Control

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination delivers a distinctly capable Control experience, with measured frame rates that scale predictably across resolutions and presets. This pairing ranks 241st out of 3,720 tested combos in this game, placing it in the top tier of systems while leaving headroom for higher refresh-rate displays at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What average frame rate does this combo achieve at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the measured average FPS is 135. This is the most demanding preset tested at this resolution, yet it remains comfortably above 120 FPS, indicating a smooth experience for high-refresh displays.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 has an average benchmark score of 54,247, which is 0.1% ahead of the RTX 4080 SUPER (54,209). The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54,828, putting it 1.1% above the RTX 4080, while the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB and AMD Radeon 8060S are 2.6% and 2.7% behind, respectively.

Q: What is the largest FPS jump when lowering settings at 4K?

A: Moving from Ultra to Low at 3840x2160 increases average FPS from 69 to 126, a gain of 57 FPS. The difference between Medium (89 FPS) and High (79 FPS) is smaller, at 10 FPS, showing diminishing returns at the higher preset tiers.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any tested resolution?

A: Benchmark data suggests no significant CPU limitation. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 246 average FPS, and at 1440p Low it hits 186 FPS, indicating the Ryzen 9 9950X3D’s 16 cores and 32 threads provide ample headroom alongside the RTX 4080, even in less GPU-bound scenarios.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in any measured configuration?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded is 76, which occurs at 3840x2160 with Medium settings. The same settings at 2560x1440 show a minimum of 113 FPS, and at 1920x1080 the minimum is 149 FPS, demonstrating consistent frame delivery as resolution decreases.

Q: How does the CPU’s single-thread performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 9 9950X3D posts a 3dmark_single_thread score of 1,292. Its nearest rivals, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 and AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755X3D, have average benchmark scores within 0.1% of the 9950X3D, suggesting near-identical overall performance in mixed workloads, with the 9950X3D’s advantage being minimal.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, featuring 9,728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory operates across a 256-bit bus, delivering 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s base clock is 2205 MHz with a boost clock of 2505 MHz, and its memory runs at 1400 MHz, translating to 22.4 Gbps effective. These specifications place the RTX 4080 in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54,247.

In Control, the GPU’s memory capacity and bandwidth are critical for high-resolution textures and effects. At 3840x2160, the measured FPS ranges from 69 (Ultra) to 126 (Low), showing that the RTX 4080’s 16 GB frame buffer is sufficient even at 4K, though the gap between presets is substantial. The 716.8 GB/s bandwidth helps maintain consistent frame pacing, as evidenced by the minimum FPS of 76 at 4K Medium, which is within 14% of the average of 89. At lower resolutions, the GPU becomes less of a bottleneck—at 1920x1080 Low, the system reaches 246 average FPS, a figure that likely approaches the CPU’s output limit.

The RTX 4080’s raw compute performance, rated at 48.74 TFLOPS for FP32, directly translates to Control’s rendering workload. The pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s ensure that the GPU can handle the game’s particle effects and destructible environments without stutter. Compared to its nearest rivals in the benchmark database, the RTX 4080 is nearly identical to the RTX 4080 SUPER (0.1% delta), while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X holds a 1.1% advantage in average score—though these synthetic differences do not always map directly to in-game FPS.

The GPU’s 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are present in the hardware, but Control’s measured FPS data does not specify ray tracing or DLSS usage. The benchmark results reflect standard rasterization performance across all presets. At 4K Ultra, the 69 FPS average indicates the game is heavily GPU-bound, whereas at 1080p Low, the 246 FPS average suggests the RTX 4080 has significant headroom, potentially limited more by the game engine’s frame rate caps or CPU throughput.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread processor from the 9000 series, based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) and manufactured on TSMC’s 4 nm process. It features a base clock of 4.30 GHz and a boost clock of 5.70 GHz, with a 170 W TDP. The CPU includes 128 MB of L3 cache, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 80 KB of L1 cache per core, providing substantial on-die storage for game assets and physics calculations. Its memory support includes DDR5 with dual-channel configuration, offering 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 9950X3D scores 42,018 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 2,259 in single-core, with a Geekbench multicore score of 26,736 and single-core of 3,064. The 3dmark results show scaling from 1,292 (single thread) to 17,184 (max threads), indicating strong multi-threaded performance. The CPU’s percentile rank is 95 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 75,779. Its nearest rivals—the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 and AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755X3D—score within 0.1% of the 9950X3D, while the Intel Core Ultra 9 285 trails by 0.4%.

For Control, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and handle game logic, physics, and AI. The 16 cores and 32 threads provide ample parallelism for modern game engines, and the high boost clock of 5.70 GHz ensures strong single-thread performance for scenarios that rely on one or two cores. The measured FPS data supports this: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 246 FPS, which is 96% higher than the 4K Ultra result of 69 FPS. This wide spread indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU can push frame rates significantly higher, but the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K.

The 9950X3D’s 128 MB L3 cache is particularly relevant for game workloads, as it reduces memory latency and improves hit rates for frequently accessed data. Control’s physics-based combat and destructible environments benefit from this cache size, as the CPU can maintain high thread utilization without stalling on memory access. The CPU’s 3dmark_16_threads score of 16,374 versus max_threads of 17,184 shows that performance scales well up to 16 threads, which is exactly what Control can leverage with its multi-threaded engine.

Compared to the GPU’s 86th percentile, the CPU’s 95th percentile suggests that the processor is less likely to be a bottleneck in this pairing. The benchmark data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 246 FPS, which is within 5% of the 2560x1440 Low result of 186 FPS when adjusted for resolution scaling—indicating that the CPU can sustain high frame rates across all tested settings without becoming a limiting factor.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 241st out of 3,720 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 6.5% of all systems tested. This rank reflects the overall balance between CPU and GPU performance for this specific game, where both components contribute meaningfully to the final frame rates.

The top-tier ranking is supported by the measured FPS across all resolutions. At 1080p, the system never drops below 135 average FPS (Ultra), and at 1440p, the lowest average is 102 FPS (Ultra). Even at 4K, the minimum average FPS is 69 (Ultra), which remains playable for most users. The combination’s strength lies in its consistency: the gap between Low and Ultra presets at any given resolution is substantial (e.g., 246 vs. 135 at 1080p), but the absolute performance is high enough that even the most demanding preset at 4K achieves near-60 FPS.

The rank of 241 suggests that while there are 240 combos that perform better in Control, the vast majority of the 3,720 tested systems—over 93%—fall below this pairing. The CPU’s 95th percentile and GPU’s 86th percentile individually contribute to this high composite rank, with the 9950X3D’s strong multi-threaded scores (Cinebench R23 multicore of 42,018) complementing the RTX 4080’s 3dmark Steel Nomad score of 6,567. The near-identical performance of the RTX 4080 to its SUPER variant (0.1% delta) means that this combo’s GPU performance is essentially state-of-the-art for its class, while the CPU’s 0.1% advantage over the Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 ensures no weaknesses in processor-bound scenarios.

When examining the measured FPS data, the combo’s ranking becomes clearer. At 1080p Medium, the 175 FPS average places it well above the threshold for high-refresh gaming, and at 1440p High, the 118 FPS average is suitable for 120 Hz displays. The 4K Ultra result of 69 FPS is the only configuration that approaches the 60 FPS baseline, but it still exceeds it. This suggests that the combo is optimized for high-refresh 1440p or 4K at High settings, where the balance between CPU and GPU is most favorable.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers 135 FPS, which is sufficient for 144 Hz displays, but the Medium preset at 175 FPS (with a minimum of 149 FPS) provides a smoother experience for 165 Hz or 240 Hz monitors. The Low preset at 246 FPS is excessive for most displays, offering diminishing returns beyond 240 Hz.

At 2560x1440, the High preset at 118 FPS is the sweet spot for 120 Hz monitors, providing a 16% improvement over Ultra (102 FPS) while maintaining visual fidelity. The Medium preset at 132 FPS (minimum 113 FPS) is better suited for 144 Hz displays, as it keeps frame times low enough to avoid judder. Ultra at 102 FPS is still playable but may show occasional drops on VRR displays if the refresh rate dips below 100 Hz.

At 3840x2160, the High preset at 79 FPS is the recommended choice for 60 Hz or 75 Hz displays, as it offers the best balance of image quality and performance. The Medium preset at 89 FPS (minimum 76 FPS) provides a more comfortable margin for VRR displays with a 48-120 Hz range, while Ultra at 69 FPS is acceptable for 60 Hz but leaves little headroom. The Low preset at 126 FPS is not recommended for 4K, as the visual degradation outweighs the performance gain for most users.

The data shows that the jump from Ultra to High yields a 14% FPS increase at 4K (69 to 79), while the jump from High to Medium yields a 13% increase (79 to 89). This indicates that the High preset offers the most efficient trade-off at 4K. At 1440p, the jump from Ultra to High is 16% (102 to 118), and from High to Medium is 12% (118 to 132), making High the recommended preset. At 1080p, the jump from Ultra to High is 16% (135 to 156), and from High to Medium is 12% (156 to 175), again favoring High for most users, though Medium is better for 240 Hz displays.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured average FPS varies significantly across presets. The Ultra preset delivers 69 FPS, which is the lowest average in the entire dataset. High settings improve this to 79 FPS, and Medium reaches 89 FPS with a minimum of 76 FPS and a maximum of 103 FPS. The Low preset achieves 126 FPS, representing an 82% improvement over Ultra. The minimum FPS data is only available for Medium (76), indicating that other presets may have more variable frame times.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 102 FPS, which is a 48% increase over the 4K Ultra result. High settings reach 118 FPS, Medium averages 132 FPS with a minimum of 113 FPS and a maximum of 152 FPS, and Low achieves 186 FPS. The scaling from Ultra to Low at 1440p is an 82% improvement, mirroring the 4K scaling pattern. The Medium preset’s minimum FPS of 113 is 86% of its average, suggesting good frame pacing.

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset averages 135 FPS, High reaches 156 FPS, Medium averages 175 FPS with a minimum of 149 FPS and a maximum of 201 FPS, and Low achieves 246 FPS. The scaling from Ultra to Low at 1080p is an 82% improvement, consistent with the other resolutions. The Medium preset’s minimum FPS of 149 is 85% of its average, which is the tightest ratio across all measured configurations, indicating that 1080p Medium provides the most stable frame delivery.

Comparing across resolutions, the 4K Ultra result of 69 FPS is 49% lower than the 1440p Ultra result of 102 FPS, and 49% lower than the 1080p Ultra result of 135 FPS. This consistent 49% reduction between resolutions suggests that the GPU is the primary scaling factor, as the CPU’s contribution remains constant. The 4K Low result of 126 FPS is 32% lower than the 1080p Low result of 246 FPS, indicating that even at Low settings, 4K presents a significant GPU workload. The Medium preset’s minimum FPS values (76 at 4K, 113 at 1440p, 149 at 1080p) scale roughly proportionally with resolution, confirming that the RTX 4080’s 16 GB memory and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient to maintain consistent performance without memory-related stutters. The highest average FPS recorded is 246 at 1080p Low, while the lowest is 69 at 4K Ultra, representing a 3.6x range across all tested configurations.