Control

Control with the Intel Core i5-12400F and AMD Radeon RX 570 is a demanding combination that struggles to maintain playable frame rates at higher resolutions. The benchmark data indicates that this pairing is heavily GPU-limited, with performance dropping sharply as resolution increases. The only configuration that approaches a smooth experience is 1080p with Low settings, while 4K remains firmly in slideshow territory regardless of the quality preset.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data leaves little room for ambiguity: for this specific CPU and GPU pairing, the Low preset at 1920x1080 is the only viable choice for a playable experience. The average frame rate at these settings is 55.2 FPS, which is the highest recorded across the entire test matrix. This is 58.4% faster than the High preset at the same resolution, which only manages 34.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 1080p is also substantial, with Low leading by 42.6% over Medium's 38.7 FPS.

The Ultra preset at 1080p delivers 32.7 FPS, which is only 6.3% slower than High but still well below the 60 FPS target. Given that the performance delta between Low and Medium is so large, the data suggests that the RX 570 is being pushed to its absolute limits by the game's rendering load. The 16.5 FPS difference between Low and Medium at 1080p indicates that the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth are the primary bottlenecks, not the CPU.

At 1440p, the situation becomes more challenging. The Low preset drops to 40.4 FPS, which is playable but not smooth, while Medium falls to 30.4 FPS and High to 25.2 FPS. Ultra at 1440p is essentially unplayable at 22.6 FPS. For users who insist on 1440p, Low is the only reasonable option, but the experience will involve noticeable stutter. The 4K results are uniformly poor: even the best 4K setting (Low at 28 FPS) falls below the minimum threshold for acceptable gameplay, and Ultra at 4K bottoms out at 16 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this CPU/GPU pair in Control?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 with the Low preset is the only configuration exceeding 50 FPS, delivering 55.2 FPS on average. This is the sole measured result that approaches fluid gameplay.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p at the same settings?

A: At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 55.2 at 1080p to 40.4 at 1440p, a 26.8% reduction. At High settings, the drop is from 34.9 to 25.2 FPS, representing a 27.8% decrease.

Q: Is the Ultra preset ever worth using with this hardware?

A: No. The Ultra preset produces an average of 32.7 FPS at 1080p, 22.6 FPS at 1440p, and 16 FPS at 4K. These results are all below 35 FPS, making the visual quality gains irrelevant due to the poor frame pacing.

Q: How does the RX 570 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 570's average benchmark score is 30158, placing it 0.2% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT. It also leads the NVIDIA Tesla M60 by 0.6% and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile by 0.8%.

Q: What does the CPU's percentile ranking indicate about its performance class?

A: The Intel Core i5-12400F sits in the 77th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19221. Its closest rival, the Intel Core i7-8700K, scores 19210, a delta of just 0.1%.

Q: Does the game scale better with resolution or settings changes?

A: The data shows that settings changes have a larger impact at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 22.5 FPS, while at 4K, the same settings gap is only 12 FPS. This suggests the GPU is so overwhelmed at 4K that settings adjustments yield diminishing returns.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F and AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 1596th out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the bottom 2.4% of all configurations. This is a remarkably poor showing that underscores the GPU's inability to handle the game's demands. The CPU itself is not the limiting factor in this ranking; the i5-12400F has a 77th percentile CPU score and outperforms its nearest rivals by a slim margin. The bottleneck is entirely on the GPU side, as evidenced by the fact that the RX 570's 74th percentile GPU score still results in sub-60 FPS performance at 1080p Low.

The rank of 1596 indicates that nearly every other tested CPU/GPU pairing delivers better frame rates in Control. This is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows that even the most optimized settings fail to produce a consistently smooth experience. The GPU's 4 GB of VRAM and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are likely insufficient for Control's texture streaming and particle effects, particularly at higher resolutions where memory pressure increases.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS table reveals a consistent pattern of GPU-bound performance. At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 55.2 FPS, Medium 38.7 FPS, High 34.9 FPS, and Ultra 32.7 FPS. This shows a steep drop from Low to Medium (16.5 FPS lost) but only a 6.0 FPS difference between Medium and Ultra. The diminishing returns at higher presets suggest that the RX 570's 2048 shading units and 128 TMUs are saturated beyond Medium settings.

At 2560x1440, the scores are: Low 40.4 FPS, Medium 30.4 FPS, High 25.2 FPS, and Ultra 22.6 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings costs 14.8 FPS, while at Ultra the cost is 10.1 FPS. This smaller absolute drop at Ultra indicates that the GPU is already so constrained that additional pixel count has less relative impact.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 28 FPS, Medium 20.6 FPS, High 20 FPS, and Ultra 16 FPS. Notably, the difference between Medium and High at 4K is only 0.6 FPS, suggesting that the GPU has hit a hard memory bandwidth wall. The 224.0 GB/s bandwidth, while reasonable for 1080p, becomes a critical limitation at 4K where the 256-bit memory bus is forced to move significantly more data per frame.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data clearly identifies the GPU as the primary bottleneck. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings reduces FPS from 55.2 to 40.4, a 26.8% drop. Scaling further to 4K at Low yields 28 FPS, which is a 49.3% reduction from 1080p. These drops are far larger than what would be expected from a CPU-limited scenario, where resolution changes typically have minimal impact on frame rates.

The pattern is consistent across all settings presets. At High settings, 1080p produces 34.9 FPS, 1440p produces 25.2 FPS (-27.8%), and 4K produces 20 FPS (-42.7%). The slightly smaller percentage drop from 1440p to 4K at High (20.6% vs. 26.8% at Low) reinforces that the GPU is running out of compute resources, not just memory bandwidth. The RX 570's FP32 throughput of 5.095 TFLOPS is simply insufficient for Control's post-processing effects at higher resolutions.

This scaling behavior indicates that the i5-12400F is not a limiting factor in this game. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, provide ample headroom for Control's physics and AI systems. The 18 MB of shared L3 cache also helps with game logic, but the frame rate is dictated almost entirely by the GPU's rendering pipeline.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F brings 6 cores and 12 threads to the table, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This Alder Lake architecture chip has a 77th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19221. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8700K, scores 19210, a delta of just 0.1%, indicating that the i5-12400F is essentially performance-equivalent to that older flagship in synthetic tests.

In Control, the CPU's role appears to be secondary given the GPU bottleneck. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU limitation, as frame rates scale almost linearly with resolution changes. If the CPU were the constraint, we would expect similar FPS at 1080p and 1440p, but the data shows a consistent 26-28% drop. The CPU's 3DMark scores support this interpretation: the 16-thread score of 5895 and single-thread score of 909 indicate solid multi-threading capability that should handle Control's asynchronous compute workloads without issue.

The CPU's 65W TDP and 10 nm process node suggest efficient operation, but these specs are irrelevant to game performance. The relevant numbers are the Cinebench R23 scores: 16518 multicore and 2332 single-core, which place the i5-12400F well above the minimum requirements for modern games. In this pairing, the CPU is waiting on the GPU, not the other way around.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the decisive component in this pairing. With 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, the GPU offers 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth and 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The 2048 shading units and 128 TMUs are clocked at 1168 MHz base and 1244 MHz boost, producing a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s. These specifications place the RX 570 in the 74th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30158.

The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are surprisingly modern: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 scores 30109 (0.2% lower), the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT scores 30097 (0.2% lower), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile scores 29928 (0.8% lower). This suggests that in pure compute terms, the RX 570's GCN 4.0 architecture is still competitive, but Control's specific rendering demands expose its weaknesses.

The measured FPS data shows that the GPU's 4 GB VRAM is a critical limitation. At 4K, the Ultra preset drops to 16 FPS, and even Low only achieves 28 FPS. The 20.6 FPS at 4K Medium versus 20 FPS at 4K High shows that the GPU is thrashing as memory bandwidth becomes the bottleneck. The 7 Gbps effective memory speed, while adequate for 1080p, cannot sustain the texture and geometry loads at higher resolutions. The GPU's 150W TDP and dual-slot design suggest it was designed for 1080p gaming, and the data confirms that this is where it performs best.