Control

The Intel Core i5-12400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB delivers a playable experience in Control at 1080p, but the data shows a steep performance cliff as resolution increases. This combination ranks 3265th out of 3720 tested combos in this game, placing it in the lower percentile of systems. The 4 GB VRAM on the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings, making preset selection critical.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for Control with this hardware points to Low settings at 1080p as the only preset that provides a consistently smooth experience. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves an average of 83 FPS, which is the highest average recorded across all tested configurations. This is the only setting that clears the 60 FPS threshold with significant headroom, making it the clear choice for players prioritizing frame rate over visual fidelity.

Medium settings at 1080p deliver an average of 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 68 FPS. This is a borderline playable experience, but the minimum frame rate dips into the 40s, which can be noticeable in fast-paced combat sequences. For a more stable experience, Low settings are recommended. High settings at 1080p drop the average to 53 FPS, while Ultra settings fall further to 46 FPS. Neither of these provides the smoothness most players expect from an action-adventure title.

At 2560x1440, the situation becomes more constrained. Low settings produce an average of 63 FPS, which is playable, but the visual quality is substantially reduced. Medium settings at 1440p average 45 FPS with a minimum of 38 FPS, which is below the ideal playability threshold for many users. High settings at 1440p average 40 FPS, and Ultra settings average 35 FPS. None of these are recommended for a consistently smooth experience.

The 3840x2160 results are largely academic for this hardware. Even at Low settings, the average FPS is only 43, and High settings drop to 27 FPS. The data suggests that 4K gaming is not viable with this combination, regardless of preset. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is insufficient for the texture and geometry demands of Control at this resolution.

The optimal experience is 1080p with Low settings, which yields 83 FPS average. If visual quality is more important than raw frame rate, Medium settings at 1080p offer a reasonable compromise at 59 FPS average, provided the player can tolerate occasional drops to 50 FPS.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this CPU/GPU combo in Control?*

A: The highest recorded average is 83 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

*Q: Can this system run Control at 4K resolution?*

A: No, not at playable frame rates. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 23 FPS on Ultra settings to 43 FPS on Low settings, all of which are below acceptable levels.

Q: Is there a significant difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: Yes, but both are suboptimal. Medium settings at 2560x1440 average 45 FPS with a minimum of 38 FPS, while High settings average 40 FPS. The performance gap is 5 FPS, but neither preset provides a consistently smooth experience.

*Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for this hardware in Control?*

A: The only minimum FPS values recorded are for Medium settings. At 1080p, the minimum is 50 FPS; at 1440p, it is 38 FPS; and at 4K, it is 26 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 3050 4 GB's VRAM capacity affect performance in this game?

A: The 4 GB VRAM is insufficient for higher resolutions and settings, causing significant frame rate drops. The data shows a steep decline from 1080p to 1440p and an even more severe drop at 4K, indicating the GPU's memory is a bottleneck.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a balance of visual quality and performance?

A: Medium settings at 1080p, which delivers 59 FPS average with a 50 FPS minimum. This is the only preset that stays near the 60 FPS target while offering improved visuals over Low settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB is the decisive component in these benchmark results. Its memory configuration of 4 GB GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus provides 192.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p gaming but becomes a severe constraint at higher resolutions. The GPU's base clock is 1545 MHz, with a boost clock of 1740 MHz, and it has 2048 shading units alongside 64 TMUs and 32 ROPs.

The data shows that the GPU's memory capacity, not its compute power, is the limiting factor in Control. The transition from 1080p to 1440p at High settings results in a drop from 53 FPS to 40 FPS, a 13 FPS reduction. However, the transition from 1440p to 4K at High settings is far more dramatic, falling from 40 FPS to 27 FPS. This non-linear scaling is characteristic of a GPU exceeding its memory capacity, requiring the engine to swap textures and geometry in and out of the limited 4 GB frame buffer.

The GPU's 7.127 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is respectable for a card in its class, and its 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores indicate it supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing. However, the benchmark data does not include ray tracing results, and the low memory capacity would likely make ray tracing impractical in Control at any resolution above 1080p Low. The 4 GB capacity is simply too small for the game's high-resolution texture sets, which is why Low settings at 4K (43 FPS) outperform High settings at 4K (27 FPS) by a substantial margin.

The GPU has a TDP of 90 W and requires a 250 W suggested PSU, making it a power-efficient card. Its PCIe 4.0 x8 interface is sufficient for its performance class, though the 4 GB memory size is a notable limitation for modern titles like Control that have large texture budgets. The card's production status is listed as end-of-life, which aligns with its release date of January 2022.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB ranks 3265th out of 3720 tested combos in Control. This places it in the bottom 12% of all tested systems, indicating that it is a low-to-mid-range configuration by the standards of this benchmark database. The rank reflects the GPU's limitations more than the CPU's capabilities.

The CPU itself is a capable processor, ranking in the 72nd percentile against all CPUs in the database. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 15989, and its single-core score is 2257. The nearest rival CPUs in average benchmark score include the AMD EPYC 7643 (0.1% slower), the Intel Core i7-1355U (0.3% slower), and the AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 (0.7% slower). The Intel Core i3-14100F is 0.9% faster. This indicates the i5-12400 is competitive with much more expensive processors in synthetic benchmarks.

However, the combo rank in Control is heavily weighted toward the GPU, which sits in the 50th percentile against all GPUs. The RTX 3050 4 GB's average benchmark score is zero in this database, meaning it has no synthetic benchmarks recorded, but its percentile rank of 50 indicates it is an average-performing GPU overall. The combination of a strong CPU and an average GPU results in a system that is CPU-bound at low resolutions and GPU-bound at high resolutions.

The rank of 3265 out of 3720 suggests that this combo is better suited for older or less demanding titles than Control, which is a 2019 release with modern rendering requirements. The data indicates that players with this hardware should expect to run Control at 1080p with reduced settings to achieve acceptable performance, which is consistent with the combo's low overall ranking.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, with the drops becoming more severe at higher settings. At Low settings, the average FPS scales from 83 FPS at 1080p to 63 FPS at 1440p (a 24% reduction) and then to 43 FPS at 4K (a 32% reduction from 1440p). This scaling is relatively linear, suggesting that the GPU's compute throughput is the primary constraint at Low settings.

At High settings, the scaling is steeper. The average FPS drops from 53 FPS at 1080p to 40 FPS at 1440p (a 25% reduction) and then to 27 FPS at 4K (a 33% reduction from 1440p). The diminishing returns at 4K indicate that the GPU is now constrained by both compute and memory bandwidth. The 4 GB VRAM is likely overflowing at 4K High, forcing the engine to reduce texture quality dynamically.

The most telling data point is the comparison between Low and High settings at 4K. Low settings achieve 43 FPS, while High settings achieve only 27 FPS, a difference of 16 FPS. At 1080p, the same setting change results in a 30 FPS difference (83 FPS vs 53 FPS). This convergence at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU becomes the bottleneck regardless of settings, and the only way to improve performance is to reduce the resolution.

The resolution scaling suggests that the limiting component is the GPU, specifically its VRAM capacity and memory bandwidth. The CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is more than capable of feeding the GPU at 1080p, as evidenced by the 83 FPS at Low settings. However, as resolution increases, the GPU's workload grows faster than the CPU's, and the 4 GB memory capacity becomes a hard wall. Players seeking higher resolutions would need a GPU with more memory, as the current configuration cannot maintain playable frame rates above 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its best performance across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 83 FPS, which is the highest recorded result. Medium settings average 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 68 FPS. High settings average 53 FPS, and Ultra settings average 46 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a predictable decrease in performance, with Ultra being 45% slower than Low.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly. Low settings average 63 FPS, which is playable but represents a 24% reduction from the 1080p Low result. Medium settings average 45 FPS with a minimum of 38 FPS and a maximum of 51 FPS. High settings average 40 FPS, and Ultra settings average 35 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 28 FPS, which is smaller than the 37 FPS gap at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor.

At 3840x2160, the results are below playable thresholds for most settings. Low settings achieve an average of 43 FPS, which is the only 4K result above 30 FPS. Medium settings average 30 FPS with a minimum of 26 FPS and a maximum of 35 FPS, making it technically playable but with frequent dips below 30 FPS. High settings average 27 FPS, and Ultra settings average 23 FPS. The 4K results show that this hardware is not suitable for 4K gaming in Control, as even the lowest settings fail to maintain a stable 60 FPS.

The data shows that the only configuration that consistently exceeds 60 FPS is 1080p Low, which achieves 83 FPS. The 1440p Low preset comes close at 63 FPS, but the minimum FPS data is not recorded for that configuration, meaning the frame time consistency is unknown. For players who prioritize frame rate, 1080p Low is the recommended preset. For those who want better visuals, 1080p Medium at 59 FPS is the best option, with the caveat that the minimum FPS can drop to 50.