Control

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti delivers a robust performance profile in Control, with benchmark results showing a clear scaling pattern across resolutions and settings. The data indicates that the combination is capable of high frame rates at 1440p and 1080p, while 4K Ultra remains a demanding target requiring careful settings selection.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent hierarchy across all three resolutions. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset produces an average of 54.3 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered smooth for action games. The High preset at 4K yields 62.2 FPS, representing the optimal balance for maintaining fluid gameplay without sacrificing too much visual fidelity. The Medium preset at 4K achieves 70.5 FPS, offering a more substantial performance buffer, while the Low preset reaches 98.6 FPS, indicating significant headroom for competitive play or high-refresh-rate displays.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset delivers 79.5 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. The High preset at 90.5 FPS provides a smoother experience, while Medium at 103.4 FPS and Low at 142.7 FPS both exceed the 100 FPS mark, making them suitable for 144Hz displays. The data suggests that High is the recommended preset for 1440p, as it offers a substantial improvement over Ultra while maintaining strong visual quality.

For 1920x1080, all presets exceed 100 FPS, with Ultra at 103.9 FPS, High at 120.5 FPS, Medium at 135 FPS, and Low at 195.1 FPS. The High preset here is the clear recommendation, as it provides a 16.6 FPS advantage over Ultra while still delivering a visually rich experience. The Low preset at 195.1 FPS is notable for esports-style play or extreme refresh rates, but the visual compromise is significant. Overall, the High preset emerges as the best experience across all resolutions, balancing frame rate and image quality.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is the primary driver of performance in Control, with its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 384-bit bus providing a 912.4 GB/s bandwidth. This memory configuration is well-suited to the game's texture-heavy environments, allowing the GPU to maintain consistent frame rates even at higher resolutions. The card's boost clock of 1665 MHz, combined with 10240 shading units and 80 RT cores, suggests strong raw compute capability that translates into the measured FPS figures.

The benchmark results show that the GPU's performance scales predictably with resolution. At 4K, the RTX 3080 Ti delivers 62.2 FPS on High settings, while at 1440p it reaches 90.5 FPS, and at 1080p it achieves 120.5 FPS. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, whereas at lower resolutions the CPU begins to play a more significant role. The 34.10 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 532.8 GTexel/s texture rate provide ample computational headroom for the game's physics and particle effects.

The GPU's 350 W TDP and suggested 750 W PSU indicate a power-hungry component, but the benchmark data shows that this translates into strong performance across all tested settings. The card's 83rd percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 41224, places it near the top of the performance hierarchy, just 0.5% behind the RTX 3090 in average score.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gaming in Control with this hardware?*

A: The High preset at 3840x2160 produces an average of 62.2 FPS, which is the only 4K setting that exceeds the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra drops to 54.3 FPS, making High the recommended choice for 4K.

Q: How does the RTX 3080 Ti compare to its nearest rival in average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti has an average benchmark score of 41224, which is 0.5% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090's score of 41441. This places the two cards in a very close performance tier.

Q: What frame rate can be expected at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: The measured data shows an average of 103.4 FPS at 2560x1440 with Medium settings, providing a smooth experience that exceeds the 100 FPS mark.

Q: Is the i5-11400F a bottleneck at 1080p with Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combination achieves 195.1 FPS. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, appear sufficient to feed the GPU at this level, though the high frame rate suggests the CPU is nearing its limit.

*Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations in Control?*

A: This specific CPU-GPU combination ranks 461st out of 1636 tested combos, placing it in the upper 28% of all configurations tested for this game.

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

A: The Low preset at 2560x1440 delivers 142.7 FPS, while Ultra delivers 79.5 FPS. This represents a 63.2 FPS difference, or approximately 79.5% higher performance on Low settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the RTX 3080 Ti with the i5-11400F produces the following average frame rates: Low settings achieve 98.6 FPS, Medium reaches 70.5 FPS, High delivers 62.2 FPS, and Ultra drops to 54.3 FPS. The performance gap between Low and Ultra is substantial, with Low being 81.6% faster than Ultra. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is heavily taxed, and settings reductions yield significant performance gains.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates improve considerably. Low settings produce 142.7 FPS, Medium delivers 103.4 FPS, High reaches 90.5 FPS, and Ultra achieves 79.5 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra shows a 63.2 FPS difference, representing a 79.5% performance advantage for Low settings. The step from High to Ultra is 11 FPS, while the step from Medium to High is 12.9 FPS, indicating a fairly linear progression.

At 1920x1080, the performance is consistently high across all presets. Low settings deliver 195.1 FPS, Medium reaches 135 FPS, High achieves 120.5 FPS, and Ultra produces 103.9 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 91.2 FPS, with Low being 87.8% faster. Notably, the jump from Medium to High is 14.5 FPS, while the jump from High to Ultra is 16.6 FPS, showing that the performance cost of each settings tier remains relatively consistent even at lower resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti combination holds a rank of 461 out of 1636 tested combos in Control. This places the configuration in the upper 28.2% of all tested systems, indicating strong overall performance. The GPU's 83rd percentile ranking among all GPUs, coupled with the CPU's 75th percentile ranking, suggests that the graphics card is the dominant component in this pairing.

The combo's position in the rankings reflects its ability to handle the game's demanding visual effects and physics calculations. The RTX 3080 Ti's performance is particularly notable, as its average benchmark score of 41224 is only 0.5% below the RTX 3090 and 1.1% below the RTX 5070. This close grouping indicates that the 3080 Ti remains competitive with newer and more expensive cards.

The CPU's contribution to the combo's ranking is also significant. The i5-11400F's average benchmark score of 17181 places it within 0.2% of the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U and 0.2% above the Intel Core i5-1240U. This tight clustering suggests that the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are well-matched to the GPU's capabilities in this game.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F plays a supporting but essential role in this configuration. With 6 cores and 12 threads, the CPU provides sufficient parallel processing capability for Control's physics and AI systems. The base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz offer strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by the 3DMark single-thread score of 868 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2029.

The CPU's 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 80 KB per-core L1 cache contribute to efficient data access, which is important for maintaining consistent frame times. The 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth from dual-channel DDR4 support ensures that the CPU can feed data to the GPU without creating a bottleneck, particularly at higher resolutions where GPU load is more significant.

At 1080p with Low settings, the measured 195.1 FPS approaches the practical limit for many display setups, and the CPU's performance becomes more relevant. The CPU's 75th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17181, indicates that it is a capable mid-range processor. However, the benchmark data shows that in this game, the GPU is the primary performance driver, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling patterns across resolutions. The CPU's multi-threaded performance, measured at 14372 in Cinebench R23, provides ample processing power for the game's background tasks without limiting the GPU's output.