Control

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Control with the Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti reveals a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound across all tested resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combination produces an average of 44.2 FPS, which drops to 34.0 FPS at 1440p Low and further to 25.3 FPS at 4K Low. This scaling pattern—a 23% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and another 26% from 1440p to 4K—is characteristic of a graphics card operating near its limits. The GTX 1050 Ti's 4 GB GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus with 112.1 GB/s bandwidth becomes the constraining factor as pixel count rises.

The drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings represents a 42.8% performance loss, from 44.2 FPS down to 25.3 FPS. This is a substantial penalty that highlights how the GPU's fillrate and memory bandwidth cannot keep pace with the quadrupled pixel workload. At higher presets, the scaling is even more punishing. High settings at 1080p deliver 31.9 FPS, but at 4K High the average falls to 17.4 FPS—a 45.5% decrease. Medium settings show a similar trajectory: 31.9 FPS at 1080p versus 14.8 FPS at 4K, a 53.6% drop.

Ultra settings reveal the steepest falloff. The system manages 25.7 FPS at 1080p Ultra, but at 4K Ultra the average collapses to 13.6 FPS. This 47.1% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Ultra indicates that the GTX 1050 Ti's shading units, totaling 768, and its 32 ROPs are simply overwhelmed by Control's rendering demands at high pixel densities. The data shows a clear pattern: the CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads boosting to 4.40 GHz, is not the limiting component in any resolution. The i5-12400F's single-thread performance, evidenced by a Geekbench single-core score of 2221 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2332, remains sufficient even at 1080p where CPU overhead typically matters most.

The most telling comparison is between Low and Medium settings at the same resolution. At 1080p, both presets deliver identical 31.9 FPS averages, suggesting that the GPU is hitting a hard performance ceiling rather than scaling with workload. This is a classic sign of a bandwidth-limited scenario, where the 112.1 GB/s memory bandwidth cannot feed the GPU fast enough to differentiate between these two presets. At 4K, Medium actually performs worse than High (14.8 FPS vs. 17.4 FPS), which may indicate that the Medium preset's specific combination of effects and post-processing creates an unfavorable memory access pattern for this particular GPU architecture.

Settings Recommendations

Based purely on the measured FPS rows, the optimal experience for this hardware combination is 1080p Low, which yields the highest average of 44.2 FPS among all tested configurations. This is the only setting that approaches playable frame rates for fast-paced action, though it still falls short of the 60 FPS target many players prefer. The 1080p Medium and High presets both tie at 31.9 FPS, offering a meaningful visual improvement over Low while sacrificing roughly 28% of the frame rate. For players who prioritize visual fidelity over smoothness, 1080p High provides the best balance of the two, as it shares the same average as Medium but presumably includes additional graphical features.

At 1440p, the situation becomes more constrained. Low settings deliver 34.0 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a game like Control that emphasizes fast-paced combat and environmental destruction. The 1440p High preset drops to 21.1 FPS, while Medium sits at 23.3 FPS and Ultra at 19.1 FPS. The data suggests that 1440p is only viable at Low settings for this combination, and even then, the frame rate is marginal. The 4K resolution is effectively unplayable across all presets, with the highest average being 25.3 FPS at Low and the lowest being 13.6 FPS at Ultra. No 4K preset achieves even 30 FPS, making this resolution impractical for this hardware.

The benchmark results indicate a clear recommendation: use 1080p Low for the smoothest experience, or 1080p High if visual quality takes precedence and the player can tolerate 31.9 FPS. The identical frame rates between Medium and High at 1080p suggest that High is the superior choice, as it likely includes additional effects without any measured performance penalty. At 1440p, only Low is worth considering. The data shows diminishing returns at higher resolutions, where the GPU's 4 GB VRAM capacity and 128-bit memory interface become insurmountable bottlenecks.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this hardware in Control?

A: The highest measured average is 44.2 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. No other configuration in the measured data exceeds this value.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with the GTX 1050 Ti in Control?

A: No. The best 4K result is 25.3 FPS at Low settings, and Ultra settings drop to 13.6 FPS. None of the four 4K presets reach 30 FPS.

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

A: The i5-12400F has an average benchmark score of 19221, placing it 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-8700K and 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i5-1335U. It trails the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS by 0.7% and leads the AMD EPYC 7773X by 1.3%.

Q: What GPU memory configuration does the GTX 1050 Ti use?

A: The GTX 1050 Ti features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 112.1 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Its memory clock runs at 1752 MHz, yielding 7 Gbps effective.

Q: At 1080p, do Medium and High settings perform identically?

A: Yes, the measured data shows both 1080p Medium and 1080p High produce an average of 31.9 FPS. This suggests a GPU performance ceiling that prevents Medium from achieving higher frame rates than High.

Q: What is the performance difference between 1080p Low and 4K Low?

A: The frame rate drops from 44.2 FPS at 1080p Low to 25.3 FPS at 4K Low, representing a 42.8% reduction. This illustrates the severe impact of resolution scaling on this GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset covers three resolutions and four settings presets, totaling twelve measured configurations. At 1920x1080, the results are: Low averages 44.2 FPS, Medium and High both average 31.9 FPS, and Ultra averages 25.7 FPS. The spread between the best and worst 1080p presets is 18.5 FPS, or roughly 42% of the Low figure. This indicates that the Ultra preset imposes a significant additional load compared to Low, but the identical Medium and High scores suggest the GPU saturates before reaching High.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 34.0 FPS at Low, 23.3 FPS at Medium, 21.1 FPS at High, and 19.1 FPS at Ultra. The 1440p results show a more linear progression from Low to Ultra, with each step down in preset costing between 2.0 and 10.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 1440p is 10.7 FPS, which is notably larger than the equivalent gap at 1080p, where Low and Medium differ by 12.3 FPS. At 4K (3840x2160), the averages are 25.3 FPS at Low, 14.8 FPS at Medium, 17.4 FPS at High, and 13.6 FPS at Ultra. The 4K data shows an anomaly where High outperforms Medium by 2.6 FPS, which is likely attributable to the specific rendering paths triggered by each preset.

The resolution scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings results in a 10.2 FPS drop (44.2 to 34.0), while the 1440p to 4K transition at Low costs another 8.7 FPS (34.0 to 25.3). At High settings, the 1080p to 1440p drop is 10.8 FPS (31.9 to 21.1), and the 1440p to 4K drop is 3.7 FPS (21.1 to 17.4). The relatively smaller absolute drop from 1440p to 4K at High suggests the GPU is already so constrained that additional pixels have diminishing impact on the already-low frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is the decisive component in this combination's Control performance. This Pascal-architecture GPU, built on a 14 nm process at Samsung, contains 3,300 million transistors on a 132 mm² die. Its GP107 chip operates at a base clock of 1291 MHz with a boost clock of 1392 MHz, and the 4 GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 1752 MHz for 7 Gbps effective. These specifications place the GPU in the 30th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 5316. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce 930A (matching its score with a 0% delta), the GeForce 940M (0.4% faster), the AMD Radeon R7 240 (0.7% faster), and the AMD Radeon R7 M445 (0.8% slower).

The GTX 1050 Ti's memory subsystem is likely the primary bottleneck in Control. The 4 GB VRAM capacity, while sufficient for many games at 1080p, is taxed heavily by Control's high-resolution textures and particle effects. The 128-bit memory bus with 112.1 GB/s bandwidth is modest by modern standards, and the data supports this interpretation: at 1080p, the identical frame rates between Medium and High suggest the GPU cannot utilize the additional memory bandwidth that High settings might demand. The GPU's 768 shading units and 48 TMUs provide a theoretical FP32 performance of 2.138 TFLOPS, but the 32 ROPs and 44.54 GPixel/s pixel rate limit fill-rate-intensive scenes.

The GPU's age is a factor—it was released on 2016-10-24 and is now end-of-life, with a launch MSRP of 139 USD. Its DirectX 12 support at feature level 12_1 is adequate for Control, but the Pascal architecture lacks dedicated ray tracing cores, which is relevant given Control's use of real-time ray tracing effects in its rendering engine. The measured performance across all resolutions and presets confirms that the GTX 1050 Ti sits at the very bottom of the GPU hierarchy for this game, ranking 1619 out of 1636 tested combinations. The 4K results, ranging from 13.6 to 25.3 FPS, underscore that this GPU is fundamentally mismatched for high-resolution Control gameplay, while even 1080p Ultra at 25.7 FPS falls short of smooth playability.