Control

Control is an action-adventure title from 2019 that stresses both the CPU and GPU in unusual ways, and the data for the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT reveals a system that is heavily front-loaded with processing power, yet delivers surprisingly variable frame rates depending on the graphics preset. The measured rows show a clear hierarchy where the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher settings, while the CPU’s massive thread count and cache appear to hold the system together at lower resolutions. This combination ranks 740th out of 3720 tested combos in the database, placing it in the top 20% of all pairings, which suggests a strong but not dominant position for a game released in that era. The following analysis breaks down the specific roles of each component, the measured performance data, and what the numbers imply about bottleneck behavior in this particular title.

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

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Granite Ridge, built on a 4 nm process by TSMC. It runs with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, drawing a TDP of 120 W. The CPU features 128 MB of L3 cache, which is a defining characteristic for this X3D variant, and it supports DDR5 memory over a dual-channel bus with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, the processor scores 47737 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 6739 in single-core, while Geekbench shows 22884 multi-core and 3041 single-core. These numbers place it in the 91st percentile against all CPUs, meaning it outpaces the vast majority of processors in the database.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D sits just 0.6% behind the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF in average benchmark score, which is a negligible difference in real-world terms. It is 1.3% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, 2% ahead of the Intel Xeon 6505P, and 2.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700F. For a game like Control, which was released in 2019 and does not heavily utilize more than a few cores, the 12-core design is likely overkill, but the high boost clock and large L3 cache are more relevant. The 128 MB L3 cache is particularly interesting for Control, as the game’s physics-heavy environments and destructible objects can benefit from faster data access, reducing latency for the GPU.

The measured FPS data suggests that at 1080p Low, the CPU is able to push the frame rate to 208 FPS, which indicates that the processor is not a limiting factor at that extreme. At 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 114 FPS, showing that the GPU becomes the bottleneck as settings increase. The CPU’s 3DMark scores, such as 12490 in the 16-thread test and 1269 in single-thread, further confirm that it has ample headroom for a game from that period. The data implies that the Ryzen 9 9900X3D is far more capable than Control requires, and its role here is to ensure that the Radeon RX 7900 XT is never starved of data, even at high frame rates.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combo in Control, and at what settings?

A: The highest average frame rate is 208 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9900X3D compare to its closest rival in overall benchmark performance?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X3D has an average benchmark score of 54762, which is 0.6% lower than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF, which scores 55093.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested combinations in this game?

A: The combo ranks 740th out of 3720 total combinations tested for Control.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for any measured configuration, and under what conditions?

A: The minimum FPS recorded is 64 FPS, observed at 3840x2160 resolution with Medium settings, where the average was 75 FPS and the maximum was 87 FPS.

Q: How much VRAM does the Radeon RX 7900 XT have, and what is its memory bandwidth?

A: The GPU has 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 800.0 GB/s.

Q: What is the single-core performance score for the CPU in Cinebench R20?

A: The CPU scores 2830 in Cinebench R20 single-core, which is a strong result indicating high per-thread performance for games.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT achieves a rank of 740 out of 3720 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 19.9% of all configurations. This is a solid result, but it is not exceptional for a pairing that includes a top-tier CPU from 2025 and a high-end GPU from 2022. The rank suggests that while the hardware is powerful, Control’s engine may not fully utilize the capabilities of either component, or that other combos with different balances perform better in this specific title. For context, the CPU alone is in the 91st percentile against all CPUs, and the GPU is in the 55th percentile against all GPUs, yet the combo rank is lower than the CPU percentile would suggest, indicating that the GPU holds the system back in some configurations.

The data shows that the combo performs best at lower settings where the CPU can stretch its legs, but at higher settings, the GPU’s relative position becomes more important. The GPU’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 660M, which is 0.5% ahead, and the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile, also 0.5% ahead, but these are mobile or integrated parts, which is unusual for a desktop card like the RX 7900 XT. The Radeon RX 9070 XT is 1.5% behind, and the RX 570X is 0.9% behind. This suggests that the RX 7900 XT’s performance in synthetic benchmarks is not directly indicative of its gaming performance in Control, where it still manages to deliver playable frame rates at 4K.

The rank of 740 implies that there are 2980 combos that perform better, which includes systems with newer GPUs or more balanced pairings. For a game from 2019, this is a strong showing, but it also highlights that the RX 7900 XT, despite its large memory pool, is not the fastest card available, and its end-of-life status may limit driver optimizations for older titles.

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

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS spans from 208 at Low settings down to 114 at Ultra, with High at 131 and Medium at 148. The Medium preset also records a minimum of 125 FPS and a maximum of 170 FPS, showing a wide variance that suggests frame pacing is not perfectly stable. At 2560x1440, the averages drop to 157 at Low, 112 at Medium, 99 at High, and 86 at Ultra. The Medium preset at this resolution shows a minimum of 95 FPS and a maximum of 128 FPS, which is a tighter range than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is becoming more consistent as the resolution increases. At 3840x2160, the averages are 106 at Low, 75 at Medium, 67 at High, and 58 at Ultra. The Medium preset at 4K shows a minimum of 64 FPS and a maximum of 87 FPS, which is the only configuration with a recorded minimum below 60 FPS.

The data reveals a clear pattern: as resolution increases, the frame rate drops proportionally, but the drop is not uniform across settings. For example, going from 1080p Low to 4K Low results in a drop from 208 FPS to 106 FPS, a reduction of 49%. In contrast, going from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra drops from 114 FPS to 58 FPS, a reduction of 49.1%, showing a consistent scaling factor. The Medium preset shows a drop from 148 FPS to 75 FPS, which is a 49.3% reduction, and High drops from 131 FPS to 67 FPS, a 48.9% reduction. This consistency suggests that the bottleneck is not changing dramatically across resolutions, but rather that the GPU is being pushed to its limits in a linear fashion.

At 1080p Low, the 208 FPS average indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck at all, and the GPU is capable of outputting very high frame rates. At 4K Ultra, the 58 FPS average is just below the 60 FPS threshold, which might be a concern for players with high-refresh-rate displays. The minimum FPS of 64 at 4K Medium is notable, as it shows that even at lower settings, there are dips that could cause stutter in intense scenes.

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

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K is remarkably linear across all settings, with the average frame rate dropping by roughly 49% when moving from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. This linearity is a strong indicator that the GPU is the primary limiting component at all settings, as the CPU’s performance headroom is not being exhausted even at 1080p Low where 208 FPS is achieved. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a smaller FPS drop at higher resolutions, but the data shows that the GPU is consistently the constraint.

For instance, at Low settings, the FPS goes from 208 at 1080p to 157 at 1440p, a drop of 24.5%, and then to 106 at 4K, a drop of 32.5% from 1440p. This suggests that the GPU’s fill rate and shading power are being fully utilized, and the 20 GB of VRAM is not a limiting factor, as the game likely does not exceed that capacity. At Ultra settings, the FPS goes from 114 at 1080p to 86 at 1440p, a drop of 24.6%, and then to 58 at 4K, a drop of 32.6% from 1440p. The consistent scaling indicates that the GPU’s compute units are the bottleneck, and the CPU’s 12 cores and 128 MB of L3 cache are sufficient to feed the GPU at all resolutions.

The fact that the FPS drop is slightly larger from 1440p to 4K than from 1080p to 1440p suggests that the GPU’s memory bandwidth of 800.0 GB/s is becoming a factor at higher resolutions, as the pixel throughput demands more data. However, the overall pattern is clear: the limiting component is the GPU, and the CPU is not holding the system back in any measurable way.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset appears to offer the best balance of performance and stability across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the average FPS is 148 with a minimum of 125, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold and provides a smooth experience. At 1440p Medium, the average is 112 with a minimum of 95, still excellent for a high-refresh-rate monitor. At 4K Medium, the average is 75 with a minimum of 64, which is playable but with occasional dips below 70 FPS. The Medium preset also records the only minimum and maximum values in the dataset, indicating that the game is more stable at this setting than at others, where only averages are provided.

For players targeting 4K, the Low preset at 106 FPS average is the only way to achieve a very high frame rate, but the visual quality loss may be significant. The High preset at 4K averages 67 FPS, which is close to 60 but may not be stable enough for competitive play. The Ultra preset at 4K averages 58 FPS, which is below 60 and not recommended for a smooth experience. At 1440p, the High preset at 99 FPS is a good choice for visual fidelity while maintaining high frame rates, and Ultra at 86 FPS is also acceptable. At 1080p, all settings are playable, with Ultra at 114 FPS being the best choice for maximum quality.

The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot, as it provides a high average FPS and the only recorded minimum FPS that stays above 60 at all resolutions. The Ultra preset offers the best visuals but drops below 60 FPS at 4K, making it less ideal for players with 60 Hz displays who want to avoid any dips.

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

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 31 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 1387 MHz, a boost clock of 2394 MHz, and a game clock of 2025 MHz. The GPU features 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 800.0 GB/s. It has 5376 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 192 raster operation units, along with 84 ray tracing cores. The GPU’s FP32 performance is 51.48 TFLOPS, and it has a pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 29009 in Passmark G3D and 5623 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12.

The GPU’s percentile against all GPUs is 55, which is surprisingly low for a card of this caliber, but this is likely due to the fact that the benchmark database includes many newer and more powerful GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 660M and the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile, which are both mobile parts, indicating that the RX 7900 XT’s average benchmark score of 13745 is not directly comparable to its gaming performance. The GPU’s 20 GB of VRAM is more than sufficient for Control, which was released in 2019 and likely uses less than 8 GB at 4K, so the memory capacity is not a limiting factor in this game.

The measured FPS data shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at all settings, as the frame rate scales with resolution and settings in a way that is consistent with GPU-bound performance. The 4K Ultra average of 58 FPS is the lowest recorded, and it suggests that the GPU’s compute power is the limiting factor, not the VRAM or memory bandwidth. The 800.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for the game’s data requirements, as the FPS scaling is linear, but the GPU’s shading units are being fully utilized at higher settings. The GPU’s role in this combo is to provide the graphical horsepower, and the data shows that it does so effectively up to 1440p, but it struggles to maintain 60 FPS at 4K with Ultra settings.