Control

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers a commanding performance in Control, placing 106th out of 2,888 tested combos. This top-tier ranking in the 96.3rd percentile reflects the raw horsepower of this configuration, which is designed to obliterate frame rate targets at virtually any resolution. The data indicates a system that is not merely playable at maximum settings, but one that provides a significant performance buffer, ensuring a consistently smooth experience even in the game's most chaotic scenes.

The combination of the 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X3D and the flagship RTX 4090 results in a pairing where neither component presents a meaningful bottleneck at standard gaming resolutions, though the balance of load shifts as resolution increases. Benchmark results show this combo is a top-tier performer, with the CPU's high single-thread score and the GPU's immense compute power working in tandem. For users with a high-refresh-rate 1440p or 4K display, this configuration is designed to take full advantage of the monitor's capabilities, providing a level of performance that is rarely matched.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 106 out of 2,888 is an exceptional result, placing it within the top 4% of all tested configurations for Control. This ranking reflects the sheer performance ceiling of this hardware pairing. It signifies that in the vast majority of gaming scenarios, this system will outperform the competition, delivering frame rates that are often double or triple those of mid-range setups.

This high rank is supported by the individual component strengths. The CPU sits in the 91st percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 54,762. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF, posts a nearly identical average score of 55,093, a negligible -0.6% difference, while the Intel Core i7-14700F trails by 2.1% with a score of 53,620. This indicates that the 9900X3D is at the very top of the CPU performance hierarchy, ensuring that it can feed the GPU with data as fast as any other processor on the market.

On the graphics side, the RTX 4090 is in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 60,347. Its performance is so dominant that its nearest rivals are professional workstation cards like the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M, which is actually 2.5% slower. This GPU is in a performance tier of its own for consumer gaming, making the overall combo rank a predictable outcome of pairing two of the most powerful consumer components available. The data shows that this is a configuration built for absolute maximum performance.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combo reveals that it has enough headroom to run Control at its most demanding settings, even at 4K resolution. The jump from "Ultra" to "High" settings provides a significant performance boost with only a minor expected visual trade-off, making it the sweet spot for maximizing frame rates on high-refresh-rate displays. At 4K, the average FPS increases from 76 on Ultra to 88 on High, a 15.8% performance gain that pushes the experience into a smoother territory for many players.

For users prioritizing the absolute highest refresh rates, the "Medium" preset offers a further, more substantial performance increase. At 1440p, moving from High to Medium raises the average FPS from 130 to 146, and at 1080p from 172 to 194. This makes Medium an excellent choice for competitive play or for users with 240Hz+ monitors who want to maximize frame throughput. The measured minimum FPS at this setting is also strong, with a 1440p minimum of 124 FPS and a 1080p minimum of 165 FPS, indicating a stable experience without significant stuttering.

The "Low" preset provides an enormous frame rate boost, but the visual cost in a game like Control is substantial. At 1080p, Low settings produce an average of 272 FPS, which is a staggering number, but the reduction in graphical fidelity is likely too severe for most players to justify, especially when the "High" and "Ultra" presets are already so playable. Ultimately, the data suggests that "High" is the recommended preset for a balanced experience, while "Medium" is the optimal choice for users who prioritize raw frame rates above all else. Ultra is entirely viable for a cinematic 4K experience, but it leaves performance on the table.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K for this combo clearly illustrates the growing burden on the GPU as resolution increases. At 1080p with "High" settings, the average FPS is 172. This drops to 130 at 1440p, a 24.4% decrease, and then further to 88 at 4K, a 48.8% decrease from the 1080p score. This pattern shows that while the CPU is powerful enough to maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions, the RTX 4090 becomes the primary limiting factor as pixel count increases.

The frame rate drop between 1440p and 4K is particularly telling, representing a 32.3% reduction. This is a clear indicator that the game is becoming heavily GPU-bound at 4K, as the sheer number of pixels required to render the scene overwhelms even the flagship 4090. The fact that the 9900X3D can push 172 FPS at 1080p shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions, but the GPU's rendering workload scales almost linearly with resolution.

This scaling behavior means that for users with a 1080p or 1440p monitor, the system is likely CPU-limited in many scenes, as the GPU has the capacity to render frames faster than the CPU can process them. However, at 4K, the system becomes decidedly GPU-limited. The data shows that this is a balanced pairing for 4K gaming, where the GPU is fully utilized, but for esports or high-refresh-rate 1080p gaming, the CPU's performance is the defining factor in achieving those extreme frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset shows a clear and predictable hierarchy of performance across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers exceptional frame rates across the board. The "Low" preset achieves an average of 272 FPS, which is nearly double the "Ultra" preset's 149 FPS. The "Medium" preset provides a balanced 194 FPS average with a minimum of 165 FPS and a maximum of 223 FPS, while "High" lands at 172 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the system has immense headroom, making it suitable for the highest refresh rate monitors.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains incredibly strong. The "Low" preset still produces a very high 206 FPS average. The "Medium" preset provides a stable 146 FPS average, with a minimum of 124 FPS and a maximum of 168 FPS. "High" settings yield a 130 FPS average, which is ideal for 144Hz gaming. The "Ultra" preset maintains a high 113 FPS average, ensuring a fully smooth experience even with maximum graphical fidelity. This resolution appears to be the sweet spot for this combo, offering a perfect balance between visual quality and frame rate.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 4090's power is fully taxed, but the results are still impressive. The "Low" preset delivers a very playable 139 FPS average. The "High" preset, which is recommended, achieves an 88 FPS average. The "Medium" preset provides a 99 FPS average with a minimum of 84 FPS and a maximum of 114 FPS, making it a good alternative for those wanting to stay well above 60 FPS. The "Ultra" preset is the most demanding, averaging 76 FPS, which is still perfectly playable on a 60Hz or 120Hz display, but it highlights the performance cost of the highest settings at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the undisputed star of this configuration, and its specifications are directly reflected in the measured performance. Its massive 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. This immense memory subsystem is a key reason the card can maintain high frame rates at 4K, as it prevents memory bandwidth from becoming a bottleneck when handling the high-resolution textures and effects in Control.

The card's Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, contains 16,384 shading units and 512 tensor cores. With a boost clock of 2520 MHz, it achieves a staggering FP32 performance of 82.58 TFLOPS. This raw compute power is what allows the card to handle the game's complex physics and rendering effects. The data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the card is not completely overwhelmed, sustaining a 76 FPS average, a signal of its processing capabilities.

The RTX 4090's 128 RT cores are also relevant for Control, a game known for its ray-tracing effects. While the measured FPS data does not specify whether ray tracing was enabled, the card's raw rasterization performance provides a strong foundation. The GPU's performance, as measured by its average benchmark score of 60,347, places it far ahead of its nearest consumer rivals, and its role in this combo is to provide a virtually unassailable frame rate ceiling, with the data showing it is the primary driver of performance in all measured resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D plays a crucial supporting role in this combo, ensuring the RTX 4090 is never left waiting for data. With 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture, its multi-threaded capabilities are immense, as shown by a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 47,737. However, for gaming, its single-thread performance is equally important, and its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6,739 demonstrates that it is at the top of the pack in this regard.

The CPU's 128 MB of L3 cache is a significant feature for gaming, as it allows for a large pool of high-speed memory for frequently accessed game data. This is reflected in its benchmark scores, where its overall average score of 54,762 places it in the 91st percentile of all CPUs. The 4.40 GHz base and 5.50 GHz boost clocks ensure that it can respond quickly to game logic and physics calculations.

The data shows that the CPU's role becomes more prominent at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the FPS difference between the RTX 4090 and what a less powerful CPU could achieve is significant, with the 9900X3D enabling 272 FPS on Low settings. Its ability to maintain high minimum frame rates, as seen in the 1440p Medium result of 124 FPS, is critical for a smooth experience. While the GPU is the main driver of frame rate at 4K, the CPU's strong per-core performance and large cache are essential for preventing stutters and ensuring that the system can deliver the consistently high frame rates shown in the data across all resolutions.