Control

Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the Intel Arc B370 delivers a constrained experience in Control, with the measured data indicating that the graphics processor is the primary bottleneck across all tested resolutions. The combination ranks in the lower percentile of tested configurations, and the frame rate data shows a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, typical of a system where GPU throughput is the limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates across the three tested resolutions reveal a significant drop in performance when moving from 1080p to 4K, underscoring the Arc B370’s limitations. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves an average of 59 FPS, which is the only configuration in the entire dataset that approaches a playable 60 FPS threshold. Stepping up to 1440p at the same Low settings reduces the average to 45 FPS, a 23.7% decrease. Pushing further to 4K at Low yields an average of 30 FPS, which is exactly half the 1080p figure and represents a 33.3% drop from the 1440p result. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU’s fill rate and shading capacity are being exhausted quickly as pixel count rises.

The trend is consistent across all settings presets. For High settings, the averages are 37 FPS at 1080p, 28 FPS at 1440p, and 19 FPS at 4K. This represents a 24.3% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 32.1% reduction from 1440p to 4K. Medium settings follow a similar trajectory: 42 FPS at 1080p, 32 FPS at 1440p, and 21 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings, the most demanding preset, show 32 FPS at 1080p, 25 FPS at 1440p, and 17 FPS at 4K. The proportional declines are remarkably uniform across presets, which strongly suggests that the scaling is driven by the GPU’s raw pixel processing capability rather than any CPU limitation.

The data also shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (59 FPS) and Ultra (32 FPS) is 27 FPS. At 1440p, that gap shrinks to 20 FPS (45 vs 25). At 4K, the gap is just 13 FPS (30 vs 17). This compression of the settings range at higher resolutions is a classic sign of GPU-bound operation: when the pixel workload becomes too heavy, the additional shading work from higher settings has less relative impact because the GPU is already saturated. The limiting component is clearly the Arc B370, which has a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184, placing it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this CPU-GPU combo?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 59 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the only configuration in the dataset that reaches or exceeds 58 FPS, with all other settings and resolutions falling below 45 FPS.

Q: How does the frame rate scale between 1080p and 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average frame rate drops from 42 FPS at 1920x1080 to 32 FPS at 2560x1440, and further to 21 FPS at 3840x2160. The total reduction from 1080p to 4K is exactly 50%, indicating a linear relationship with pixel count.

*Q: Is the system capable of maintaining a stable frame rate in Control?*

A: The data shows limited stability information. The only configurations with minimum and maximum frame rate data are the Medium settings across all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the range is 36 to 48 FPS; at 1440p Medium, it is 27 to 37 FPS; at 4K Medium, it is 18 to 25 FPS. These ranges suggest moderate frame time variance, but no data is available for other presets.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 45 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 25 FPS. This is a difference of 20 FPS, meaning the Low preset delivers 80% higher performance than Ultra at this resolution.

Q: How does this combo compare to other tested configurations?

A: The combination ranks 2657th out of 2888 tested combos for Control, placing it in the bottom 8% of all configurations. This ranking reflects the Arc B370’s low absolute performance, as indicated by its 5th percentile standing among all GPUs.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: The data suggests no. The Intel Core i3-12100F has a multi-threaded benchmark score of 14015 in Passmark and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11860, which places it in the 68th percentile of all CPUs. The uniform frame rate scaling with resolution, combined with the GPU’s low percentile ranking, indicates that the Arc B370 is the limiting component, not the processor.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is the decisive factor in this system’s Control performance. The GPU is built on the Xe3-LPG architecture with a Panther Lake chip, fabricated on a 3 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz. The memory configuration is entirely system-shared, meaning the GPU relies on the CPU’s main memory rather than dedicated VRAM. This is reflected in the memory bandwidth being listed as "System Dependent," which can introduce additional latency and bandwidth contention in memory-intensive scenes.

The GPU’s compute resources are modest: 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster operation units. It also includes 10 ray tracing cores, though the measured data does not isolate ray tracing performance. The theoretical peak rates are 48.00 GPixel/s for pixel fill and 96.00 GTexel/s for texture fill, with a FP32 compute throughput of 6.144 TFLOPS. These figures align with the frame rate data: at 4K (3840x2160, approximately 8.3 million pixels per frame), a 19 FPS average at High settings translates to roughly 158 million pixels processed per second, which is only 30% of the theoretical pixel rate. This suggests that the actual rendering workload is heavily shader-bound rather than fill-bound, as the FP32 throughput is the more likely bottleneck.

The GPU’s position in the market is extremely low. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184 places it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs. The nearest rivals in the benchmark database are the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 with a score of 1186 (0.2% faster), the ATI Radeon HD 5770 with a score of 1190 (0.5% faster), the AMD Radeon HD 7650M with a score of 1192 (0.7% faster), and the AMD FirePro M2000 with a score of 1168 (1.4% slower). These comparisons highlight that the Arc B370 is performing at the level of legacy integrated and entry-level discrete graphics solutions from over a decade ago, which explains its inability to deliver high frame rates in a demanding title like Control.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i3-12100F + Intel Arc B370 combination is positioned at rank 2657 out of 2888 total tested combos for Control. This places the system in the bottom 8.0% of all configurations, a clear indicator that this is not a gaming-oriented setup for this title. The rank is primarily driven by the GPU, as the CPU’s own percentile ranking of 68% shows it is a mid-range processor, but the GPU’s 5th percentile ranking drags the entire combo down.

To contextualize the CPU’s contribution, the Core i3-12100F has an average benchmark score of 13494, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core 3 N355 (13492, 0% difference), the Intel Core i5-9500 (13452, 0.3% slower), the Intel Core 5 120UL (13594, 0.7% faster), and the Intel Core i7-1250U (13351, 1.1% slower). This shows that the CPU is competitive with other mainstream processors from its era, meaning it is not the reason for the low combo rank. The data supports the conclusion that any upgrade to this system’s Control performance would need to involve replacing the GPU, as the current graphics solution is operating at a fraction of the capability needed for smooth gameplay even at 1080p.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rate data, the only viable setting for a reasonably smooth experience is the Low preset at 1920x1080, which yields an average of 59 FPS. This is the sole configuration that approaches the standard 60 FPS target, though it still falls one frame short. For users who prioritize frame rate over visual fidelity, this is the clear choice.

If a higher visual quality is desired, the Medium preset at 1080p offers an average of 42 FPS, which is playable but not smooth by modern standards. The minimum frame rate for this configuration is 36 FPS, indicating that dips below 30 FPS are unlikely but possible in heavy scenes. The High preset at 1080p averages 37 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 32 FPS. Given the data, stepping up from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 17 FPS (a 28.8% reduction) but provides a moderate visual improvement. However, the jump from Medium to High costs only 5 FPS (an 11.9% reduction), which may be a more efficient trade-off for visual quality.

At higher resolutions, the settings recommendations become more restrictive. At 1440p, the Low preset averages 45 FPS, which is playable but inconsistent. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 32 FPS, while High and Ultra average 28 and 25 FPS respectively. At 4K, all presets fall below 30 FPS, with Low being the only option above 30 FPS (30 FPS exactly), and Ultra dropping to 17 FPS. The data suggests that for this combo, users should either accept 1080p Low for near-60 FPS performance, or 1080p Medium/High for a balance of quality and playability. Pushing beyond 1080p is not recommended based on the measured results.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080 resolution, the measured average frame rates are: Low settings produce 59 FPS, High settings produce 37 FPS, Medium settings produce 42 FPS with a minimum of 36 FPS and a maximum of 48 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 32 FPS. The data shows a 27 FPS spread between the lowest and highest quality presets, representing a 45.8% performance difference between Low and Ultra.

At 2560x1440 resolution, the averages are: Low settings produce 45 FPS, High settings produce 28 FPS, Medium settings produce 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 FPS and a maximum of 37 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 25 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 20 FPS, or 44.4%. Compared to 1080p, every preset loses between 7 and 9 FPS, with the absolute loss being similar across all settings.

At 3840x2160 resolution, the averages are: Low settings produce 30 FPS, High settings produce 19 FPS, Medium settings produce 21 FPS with a minimum of 18 FPS and a maximum of 25 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 17 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 13 FPS, or 43.3%. The minimum frame rate of 18 FPS at 4K Medium indicates that the system can drop to near-unplayable levels during intense scenes.

The pattern across all resolutions is consistent: Low is always the fastest preset, followed by High, then Medium, and finally Ultra. Interestingly, High settings outperform Medium settings by 5 FPS at 1080p (37 vs 42), 4 FPS at 1440p (28 vs 32), and 2 FPS at 4K (19 vs 21). This is a counterintuitive result, as Medium typically performs better than High. The data suggests that the Medium preset may apply certain rendering techniques that are more demanding than the High preset’s configuration, though the exact cause is not specified in the measurement data.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with a TDP of 58 W. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and the CPU is not multiplier-unlocked, meaning it cannot be overclocked.

In synthetic benchmarks, the processor achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11860 and a single-core score of 1674. The Geekbench results show a multi-core score of 7252 and a single-core score of 1932. In 3DMark tests, it scores 4051 with 16 threads and 893 in single-thread. The Passmark multi-thread score is 14015, with a single-thread score of 3444. These results place the CPU in the 68th percentile of all CPUs, indicating it is a competent mid-range processor.

In the context of Control, the CPU’s role is secondary. The game’s frame rates scale almost entirely with resolution and GPU settings, which would not be the case if the CPU were the bottleneck. The fact that the 1080p Low preset achieves 59 FPS while the 4K Low preset achieves 30 FPS shows that the GPU is being saturated, not the CPU. The CPU’s 4 cores and 8 threads are sufficient for this title’s workload, as evidenced by the consistent frame rate scaling. The launch MSRP of the CPU is $97, but its performance contribution to this combo is overshadowed by the GPU’s limitations. The processor is not the limiting factor here; the Arc B370’s 5th percentile GPU ranking is the definitive constraint on this system’s ability to run Control smoothly.