, with averages of 30 and 26 FPS respectively, are marginal at best. For 1440p, the recommendation is to stick with Low settings if the target is a stable frame rate. The 4K resolution is not viable for this combination, as even Low settings at 32 FPS average will feel sluggish, and the Ultra preset at 18 FPS is a slideshow.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the clear bottleneck in this pairing. Its specifications, while respectable for its 2017 release, are severely outclassed by the CPU. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The chip, Polaris 20, has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units. Its boost clock is listed at 1340 MHz, and its FP32 compute is rated at 6.175 TFLOPS.

In this game, the GPU’s VRAM capacity is not the primary issue; rather, the raw compute and memory bandwidth are insufficient for higher resolutions. The data shows a clear correlation between frame rate and resolution, which is the classic signature of a GPU-limited workload. The RX 580’s benchmark scores place it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 12928. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (scoring 12940, a 0.1% difference) and the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (scoring 12986, a 0.4% difference). This confirms that the RX 580 is roughly equivalent to a GTX 1660 SUPER in overall compute, but its age shows in modern game optimizations.

The GPU’s DirectX 12 support is listed as 12_0, and its Vulkan support is 1.3. Control is a game that can leverage these APIs, but the RX 580’s GCN 4.0 architecture is not efficient in modern DX12 titles compared to newer designs. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (18 FPS) versus 1080p Ultra (35 FPS) shows a 48.6% performance loss, which is steeper than what a more modern GPU would exhibit, highlighting the architectural limitations of Polaris.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The dataset includes 12 measured configurations, covering four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) and three resolutions (1080p, 1440p, 4K). At 1080p, the average FPS ranges from 35 on Ultra to 63 on Low. The Medium preset at 1080p averages 45 FPS with a minimum of 38 and a maximum of 51. High at 1080p averages 40 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 28 FPS, indicating that the settings have a significant impact on performance.

At 1440p, the averages compress into a tighter band. Low is 48 FPS, Medium is 34 FPS (min 29, max 39), High is 30 FPS, and Ultra is 26 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 22 FPS, showing that the GPU’s diminishing returns kick in at this resolution. The minimum FPS recorded at 1440p Medium is 29, which is just below the 30 FPS playability threshold.

At 4K, all presets fail to reach 60 FPS. Low averages 32 FPS, Medium 23 FPS (min 19, max 26), High 20 FPS, and Ultra 18 FPS. The 4K Medium data is the only 4K row with min/max values, showing a tight range of 19 to 26 FPS, which indicates severe GPU saturation. The 4K results are essentially unusable for a smooth experience, regardless of settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and RX 580 ranks 2633 out of 2888 tested combos for Control. This places it in the bottom 8.8% of all tested configurations, which is a poor result for a system with such a high-end CPU. The ranking reflects the GPU’s inability to deliver playable frame rates at higher resolutions, dragging down the overall score.

This rank is surprising given the CPU’s performance. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D is in the 91st percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54762. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF (scoring 55093, a 0.6% difference) and the Intel Core i7-14700F (scoring 53620, a 2.1% difference). The CPU’s 12 cores and 24 threads, with a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, are overkill for Control, which is not a heavily multi-threaded title. The data suggests that the combo’s ranking is almost entirely determined by the GPU, and pairing this CPU with a more modern GPU would result in a dramatically higher rank.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows that 1080p is the only resolution where the average FPS exceeds 60 (63 FPS at Low settings). 1440p is playable at Low (48 FPS), but 4K is not viable, with the best average being 32 FPS at Low.

Q: Which settings preset provides the highest average frame rate?

A: The Low preset at 1080p provides the highest average at 63 FPS. For a balance of quality and performance, 1080p Medium at 45 FPS is the next best option.

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D the bottleneck in this system?

A: No. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D has a boost clock of 5.50 GHz and 12 cores, placing it in the 91st CPU percentile. The measured performance drops sharply with resolution, indicating the Radeon RX 580 is the limiting component.

Q: How does the RX 580 compare to its closest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 580’s average benchmark score is 12928, which is 0.4% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (12986) and 0.1% lower than the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (12940). It performs nearly identically to these cards.

Q: Can this system run Control at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 4K Ultra is 18 FPS. This is far below playable levels, and the data indicates that 4K is not a viable resolution for this GPU.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded in the dataset is 19 FPS, observed at 4K Medium settings. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 29 FPS, and at 1080p Medium, it is 38 FPS.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D plays a minimal role in this game’s performance due to the GPU bottleneck. The CPU has 12 cores and 24 threads, with base and boost clocks of 4.40 GHz and 5.50 GHz respectively. Its cache configuration includes 128 MB of L3 cache, which is substantial for gaming. However, the benchmark data shows that Control’s frame rates are predominantly dictated by the GPU, as evidenced by the significant FPS drops when moving from 1080p to 4K.

In CPU-specific benchmarks, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D scores 47737 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 6739 in single-core. Its Geekbench single-core score is 3041, and multicore is 22884. These scores place it far above what Control requires, as even the most demanding scenes would not stress this processor. The CPU’s 3DMark scores, such as 13795 for max threads and 1269 for single thread, confirm its high-end status.

Given the RX 580’s performance ceiling, the CPU’s features like PCIe Gen 5 support (24 lanes) and DDR5 memory support are irrelevant for this specific game configuration. The system is effectively a supercar engine in a compact car chassis; the CPU could easily support a much faster GPU. The data suggests that if the RX 580 were replaced with a modern GPU, the combo’s rank of 2633 out of 2888 would improve dramatically, as the CPU would no longer be held back by the graphics card. For this pairing, the CPU role is purely to feed frames to the GPU, and it does so without breaking a sweat.