Control

Control is a 2019 Action Adventure title that stresses both the CPU and GPU in unusual ways, and the combination of the Intel Core i3-12100F with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT produces a revealing data set. The measured results show a system that is capable of high refresh rates at 1080p but begins to buckle under the weight of 4K resolutions, with the gap between settings presets widening as pixel count increases. This analysis examines the measured FPS rows to determine where this pairing excels, where it struggles, and what the benchmark data implies about the underlying hardware balance.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data for Control shows that the Low preset is the only setting that consistently delivers a fluid experience across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, Low produces an average of 120.5 FPS, which comfortably exceeds the 120 FPS mark that many competitive displays target. Moving to 2560x1440, Low still holds at 92.2 FPS, and even at 3840x2160 it manages 65 FPS. This is the only preset that stays above 60 FPS at 4K, making it the clear choice for players prioritizing frame rate over visual fidelity.

For those who want a balance between image quality and performance, Medium is the best middle ground, but only at lower resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 87.6 FPS, which is a 27% drop from Low’s 120.5 FPS, yet still highly playable. At 1440p, Medium falls to 69 FPS, which is just shy of the 70 FPS comfort zone, but remains acceptable. However, at 4K Medium drops to 41.9 FPS, which is below the 45 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for a playable experience. High settings follow a similar pattern: 80.3 FPS at 1080p, 60.3 FPS at 1440p, and 37.9 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, yielding 68.6 FPS at 1080p, 52 FPS at 1440p, and only 36.6 FPS at 4K.

The data suggests that the optimal experience depends heavily on the target resolution. At 1080p, High settings provide a strong 80.3 FPS, which is a reasonable compromise between the 68.6 FPS of Ultra and the 120.5 FPS of Low. At 1440p, Medium’s 69 FPS is the sweet spot, as High’s 60.3 FPS is playable but leaves little headroom for dips, while Low’s 92.2 FPS sacrifices too much visual detail. At 4K, Low is the only viable preset, as every other setting falls below 42 FPS, making the game feel sluggish.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a Navi 33 chip, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus. The memory clock runs at 2250 MHz, yielding an effective 18 Gbps speed and a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. The GPU’s boost clock reaches 2755 MHz, with a game clock of 2470 MHz and a base clock of 1980 MHz. These specifications position the card as a mid-range contender, but the benchmark results in Control reveal a clear limitation: the 128-bit memory bus appears to bottleneck the card at higher resolutions.

Evidence for this comes from the FPS scaling across resolutions. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves 120.5 FPS, but at 4K it drops to 65 FPS, a 46% reduction. This drop is steeper than what pure compute scaling would suggest, indicating that memory bandwidth becomes a constraint. The GPU’s 288.0 GB/s bandwidth is modest for a card with 16 GB of VRAM, and Control’s heavy use of texture streaming and particle effects likely saturates this bandwidth at 4K. The 64 ROPs and 128 TMUs are adequate for 1080p, but the pixel rate of 176.3 GPixel/s struggles to keep up with 3840x2160 workloads.

The GPU’s overall benchmark percentile of 63 places it slightly above the median of all tested GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20146. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7600, which scores 20258 (0.6% higher), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER at 19774 (1.9% lower). This clustering suggests the RX 7600 XT is a consistent performer, but Control’s 4K results—where it drops below 40 FPS on High and Ultra—indicate that the card is better suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 1080p gaming with this CPU and GPU combo?

A: The High preset delivers 80.3 FPS at 1920x1080, which is a strong balance between visual quality and performance. Ultra drops to 68.6 FPS, while Low reaches 120.5 FPS, but the latter significantly reduces visual fidelity.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Control?

A: Yes, but only on the Low preset, which achieves 65 FPS at 3840x2160. All other presets fall below 42 FPS, with Ultra at 36.6 FPS and High at 37.9 FPS, making them largely unplayable.

Q: How does the RX 7600 XT compare to its nearest GPU rival in overall benchmarks?

A: The RX 7600 XT has an average benchmark score of 20146, which is 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 7600 (20258) and 1.9% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER (19774).

Q: What is the FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p on High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 80.3 at 1920x1080 to 60.3 at 2560x1440, a 25% reduction.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at 4K?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K. The CPU’s 4 cores and 8 threads can handle the workload, as evidenced by the 65 FPS on Low at 4K, but the GPU’s memory bandwidth constraints prevent higher presets from scaling.

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

A: This combination ranks 1034 out of 1636 tested combos, placing it in the lower-middle tier of all CPU-GPU pairings tested for Control.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i3-12100F and AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT combination ranks 1034 out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 63rd percentile of all pairings. This is a modest ranking, reflecting the fact that the GPU’s performance is decent but not exceptional, while the CPU’s 4-core design limits its appeal in a game that can utilize more threads. The combo’s ranking is consistent with the GPU’s overall percentile of 63, suggesting that the pairing is balanced but not optimized for this particular title.

The CPU’s average benchmark score of 13516 places it in the 72nd percentile of all CPUs, with its nearest rival being the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX at 13534 (0.1% higher) and the Intel Core i3-10105 at 13430 (0.6% lower). The GPU’s average score of 20146 and 63rd percentile is slightly lower than the CPU’s ranking, indicating that the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing. This is corroborated by the measured FPS data, where the GPU’s memory bandwidth becomes a clear constraint at 4K, while the CPU’s single-thread performance—highlighted by a 3dmark single-thread score of 893—is sufficient for the game’s physics and logic.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its 12 MB of shared L3 cache is modest, and its 3dmark scores show a clear pattern: 4-thread score of 2859, 8-thread score of 4026, and max-thread score of 4023. The near-identical 8-thread and max-thread scores indicate that the CPU saturates its thread count quickly, which is expected for a 4-core part.

In Control, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, as the game’s rendering demands dominate. The CPU’s single-thread performance is strong for its class, with a 3dmark single-thread score of 893 and a geekbench single-core score of 2224. This helps maintain frame rates at 1080p, where the GPU is not fully taxed. For example, at 1080p Low, the combo reaches 120.5 FPS, and at 1440p Low it hits 92.2 FPS, indicating that the CPU can keep up with the GPU’s output at these resolutions. However, at 4K, the CPU’s limitations become less relevant, as the GPU’s bandwidth bottleneck caps performance at 65 FPS even on Low.

The CPU’s 72nd percentile ranking and its nearest rivals—all of which score within 1.8% of it—suggest that the i3-12100F is a competent budget processor. Its cinebench r23 multicore score of 11912 and single-core score of 1681 show that it performs well for its core count, but games that scale beyond 4 cores will see diminishing returns. In Control, the benchmark data shows that the CPU does not bottleneck the GPU at lower resolutions, but the combo’s overall rank of 1034 out of 1636 reflects the CPU’s inability to push higher frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers 12 distinct combinations of resolution and settings, providing a clear picture of the combo’s performance envelope. At 1920x1080, the presets range from 120.5 FPS on Low to 68.6 FPS on Ultra, with High at 80.3 FPS and Medium at 87.6 FPS. The spread of 51.9 FPS between Low and Ultra indicates that the GPU has significant headroom at this resolution, with the CPU able to feed it effectively.

At 2560x1440, the same presets produce 92.2 FPS (Low), 69 FPS (Medium), 60.3 FPS (High), and 52 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 40.2 FPS, showing that the GPU is starting to become the limiting factor. The drop from 1080p to 1440p on Low is 23.5%, while on Ultra it is 24.2%, suggesting a consistent scaling pattern.

At 3840x2160, the results become more dramatic: 65 FPS (Low), 41.9 FPS (Medium), 37.9 FPS (High), and 36.6 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Ultra shrinks to 28.4 FPS, but the absolute numbers are low. The 4K results show a clear cliff: Medium, High, and Ultra all fall below 42 FPS, while Low manages to stay above 60 FPS. This suggests that the GPU’s memory bandwidth is the primary constraint, as the compute demands of higher presets cannot be met without sacrificing frame rate.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the limiting component. On Low settings, the average FPS drops from 120.5 at 1080p to 92.2 at 1440p (a 23.5% reduction) and then to 65 at 4K (a 29.5% reduction from 1440p). This scaling is relatively smooth, indicating that the GPU is handling the increased pixel count without a sudden bottleneck, but the overall drop of 46% from 1080p to 4K is steep.

On High settings, the scaling is more aggressive: 80.3 FPS at 1080p drops to 60.3 at 1440p (a 24.9% reduction) and then to 37.9 at 4K (a 37.2% reduction from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 52.8%, which is significantly steeper than the Low preset’s 46% drop. This indicates that higher settings place more strain on the GPU’s memory subsystem, causing a disproportionate performance loss at 4K.

The Ultra preset shows the most severe scaling: 68.6 FPS at 1080p drops to 52 at 1440p (a 24.2% reduction) and then to 36.6 at 4K (a 29.6% reduction from 1440p). The total drop is 46.6%, which is similar to Low’s scaling, but the absolute numbers are much lower. This suggests that the GPU’s compute units are also a factor at Ultra, but the memory bandwidth remains the dominant constraint.

The data implies that the RX 7600 XT is well-suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can deliver playable frame rates on most presets. At 4K, however, the 128-bit memory bus becomes a clear bottleneck, as evidenced by the fact that Low is the only preset that maintains a playable frame rate. For players targeting 4K, the data suggests that lowering settings to Low is the only way to achieve acceptable performance, while 1080p and 1440p players have more flexibility to choose between visual quality and frame rate.