Control

The pairing of the Intel Core i5-10400F with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT produces a wide range of frame rates in Control, heavily dependent on the resolution and quality settings selected. The data shows a clear hierarchy where the GPU dominates at higher resolutions, while the CPU’s influence becomes more apparent as resolution drops. This analysis examines the performance characteristics of this specific combination, using measured FPS data and benchmark scores to determine the role each component plays.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a significant performance drop as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 130.8 FPS at 1920x1080 to 100.8 FPS at 2560x1440, and further down to 64.8 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a substantial reduction of roughly 50% from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the rendering workload scales steeply with pixel count. The pattern is consistent across all quality presets, with Low settings showing the highest absolute numbers: 167.4 FPS at 1080p, 155.6 FPS at 1440p, and 108.6 FPS at 4K.

The scaling behavior suggests that the RX 7900 XT is the primary limiting component at 4K. The transition from 1440p to 4K produces a larger relative drop than the transition from 1080p to 1440p, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario where the shader and memory bandwidth are saturated. At 1080p, the difference between Low and High settings is relatively modest — 167.4 FPS versus 130.8 FPS — which implies the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU without creating a severe bottleneck. However, the gap between Medium and Ultra at 1080p (146.4 FPS versus 115.4 FPS) shows that even at lower resolutions, the quality settings have a measurable impact on frame delivery.

The data indicates that the sweet spot for this combo is 1440p, where High settings still deliver 100.8 FPS and Ultra stays above 89 FPS. At 4K, the user must accept a compromise: High settings run at 64.8 FPS, while Ultra drops to 57.6 FPS, both below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the baseline for smooth gameplay. The scaling pattern across resolutions confirms that the GPU’s 800.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 51.48 TFLOPS compute capacity are the dominant factors, as the CPU’s role diminishes at higher pixel counts where the rendering pipeline becomes the bottleneck.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F provides six cores and twelve threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. This Comet Lake architecture processor has a 12 MB shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 4324 in Cinebench R20 multicore and 610 in single-core, which places it in the 73rd percentile among all CPUs tested. The 3DMark results show a scaling pattern from 1350 in the 2-thread test to 4748 in the 16-thread test, indicating that the processor benefits from additional threads but has diminishing returns beyond its 12-thread limit.

In Control, the CPU’s performance is most relevant at 1080p, where the frame rates are highest and the GPU is less likely to be the sole constraint. The measured FPS at 1080p Low is 167.4, which is close to the practical limit for a 6-core processor in this title. The fact that lowering quality from High to Low only increases the frame rate from 130.8 to 167.4 — a 28% improvement — suggests that the CPU can maintain a high throughput but still leaves headroom for the GPU to work harder at higher settings. At 1440p, the frame rates at Low (155.6) and High (100.8) show a similar pattern, with the CPU still able to keep up with the GPU’s output.

The benchmark data for the i5-10400F shows an average benchmark score of 14168, with nearest rivals including the AMD EPYC 7552 at 14115 (0.4% faster) and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C at 14277 (0.8% slower). This places the processor in a competitive position for gaming workloads, though the single-thread score of 688 in 3DMark and 1453 in Cinebench R23 single-core indicates that it cannot match newer architectures in lightly-threaded scenarios. The data shows that the CPU’s 12 threads are sufficient for Control’s engine, as the frame rates at 1080p do not collapse due to CPU limitations, but the scaling from 1440p to 4K is primarily governed by the GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT achieves a combo rank of 369 out of 1636 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the top 22.5% of all pairings. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU’s mid-range performance and the GPU’s high-end capabilities. The RX 7900 XT alone sits in the 82nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 38358, while the CPU is in the 73rd percentile. The combination ranks higher than the CPU’s individual percentile but slightly lower than the GPU’s, indicating that the CPU is not fully tapping the GPU’s potential in this title.

Compared to other tested combos, this pairing outperforms a significant majority of systems, but the rank of 369 suggests that there are many combinations with more balanced or higher-end components. The GPU’s nearest rivals — the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile at 38349 (0% delta) and the NVIDIA CMP 70HX at 38225 (0.3% delta) — have nearly identical average scores, confirming that the RX 7900 XT’s performance is consistent with other high-end cards. The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i5-8500 at 14332 (1.1% faster), are similarly matched, meaning the combo’s rank is determined more by the overall frame delivery than by any single component’s standout performance.

The data shows that this combo is well-suited for high-refresh-rate gaming at 1440p, where it delivers over 100 FPS at High settings. At 4K, the rank could be higher if the CPU were stronger, but the measured FPS at 4K High (64.8) and Ultra (57.6) are still playable for most users. The combo’s position in the middle of the ranking distribution indicates that it offers a solid experience without being at the absolute top tier, which would require a more powerful CPU to fully complement the GPU’s capabilities.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1440p High settings?

A: The measured average FPS is 100.8, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. This makes 1440p High a viable setting for this combo.

Q: How does the CPU perform in multi-threaded benchmarks?

A: The i5-10400F scores 4324 in Cinebench R20 multicore and 10297 in Cinebench R23 multicore, with a 3DMark 16-thread score of 4748. These numbers indicate a solid mid-range processor for gaming workloads.

Q: Is the GPU the bottleneck at 4K?

A: Yes, the data shows that at 3840x2160, the frame rates range from 57.6 FPS at Ultra to 108.6 FPS at Low. The large drop from 1440p to 4K indicates the GPU’s rendering capacity is the limiting factor.

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

A: The combo ranks 369 out of 1636 tested combinations, placing it in the top 22.5% of all pairings tested in Control.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The RX 7900 XT has an average benchmark score of 38358, which is exactly matched by the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile at 38349 (0% delta) and slightly ahead of the NVIDIA CMP 70HX at 38225 (0.3% delta).

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: The difference is 52 FPS, from 167.4 FPS at Low to 115.4 FPS at Ultra. This shows that quality settings have a significant impact on performance even at lower resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, featuring a Navi 31 chip on a 5 nm process with 57,700 million transistors and a die size of 529 mm². The GPU has 5376 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 192 raster operation units, with 84 ray tracing cores. It operates at a base clock of 1387 MHz and a boost clock of 2394 MHz, with a game clock of 2025 MHz. The 20 GB of GDDR6 memory runs at 2500 MHz with a 320-bit bus, delivering 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Control, the GPU’s role is evident in the frame rate scaling across resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 57.6, which is only 31.2% of the 1080p Low score of 167.4. This severe drop indicates that the GPU’s compute and memory resources are heavily taxed at higher pixel counts. The GPU’s pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s are the key specifications that determine how quickly it can fill the screen with rendered geometry. The benchmark scores for the GPU show a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5623 and a Passmark G3D score of 29009, reflecting its strong overall performance.

The GPU’s percentile rank of 82 places it above the vast majority of graphics cards, and its average benchmark score of 38358 is within 0.4% of its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile. The data shows that the GPU is capable of delivering high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the user must adjust settings to maintain playable performance. The 20 GB VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for Control’s texture requirements, as the frame rates do not show any signs of memory-related stuttering or drops. The GPU’s RDNA 3.0 architecture and 51.48 TFLOPS FP32 performance provide ample headroom for the game’s physics and rendering effects, making it the primary driver of the measured FPS in this combo.