Control

The Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB delivers a compelling, if occasionally contradictory, performance profile in Control. The data reveals a system that is clearly capable of high frame rates, yet the scaling patterns across resolutions and settings suggest a delicate balance between the CPU's four cores and the GPU's 8 GB memory buffer. This analysis breaks down the measured results to understand what this specific combination means for players.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies. At Low settings, the system moves from 160.7 FPS at 1920x1080 down to 83.3 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of roughly 48%. This is a significant hit, but the absolute numbers remain playable. The trend continues across all presets; High settings fall from 104 FPS at 1080p to 50.6 FPS at 4K, and Ultra drops from 88.7 FPS to 45.6 FPS.

This scaling pattern is classic GPU-limited behavior. When the resolution increases, the number of pixels the RTX 4060 Ti must shade grows exponentially, and the frame rate responds accordingly. The fact that the 4K Low result (83.3 FPS) is still higher than the 1080p Ultra result (88.7 FPS) is telling; it suggests that even at 1080p with maxed settings, the GPU is still the primary constraint, not the i3-12100F. The CPU's 4 cores and 8 threads, with a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, appear sufficient to feed the GPU at these workloads. The gap between 1440p and 4K is also consistent, with a roughly 33-35% drop in FPS across all settings, further confirming that the rendering pipeline is the limiting factor as pixel count rises.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the "High" preset offers the most balanced experience for this hardware. At 2560x1440, High delivers 75.8 FPS, which is a solid target for smooth gameplay. Moving up to Ultra only yields 68.5 FPS, a marginal 7.3 FPS gain for what is likely a significant increase in visual fidelity. Conversely, dropping to Medium at 1440p provides 85.4 FPS, a 9.6 FPS improvement over High, but the visual downgrade may not be worth it when High is already comfortably above 60 FPS.

At 1920x1080, the choice becomes more interesting. High produces 104 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors. Ultra still manages 88.7 FPS, so players with a 60Hz or 144Hz display can consider maxing out settings. The Low preset at 1080p hits 160.7 FPS, which would be ideal for competitive play, but the visual compromise is substantial. For the majority of users, High at 1080p or 1440p appears to be the "sweet spot," offering a strong balance between the 50.6 FPS floor at 4K High and the 160.7 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low. The data implies that Medium is a fallback for 4K, where 60.8 FPS is achievable, but High at 1440p is the recommended target for quality and performance.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested hardware configurations, this combination of the Core i3-12100F and RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB ranks 694th out of 1636 combos for Control. This places it in the upper-middle tier of the database, suggesting it outperforms a majority of systems tested (roughly 58% of them). This is a respectable position for a 4-core CPU paired with a mid-range GPU.

The rank implies that while the system is not at the top echelon of performance, it is far from a weak entry. The GPU's percentile ranking of 17th among all GPUs is notably low, but this is based on a synthetic 3DMark Steel Nomad score, not game performance. In actual Control benchmarks, the combo's rank is much higher, indicating that the synthetic benchmark may not fully capture the card's capabilities in this specific title. The CPU, on the other hand, ranks in the 72nd percentile, which aligns more closely with the combo's in-game position. This suggests that the i3-12100F is a solid partner, and the RTX 4060 Ti's 8 GB memory configuration is not a significant detriment in this game, allowing the combo to achieve a mid-pack ranking.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of average FPS measurements reveals a consistent hierarchy. At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 160.7 FPS, High 104 FPS, Medium 115.9 FPS, and Ultra 88.7 FPS. It is curious that High is lower than Medium; this suggests that High enables specific effects that are more demanding than Medium, but not as demanding as Ultra's full suite.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts slightly: Low 121.8 FPS, Medium 85.4 FPS, High 75.8 FPS, and Ultra 68.5 FPS. Here, the order is conventional, with High sitting between Medium and Ultra. The 1440p results show a 15.6% drop from Low to Medium, a further 11.2% drop to High, and a final 9.6% drop to Ultra. This gradual scaling indicates that the game's settings have varying impacts on the GPU's workload.

At 3840x2160, the numbers compress: Low 83.3 FPS, Medium 60.8 FPS, High 50.6 FPS, and Ultra 45.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 37.7 FPS, which is the smallest absolute difference of any resolution. This compression at 4K suggests that the GPU is hitting a hard performance ceiling, and the differences between settings become less impactful as the pixel fill rate dominates. The data shows that 4K Ultra is only viable for those accepting sub-60 FPS, while 4K Low is the only way to get a high refresh rate experience.

GPU Role

The RTX 4060 Ti's performance is central to these results. With a boost clock of 2535 MHz and 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, the card provides 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration appears sufficient for Control at these tested settings, as the frame rates do not collapse at higher resolutions, which would be a sign of VRAM capacity issues. The GPU's 4352 shading units and 22.06 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are the driving force behind the 4K numbers.

The data suggests that the GPU is the primary bottleneck in almost all scenarios. The 4K Low result of 83.3 FPS is a strong indicator that the card has enough raw compute power, but the 4K Ultra result of 45.6 FPS shows that the most demanding settings push it to its limit. The transistor count of 22,900 million on a 5 nm process node allows for these frequencies, but the 160 W TDP and 8 GB memory size are the constraining factors at the highest presets. The GPU's memory clock of 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) is standard, and the 288.0 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for the textures used in Control, but it is not excessive, which explains why High and Medium presets scale so predictably.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS this combo can achieve in Control?

A: The highest measured average is 160.7 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Yes, but only at Medium settings or lower. The 4K Medium result is 60.8 FPS, while High drops to 50.6 FPS and Ultra to 45.6 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Core i3-12100F has an average benchmark score of 13516, which is 0.1% lower than the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX and 1.8% higher than the Intel Core i7-7700K.

Q: Is the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB a limiting factor at 1080p?

A: No, the data suggests the GPU is sufficient. At 1080p High, it achieves 104 FPS, and at Low, it reaches 160.7 FPS, indicating plenty of headroom.

Q: What is the difference in performance between 1440p and 4K at High settings?

A: The average FPS drops from 75.8 at 2560x1440 to 50.6 at 3840x2160, a decrease of 25.2 FPS.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems?

A: It ranks 694th out of 1636 combos tested for Control, placing it in the upper-middle portion of the database.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F, with its 4 cores and 8 threads, plays a supporting role in Control's performance. Its base clock of 3.30 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz, combined with 12 MB of shared L3 cache, provide solid single-thread performance, which is crucial for game logic. The CPU's benchmark scores reinforce this: a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681 and a multi-core score of 11912 indicate a strong single-threaded foundation.

In the context of the measured FPS, the CPU is not the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system hits 160.7 FPS, which is a high frame rate that would stress many CPUs, yet the i3-12100F keeps up. The 3DMark 4-thread score of 2859 and 8-thread score of 4026 suggest that the processor can handle the multi-threaded demands of the game's engine without holding back the RTX 4060 Ti. The data implies that the CPU's 72nd percentile ranking versus all CPUs is well-earned, and it does not degrade the gaming experience in Control. The TDP of 58 W and the 10 nm process node mean it runs efficiently, but the performance is what matters here, and it is sufficient.