Control

The Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 delivers a playable but not flawless experience in Control, with performance heavily dictated by the game’s demanding rendering load. The measured data reveals a system that excels at 1080p and maintains respectable frame rates at 1440p, but struggles to keep pace at 4K. The combination of a modern quad-core CPU and a mid-range RDNA 2 GPU shows a clear bottleneck shift as resolution increases, making the choice of settings crucial for a smooth experience.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is steep across all settings, indicating that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 68.8 at 1080p to 49.5 at 1440p, a reduction of 19.3 frames, and then plummets to 35.6 at 4K. This pattern—a 28% drop from 1080p to 1440p and another 28% drop from 1440p to 4K—suggests a scaling curve where the pixel count outpaces the RX 6600’s rendering capabilities.

The Low preset tells a similar story but with higher absolute numbers. Here, the average FPS goes from 105.9 at 1080p to 82.4 at 1440p (a 23.5 frame decline) and then to 56.2 at 4K. The relative drop from 1440p to 4K is 31.8%, which is steeper than the 27.1% drop seen at High settings. This implies that even when reducing graphical load, the GPU’s memory bandwidth and compute throughput become constrained as resolution increases, making the 4K experience marginal even on Low.

Interestingly, the gap between Medium and High settings narrows as resolution climbs. At 1080p, the difference is 9.1 frames (77.9 vs 68.8), but at 4K it shrinks to just 2.5 frames (38.1 vs 35.6). This suggests that at higher resolutions, the game becomes less sensitive to certain settings tweaks, and the GPU is so saturated that the extra load from High over Medium has diminishing impact on the final average FPS.

The data implies that this combo is designed for 1080p gaming, with 1440p viable for those who accept lower presets. The 4K results, ranging from 27.9 to 56.2 FPS, are largely below the 60 FPS threshold and require significant compromises, indicating that the RX 6600’s 8 GB frame buffer and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are not sufficient for Control at that resolution without severe visual cuts.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show that the Low preset offers the only path to consistently high frame rates, particularly at 1080p and 1440p. At 1920x1080, Low produces an average of 105.9 FPS, which is 37.1 frames higher than the Medium preset and 47.3 frames higher than Ultra. For gamers targeting 60 FPS or higher, Low is the only reliable choice at 1440p, delivering 82.4 FPS, while Medium falls to 55.9 FPS and High to 49.5 FPS.

At 1080p, Medium offers a decent balance with 77.9 FPS, but the jump to High costs 9.1 frames, bringing the average down to 68.8 FPS. The Ultra preset is the worst performer, with 58.6 FPS at 1080p and just 47.1 FPS at 1440p, making it difficult to justify for the visual gains. The data suggests that High is the sweet spot for 1080p if visual fidelity is prioritized, as it stays above 60 FPS, but Medium is the safer bet for those who want headroom for demanding scenes.

For 4K, no preset provides a comfortable experience. Medium yields 38.1 FPS and High 35.6 FPS, while Low reaches 56.2 FPS. The 18.1 FPS advantage of Low over Medium at 4K is substantial, but even that result hovers around the edge of playability. Benchmarks results indicate that the best experience per the measured rows is achieved by using Low at 1440p, which maintains a high frame rate without the pixel density penalty of 4K, or Medium at 1080p for a more balanced visual output.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is the decisive component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the observed frame rates. With 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, the card offers a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s, which is modest for 4K workloads. The boost clock of 2491 MHz and base clock of 1626 MHz provide the raw compute, but the 1792 shading units and 64 ROPs are tasked with filling those high-resolution frames.

The GPU’s performance in Control aligns with its overall benchmark standing. The RX 6600 sits at the 69th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25235. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon 890M, scores 25246 with a 0% delta, indicating near-identical performance. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is a close comparison, with a delta of 0.5% (score 25120), meaning the RX 6600 is slightly ahead in aggregate benchmarks, but this does not translate to a large advantage in Control’s specific rendering paths.

The 7 nm process node and 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die suggest a power-efficient design, but the 132 W TDP and 300 W suggested PSU indicate that the card is not a high-end part. The data shows that the GPU is the bottleneck at 4K, where even Low settings struggle to reach 60 FPS. The 14 Gbps effective memory speed and 1750 MHz memory clock are insufficient for the massive texture and geometry loads of Control at 3840x2160, making the GPU’s role the dominant factor in the performance ceiling.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings is playable. Low leads with 105.9 FPS, followed by Medium at 77.9 FPS, High at 68.8 FPS, and Ultra at 58.6 FPS. The spread of 47.3 FPS between Low and Ultra shows a significant performance cost for maxing out the game’s features. At 2560x1440, the ordering remains the same, but the gaps widen: Low hits 82.4 FPS, Medium 55.9 FPS, High 49.5 FPS, and Ultra 47.1 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra narrows to just 2.4 FPS, suggesting that Ultra’s extra effects are not heavily taxing at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are more compressed. Low produces 56.2 FPS, Medium 38.1 FPS, High 35.6 FPS, and Ultra 27.9 FPS. The margin between Medium and High is only 2.5 FPS, and the jump from High to Ultra costs 7.7 FPS. This indicates that the GPU’s compute units are saturated, and the settings have less impact on the final output. The data shows that the RX 6600 can handle 1080p Ultra at nearly 60 FPS, but 4K Ultra is nearly halved to 27.9 FPS, a 30.7 FPS drop from the 1080p result.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader context of tested hardware combinations, this pairing ranks 1361 out of 1636 combos for Control. This places it in the lower third of all systems, which is consistent with the mid-range nature of both components. The combo’s rank is not a reflection of poor performance at lower resolutions, but rather a consequence of the 4K results dragging down its overall standing. The i3-12100F’s 72nd percentile among CPUs (with an average benchmark score of 13516) and the RX 6600’s 69th percentile among GPUs suggest a balanced pairing, but neither component excels enough to push the combo higher in the rankings.

The nearest CPU rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (deltaPct -0.1) and Intel Core i7-7700K (deltaPct 1.8), show that the i3-12100F is competitive in synthetic benchmarks. However, in Control, the GPU’s limitations at higher resolutions cap the combo’s potential. The ranking implies that for this specific game, the system is better suited to 1080p or 1440p gaming, where its performance is more competitive relative to other tested configurations.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its Alder Lake architecture on a 10 nm process gives it strong single-thread performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681 and Geekbench single-core score of 2224. These scores suggest that the CPU is not a bottleneck at lower resolutions, where the GPU is the limiting factor.

However, the CPU’s modest core count may become relevant in Control’s more physics-heavy scenes. The Passmark physics score of 985 and 3DMark 4-thread score of 2859 indicate that the i3-12100F handles multithreaded loads adequately, but it is not a powerhouse. The 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide sufficient bandwidth for gaming, but the lack of additional cores could cause dips in frame times if the game engine scales beyond 8 threads.

The data shows that the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU in this title. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 105.9 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for this engine, but the GPU still has headroom. At 4K, the CPU is clearly not the constraint, as the FPS drops are almost entirely due to the GPU’s rendering load. The i3-12100F’s 58 W TDP and dual-channel memory support (DDR4 and DDR5) make it an efficient choice, but the benchmark results indicate that for Control, the GPU dictates the experience.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Control?*

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the most comfortable, with average FPS ranging from 58.6 on Ultra to 105.9 on Low. 2560x1440 is playable but requires Low settings to stay above 60 FPS, while 3840x2160 only reaches 56.2 FPS on Low.

Q: How does the RX 6600 compare to its nearest rival in benchmarks?

A: The RX 6600 scores 25235 on average, which is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon 890M at 25246 (0% delta) and slightly ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti at 25120 (0.5% delta).

Q: Is the i3-12100F a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the system hits 105.9 FPS, which suggests the CPU is capable of driving high frame rates. The CPU’s 8 threads and boost clock of 4.30 GHz are sufficient for this title, but the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher settings.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 4K?

A: The difference is 28.3 FPS, with Low averaging 56.2 FPS and Ultra averaging 27.9 FPS. This is the largest settings gap at any resolution, highlighting the GPU’s inability to handle maxed-out effects at 4K.

Q: How does this combo rank against all tested combinations?

A: It ranks 1361 out of 1636 combos for Control, placing it in the lower third. This is due to the GPU’s performance at higher resolutions, not the CPU’s capabilities.

Q: Does the CPU’s cache size matter for this game?

A: The i3-12100F has 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache. The data does not show a direct correlation, but the CPU’s single-thread scores (Cinebench R23 single-core 1681) suggest it handles the game’s logic efficiently without being a major factor.