Control

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 delivers a baseline experience in Control that is firmly anchored to 1080p gaming, where it achieves a playable 53.9 FPS at Low settings but falls below 60 FPS at all higher presets. The combination ranks 1599th out of 1636 tested configurations, placing it in the bottom 2.3% of all hardware pairings, a position driven entirely by the GPU’s modest 4 GB VRAM and the CPU’s mid-range throughput.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Control?*

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the only resolution where average frame rates approach playability, with a peak of 53.9 FPS at Low settings. At 2560x1440, the highest average is 41.2 FPS (Low), and at 3840x2160, the best result is just 27.9 FPS (Low).

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

A: At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 53.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 41.2 FPS at 2560x1440, a decline of 12.7 FPS. At High settings, the drop is smaller in absolute terms, going from 36.3 FPS to 24.4 FPS.

Q: Is the GTX 1650 or the i5-12400F the limiting factor in this pairing?

A: Benchmark results indicate the GPU is the primary constraint. The CPU’s 3DMark 16-thread score of 5895 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16518 are strong, but the GPU’s PassMark G3D score of 7880 and 4 GB VRAM cap frame rates, especially at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the average frame rate falls from 53.9 FPS at Low to 31.7 FPS at Ultra, a reduction of 22.2 FPS. This indicates that Ultra settings nearly halve the performance relative to the lowest preset.

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

A: The i5-12400F has an average benchmark score of 19221, which is 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-8700K (19210) and 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i5-1335U (19167). It trails the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (19364) by 0.7%.

Q: Does the GTX 1650 outperform its nearest GPU competitors?

A: The GTX 1650’s average benchmark score is 8713. It is 0.4% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile (8746) and the AMD Radeon 550X (8749), but 0.5% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 (8671) and 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 (8761).

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F provides six cores and twelve threads, running at a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This Alder Lake-S architecture chip, built on Intel’s 10 nm process, delivers a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16518 and a single-core score of 2332, indicating solid headroom for Control’s physics and logic workloads. The CPU’s 18 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support (DDR4 and DDR5) further support consistent frame pacing in action-adventure scenes with destructible environments.

In the context of Control, which heavily utilizes asynchronous compute and complex particle effects, the CPU’s 12 threads help maintain minimum frame rates, though the data shows the measured averages are ultimately capped by the GPU. The i5-12400F’s PassMark multithread score of 19433 and 3DMark 16-thread score of 5895 place it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, meaning it has ample processing power for this title. However, the game’s engine does not appear to be CPU-bound at the tested settings, as frame rates scale almost linearly with resolution reductions, a hallmark of GPU limitation.

The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-8700K (avg score 19210, deltaPct 0.1%) and the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (avg score 19364, deltaPct -0.7%), show that the i5-12400F is competitive but not class-leading. In Control, this translates to a processor that will not bottleneck the GTX 1650 at any resolution, but it also cannot compensate for the GPU’s lack of memory bandwidth or shading power.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is a Turing-architecture GPU with 896 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. It operates at a base clock of 1485 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, with a memory clock of 2001 MHz (8 Gbps effective) across a 128-bit bus. The 4 GB of GDDR5 memory provides a bandwidth of 128.1 GB/s, which is the critical bottleneck in Control at higher resolutions and settings. The GPU’s FP32 throughput of 2.984 TFLOPS and pixel rate of 53.28 GPixel/s are modest by modern standards, reflected in its 43rd percentile ranking among all GPUs.

The GTX 1650’s PassMark G3D score of 7880 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 305 illustrate its limited capacity for demanding DirectX 12 titles like Control. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the combo manages only 14.3 FPS, indicating that the 4 GB VRAM is saturated, causing severe frame rate degradation. Even at 1920x1080, the jump from Low (53.9 FPS) to High (36.3 FPS) shows a 17.6 FPS drop, suggesting that texture and shader complexity quickly outpace the memory subsystem.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the GTX 1650 is effectively at parity: it is 0.4% slower than the RTX 3050 A Mobile (8746) and the Radeon 550X (8749), and 0.5% faster than the Quadro P2200 (8671). In Control, this means the card performs as expected for its class—capable of 1080p gaming at low-to-medium presets, but unable to maintain smooth frame rates at higher resolutions or with ultra-quality assets.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. Low settings produce an average of 53.9 FPS, while Medium drops to 38.3 FPS, High to 36.3 FPS, and Ultra to 31.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 15.6 FPS, indicating that the medium preset introduces significant additional shading load. High and Medium are nearly identical, with only a 2.0 FPS difference, suggesting that the GPU is already near its compute limit.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages fall sharply. Low settings yield 41.2 FPS, Medium 29.2 FPS, High 24.4 FPS, and Ultra 22.1 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings is 12.7 FPS, but at Ultra settings, the decline narrows to 9.6 FPS (from 31.7 to 22.1), showing that the GPU is more consistently bottlenecked at higher resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the results are largely unplayable. Low settings average 27.9 FPS, Medium 22.8 FPS, High 20.7 FPS, and Ultra 14.3 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K represents the worst-case scenario, with frame rates dropping to less than half of the 1080p Low result. Overall, the data shows a clear trend: the GTX 1650’s 128.1 GB/s bandwidth and 4 GB VRAM cannot sustain Control’s visual fidelity beyond 1080p Medium, where the average of 38.3 FPS is borderline for a smooth experience.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-12400F + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 combination ranks 1599th out of 1636 tested configurations in Control, placing it in the bottom 2.3% of all hardware pairings. This rank reflects the GPU’s position in the 43rd percentile of all GPUs, despite the CPU’s stronger 77th percentile standing. The data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor; rather, the GTX 1650’s modest specifications drag the overall ranking down.

Given that the CPU’s nearest rivals (i7-8700K, i5-1335U, Ryzen 5 7533HS) all have nearly identical average scores, swapping the processor would yield negligible changes in Control performance. Conversely, the GPU’s nearest rivals (RTX 3050 A Mobile, Radeon 550X, Quadro P2200) are also close in raw benchmark scores, but none of them would significantly alter the 1080p frame rates either. The combo’s rank is thus a direct consequence of the GTX 1650’s 4 GB VRAM limitation, which becomes the hard ceiling for this pairing.

For context, the 1599th rank means that 37 other tested combos perform worse, likely featuring older or lower-end GPUs. However, the vast majority of configurations deliver better results, underscoring that this pairing is suited only for 1080p Low-to-Medium gaming in Control. The measured FPS data confirms that users must accept significant compromises to achieve playable frame rates, and the system is not viable for 1440p or 4K gaming under this title’s demands.