Control

# Control with Intel Core i5-12400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D

The pairing of Intel's 6-core/12-thread Core i5-12400 with NVIDIA's flagship RTX 5090 D creates a striking imbalance in Control, a 2019 Action Adventure title. The measured data shows this combo ranks 45th out of 2,888 tested combinations, placing it in the top 2% of all tested systems. However, the performance distribution across resolutions reveals a system that behaves very differently depending on the workload imposed by the game's settings and output resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K on High settings tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lives in this system. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo delivers 188 FPS average. Moving to 2560x1440 drops that to 142 FPS, a 24% reduction. At 3840x2160, the average falls to 96 FPS, which is 49% below the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern is consistent with a GPU-limited scenario at higher resolutions, but the absolute numbers at 1080p suggest something else is holding performance back.

The fact that 1080p High produces only 188 FPS while 1080p Low reaches 231 FPS indicates that the CPU is becoming a limiting factor at lower resolutions. The gap between Low and High at 1080p is 43 FPS, while at 4K the same settings gap is 56 FPS. This reversal is telling: at 1080p, the CPU can't feed the GPU fast enough to fully express the difference between Low and High settings, while at 4K the GPU workload dominates and settings changes have a larger absolute impact.

Looking at the Medium preset across resolutions, the pattern holds. At 1080p Medium, the system produces 204 FPS with a minimum of 173 and maximum of 234. At 1440p Medium, that drops to 160 FPS (min 136, max 184), and at 4K Medium it falls to 108 FPS (min 92, max 124). The frame time consistency, as indicated by the min/max spread, narrows as resolution increases, suggesting that the CPU's variability at high frame rates smooths out when the GPU becomes the primary constraint.

The Ultra preset shows the same downward slope: 163 FPS at 1080p, 124 FPS at 1440p, and 83 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 83 FPS is the only measured average below 90 FPS, which is notable for a game from 2019 running on what is nominally one of the fastest consumer GPUs available. This resolution scaling demonstrates that while the RTX 5090 D has enormous headroom, the Core i5-12400's 6 cores and 12 threads create a ceiling that becomes visible at 1080p and progressively less relevant as resolution increases.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090 D is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, packing 92,200 million transistors into a 750 mm² die. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for Control's demands. The GPU's 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster output units give it a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s. These specifications translate to 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, a figure that dwarfs what Control's 2019-era engine was designed to utilize.

In the benchmark data, the GPU's percentile ranking against all GPUs is 92, with an average benchmark score of 77,712. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT at 78,940 (1.6% higher), the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB at 79,605 (2.4% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT at 76,904 (1.1% lower). Notably, the RTX 5090 D's average score is 1.1% lower than the RX 6650M XT, which is a laptop-class GPU — a reminder that raw benchmark scores don't always translate directly to gaming performance in specific titles.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a base of 2,017 MHz and a boost of 2,407 MHz, with memory running at 1,750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). In Control, the 4K Ultra result of 83 FPS suggests the GPU is not fully utilized even at the highest settings, or that the game's engine imposes limits that the hardware cannot overcome. The fact that 4K Low produces 152 FPS — nearly double the Ultra figure — indicates the GPU has the raw horsepower to push far more frames if the rendering workload allows it. The 32 GB VRAM is never a constraint here; Control's textures and geometry are modest by modern standards, and the measured results show no evidence of memory capacity limiting performance at any resolution or settings level.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Alder Lake-S family, running on the Intel Socket 1700 platform. Its base clock of 2.50 GHz boosts to 4.40 GHz, and it carries 18 MB of shared L3 cache alongside 1.25 MB of L2 per core and 80 KB of L1 per core. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, though the measured FPS data does not specify which memory type was used. Its 65 W TDP and 10 nm process node make it a mainstream part, and its launch MSRP was $199.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-12400 scores 15,989 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,257 in single-core. Its 3DMark results range from 910 in single-thread to 5,890 in max-threads, with 16-thread at 5,873 and 8-thread at 4,745. The PassMark multi-thread score of 18,747 and single-thread of 3,456 place it in the 72nd percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18,683. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7643 (0.1% higher), Intel Core i7-1355U (0.3% higher), AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 (0.7% higher), and Intel Core i3-14100F (0.9% lower).

In Control, the CPU's influence is most apparent at 1080p. The jump from Low (231 FPS) to High (188 FPS) is 43 FPS, but the jump from High to Ultra (163 FPS) is only 25 FPS. This diminishing return suggests that the CPU's single-thread performance — a 3DMark single-thread score of 910 and Geekbench single-core of 1,848 — is the limiting factor for pushing beyond 200 FPS. The 4.40 GHz boost clock provides decent single-core throughput, but Control's engine relies heavily on a few threads for game logic and draw call submission.

The 1440p results reinforce this interpretation. At 1440p Low, the system hits 211 FPS, which is only 20 FPS lower than 1080p Low. This relatively small drop indicates the CPU is still the primary constraint at Low settings, regardless of resolution. However, at 1440p Ultra, the result is 124 FPS — a 39 FPS drop from 1080p Ultra — showing that the GPU workload begins to dominate as settings increase. The crossover point where the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck appears to be between Medium and High at 1440p, where the CPU can still deliver enough frames to keep the GPU busy.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimizing the experience with this specific combo. At 4K, the Medium preset delivers 108 FPS average with a minimum of 92 and maximum of 124, which is the only 4K setting that maintains an average above 100 FPS. The High preset at 4K drops to 96 FPS, and Ultra falls to 83 FPS. For players targeting smooth 4K gameplay, Medium is the sweet spot — it outperforms High by 12 FPS and Ultra by 25 FPS while likely retaining most of the visual enhancements that matter in Control's atmospheric environments.

At 1440p, the picture is more forgiving. High settings produce 142 FPS, which is well above the 120 FPS threshold many players consider optimal for fast-paced action. Medium at 1440p reaches 160 FPS (min 136, max 184), providing a comfortable margin above 144 Hz displays. Ultra at 1440p still delivers 124 FPS, which is playable on high-refresh monitors but leaves less headroom for drops during intense combat sequences. The 1440p Low result of 211 FPS is unnecessarily high for most use cases, suggesting that the visual quality loss isn't worth the frame rate gain when High delivers 142 FPS.

At 1080p, all settings exceed 160 FPS, so the choice comes down to visual preference rather than playability. Ultra at 163 FPS is the most visually rich option and still provides excellent motion clarity on 144 Hz or 165 Hz monitors. High at 188 FPS offers a 25 FPS improvement over Ultra with a modest visual reduction. The Low preset's 231 FPS is only relevant for players with 240 Hz displays who prioritize frame rate above all else. Given that the CPU limits performance at 1080p regardless of settings, choosing Ultra doesn't sacrifice meaningful frame rate headroom beyond what the CPU would leave unused anyway.

Across all resolutions, Medium provides the most consistent frame time behavior, as evidenced by the min/max data. At 4K Medium, the spread is 32 FPS (92 to 124), while at 1440p Medium it's 48 FPS (136 to 184), and at 1080p Medium it's 61 FPS (173 to 234). The narrowing spread at higher resolutions indicates more stable frame pacing when the GPU is the primary bottleneck.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 45th out of 2,888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 98.4th percentile of all tested systems. This rank reflects the GPU's dominance in the pairing — the RTX 5090 D sits in the 92nd percentile against all GPUs, while the i5-12400 is in the 72nd percentile against all CPUs. The discrepancy between these percentiles explains why the combo doesn't rank higher: the CPU is a mid-pack component holding back a top-tier GPU in a game that can be CPU-limited at lower resolutions.

The rank of 45 out of 2,888 is impressive in absolute terms, but notably, many combos with faster CPUs and similar or slightly weaker GPUs likely outrank this pairing. The measured data shows that at 1080p, the system's performance is constrained by the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads, which means the RTX 5090 D's full potential is not being realized at that resolution. At 4K, the GPU takes over as the limiting factor, and the combo's rank likely improves relative to systems with weaker GPUs.

The data indicates that this combo is best suited for 4K gaming, where the i5-12400's limitations are masked by the GPU's workload. At 4K Medium, the system achieves 108 FPS, which is a strong result for a game from 2019. The combo's rank of 45 suggests that a significant number of tested systems — 2,843 — perform worse, but the ones that outperform it are likely pairing high-end CPUs with similar or better GPUs. For builders considering this pairing, the data suggests that the RTX 5090 D would benefit from a stronger CPU if 1080p or 1440p high-refresh gaming is the primary use case.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Control at 4K 120 FPS?

A: No. The measured data shows the best 4K result is 152 FPS at Low settings, but at Medium the average drops to 108 FPS, and at High it's 96 FPS. None of the 4K settings with Medium or higher quality reach 120 FPS average.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 D the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: No, the data indicates the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p. The difference between Low (231 FPS) and High (188 FPS) is only 43 FPS, and Ultra (163 FPS) is just 25 FPS below High, suggesting the i5-12400's single-thread performance caps the frame rate before the GPU's full capability is used.

Q: Which settings provide the best experience at 1440p?

A: High settings at 1440p deliver 142 FPS, which is the best balance of visual quality and performance. Medium reaches 160 FPS with a minimum of 136 FPS, while Ultra drops to 124 FPS. High is recommended for the best combination of image quality and frame rate stability.

Q: How does the i5-12400 compare to its nearest rivals in CPU benchmarks?

A: The i5-12400's average benchmark score of 18,683 is 0.1% lower than the AMD EPYC 7643, 0.3% lower than the Intel Core i7-1355U, 0.7% lower than the AMD Ryzen AI 5 330, and 0.9% higher than the Intel Core i3-14100F. These differences are negligible in practical gaming terms.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: The data shows 1440p is the sweet spot. At High settings, it delivers 142 FPS, which is high enough for smooth gameplay while still allowing the GPU to demonstrate its capability. At 4K, the best quality setting that maintains above 100 FPS is Medium at 108 FPS, while at 1080p the CPU limits performance.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 5090 D have, and does it matter for Control?

A: The RTX 5090 D has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth. Control's measured results show no indication that VRAM capacity affects performance at any resolution or settings level, as even the most demanding 4K Ultra preset produces 83 FPS without signs of memory-related stuttering or frame drops.