Control

The Intel Core i5-12400 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 is a combination that lands near the very bottom of the database for Control, ranking 1587th out of 1636 tested combos. This is a pairing where the GPU is the overwhelming bottleneck, and the measured frames per second (FPS) reflect a system that struggles to maintain playable performance at most settings and resolutions. The data indicates that this combo is only viable for smooth gameplay at the lowest settings and 1080p resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, featuring a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. It supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory and has 18 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the chip posts a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15935 and a single-core score of 2249, placing it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs tested. Its average benchmark score of 19850 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals, being only 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-9700 and 0.2% behind the Intel Core i7-8700.

For Control, the CPU's role is largely secondary. The measured FPS data shows that performance scales almost entirely with resolution and GPU settings, not CPU load. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 59.4 FPS, which is close to a 60 FPS target. However, the fact that dropping to 4K Low yields 29.1 FPS—a drop of more than half—indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor; instead, the GPU is saturated even at lower resolutions. The processor’s 6 cores and 12 threads are more than sufficient to feed the RX 570, as evidenced by the minimal performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p, which is only 29 FPS. This suggests the CPU is waiting on the GPU to render frames, making the i5-12400 a capable but underutilized component in this specific configuration. The benchmark results imply that this CPU would not be a bottleneck even with a significantly more powerful graphics card.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the clear performance ceiling for this combo. Built on the Polaris 20 chip with GCN 4.0 architecture, it features 2048 shading units and a 256-bit memory bus with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. Its memory clock runs at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective), providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s base clock is 1168 MHz with a boost clock of 1244 MHz, and it achieves a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s. With 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, it sits in the 74th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30158. Interestingly, its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, but the deltaPct values are negligible (0.2% and 0.2%, respectively), meaning the RX 570's average score is statistically tied with those much newer cards in this database’s aggregated benchmarks.

In Control, the GPU’s 4 GB VRAM and raw compute limits are exposed. At 1080p, the RX 570 manages 59.4 FPS on Low, but this falls to 34.1 FPS on High and 30.4 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra at the same resolution is 29 FPS, showing that the card’s shading units and texture units are overwhelmed by higher graphical fidelity. Moving to 1440p, the frame rate at High drops to 24.3 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 18.5 FPS. This scaling pattern is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario where the chip’s 32 ROPs and 128 TMUs cannot keep up with the increasing pixel and texture workload. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is also a likely contributor to the steep performance cliffs, as higher settings and resolutions demand more memory than the card can efficiently allocate.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data strongly indicates that the only playable experience for this combo is at 1080p with Low settings, which yields an average of 59.4 FPS. This is the only configuration that approaches a standard 60 FPS target. Every other settings level at 1080p falls below 41 FPS, which is suboptimal for a fast-paced action-adventure game. At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 40.9 FPS, and High yields 34.1 FPS, while Ultra produces 30.4 FPS. While these are technically playable, the jump from Low to Medium only costs 18.5 FPS, but the visual fidelity gains may not be worth the performance loss given the already low baseline.

For users willing to accept lower frame rates, 1440p Low is the next best option at 40.4 FPS, but this is a 32% drop from the 1080p Low figure. The data shows no scenario where 4K is viable, as even Low settings only produce 29.1 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. Therefore, the recommendation is unequivocal: use 1080p Low. If a higher preset is desired, 1080p Medium offers a compromise, but the benchmark results suggest that the GPU is already heavily taxed, and the performance degradation to High and Ultra is disproportionate to the expected visual improvements.

FAQ

*Q: Is this combo capable of running Control at 60 FPS?*

A: Yes, but only at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings, where the measured average FPS is 59.4. No other settings or resolutions achieve 60 FPS; the next closest is 40.9 FPS at 1080p Medium.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 59.4 at 1080p to 40.4 at 1440p, a decrease of 19 FPS. At High settings, the drop is from 34.1 to 24.3 FPS.

Q: What is the best resolution for this hardware?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the only resolution that provides a playable frame rate above 30 FPS across all settings. At 1440p, only Low settings exceed 40 FPS, and at 4K, all settings fall below 30 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is the clear limiting factor. Evidence comes from the FPS scaling: at 1080p, dropping from Low to Ultra only changes the average from 59.4 to 30.4 FPS, which is a GPU-bound workload. The CPU’s high single-thread score of 2249 in Cinebench R23 indicates it is not saturated.

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

A: The AMD Radeon RX 570 has an average benchmark score of 30158. It is 0.2% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, though these deltaPct values are negligible, indicating statistical parity in this database.

Q: What is the impact of Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: Ultra settings at 1080p produce an average of 30.4 FPS, which is exactly half the performance of Low settings. This represents a 29 FPS drop, making Ultra impractical for smooth gameplay.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data from 1080p to 4K reveals a steep and consistent decline, confirming that the RX 570 is the primary bottleneck. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 59.4 at 1080p to 40.4 at 1440p (a 19 FPS loss) and then to 29.1 at 4K (an additional 11.3 FPS loss). This pattern shows that the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are insufficient for higher pixel counts. At High settings, the trajectory is even more severe: 34.1 FPS at 1080p drops to 24.3 at 1440p and 18.5 at 4K.

The scaling suggests that the limiting component is the GPU’s raw compute and memory subsystem. The 224.0 GB/s bandwidth and 4 GB VRAM are likely saturated at resolutions above 1080p, causing the frame rate to fall off a cliff. The fact that the CPU’s performance is constant across these resolutions—as evidenced by its strong single-thread scores—means the system is not CPU-limited. Instead, the data indicates that the RX 570’s 5.095 TFLOPS of compute is simply not enough to drive the pixel shaders required by Control at higher resolutions. The drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is a 51% reduction in FPS, which is a typical exponent for a GPU-bound title where the pixel count quadruples.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for the Intel Core i5-12400 and AMD Radeon RX 570 combination is as follows across all tested configurations:

• 1920x1080: Low settings yield the highest average at 59.4 FPS. Medium settings produce 40.9 FPS, High settings drop to 34.1 FPS, and Ultra settings yield 30.4 FPS. The range between the lowest and highest settings is 29 FPS.

• 2560x1440: Low settings produce 40.4 FPS, which is the only configuration above 30 FPS at this resolution. Medium settings yield 28.7 FPS, High settings drop to 24.3 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 26 FPS. Notably, Ultra is slightly faster than High at this resolution, which could indicate a driver-level optimization or a specific scene variance, though the delta is small.

• 3840x2160: All settings fall below 30 FPS. Low settings yield 29.1 FPS, Medium settings drop to 22.1 FPS, High settings produce 18.5 FPS, and Ultra settings yield 14.5 FPS. The data shows a clear linear degradation from Low to Ultra.

The most striking observation is that at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 29 FPS, but at 4K, the difference between Low and Ultra is only 14.6 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU is so overwhelmed at 4K that even reducing settings cannot recover meaningful performance, as the pixel fill rate is the hard limit.

How This Combo Ranks

This combo ranks 1587th out of 1636 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the bottom 3% of all systems in the database. This is a poor ranking that reflects the GPU’s age and limited VRAM. The combo’s rank is not due to the CPU, which is in the 77th percentile of all processors. Instead, the GPU’s 74th percentile ranking and its end-of-life production status contribute to the low overall score.

The benchmark results show that this pairing is only suitable for 1080p gaming at low-to-medium settings, and even then, it cannot maintain a consistent 60 FPS except on the lowest preset. The GPU’s nearest rivals in the database—such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT—have nearly identical average benchmark scores, but those scores do not translate to Control performance, likely because the RX 570’s 4 GB VRAM is a severe constraint in this specific title. The data indicates that any upgrade to a GPU with more memory or higher compute would dramatically improve the ranking, as the CPU has ample headroom. For users of this combo, the measured FPS at 1080p Low is the only configuration that approaches a playable standard, and even that is borderline.