Control

The Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the Intel Arc B570 produces a clear performance curve in Control, with the data revealing a system where the GPU becomes the dominant constraint as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates span from 101 FPS on Low settings down to 55 FPS on Ultra, indicating substantial headroom at lower presets. Moving to 2560x1440, the same settings range yields 76 FPS on Low and 42 FPS on Ultra, representing a drop of roughly 25% at Low and 24% at Ultra compared to 1080p. At 3840x2160, the scaling becomes more punishing: Low settings produce 51 FPS, while Ultra falls to 28 FPS, a reduction of about 33% from 1440p Low and 33% from 1440p Ultra. The narrowing gap between resolutions at higher settings—from 28 FPS at 4K Ultra to 55 FPS at 1080p Ultra—suggests that the Arc B570 is the limiting component, as the CPU has ample headroom to feed the GPU at lower resolutions but the GPU saturates before the processor becomes a bottleneck. The frame pacing data, where available, reinforces this: the 4K Medium run shows a minimum of 31 FPS and a maximum of 42 FPS, a tight range that indicates consistent GPU-bound behavior rather than CPU-driven stutter.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS rows demonstrate that Control's performance scales inversely with resolution in a near-linear fashion, but the rate of decline accelerates at the highest pixel counts. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS at High settings drops from 63 to 48, a 24% reduction. From 1440p to 4K at High, the average falls from 48 to 32, a 33% reduction. This increasing penalty at 4K is characteristic of a GPU that is hitting its memory bandwidth or shading limits, as the Arc B570's 380.0 GB/s bandwidth and 11.52 TFLOPS FP32 throughput are being fully exercised. At Low settings, the same progression shows 101 FPS at 1080p, 76 FPS at 1440p, and 51 FPS at 4K—a 25% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 33% drop from 1440p to 4K. The consistency of these percentages across Low and High presets suggests that resolution scaling is independent of the settings level, pointing to a fixed GPU bottleneck rather than a settings-dependent CPU limitation. The 4K Ultra average of 28 FPS is the lowest recorded, and the 4K Medium minimum of 31 FPS shows that even mid-tier settings at 4K cannot maintain a stable 30 FPS floor. This pattern indicates that for 4K play, the user must accept Low settings to approach playability, while 1440p offers a more balanced trade-off where High settings remain viable at 48 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12600KF and Intel Arc B570 ranks 2307 out of 2888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the lower-mid tier of the database. This percentile position—roughly the 20th percentile from the bottom—reflects the Arc B570's moderate standing among GPUs, as its percentileVsAllGpus is 65, meaning it outperforms 65% of all GPUs in general benchmarks. The CPU, by contrast, has a percentileVsAllCpus of 79, showing that the processor is relatively stronger than the graphics card in isolation. The deltaPct values from the nearest rivals illustrate the competitive landscape: the GPU's closest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, has an avg score of 20534 against the Arc B570's 20556, a 0.1% difference, while the Intel Arc A750 is 0.1% slower at 20582. For the CPU, the Intel Core i9-10900K is 0.3% faster at 27872, and the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is 0.3% faster at 27896, meaning the i5-12600KF sits within a tight 0.3% band of these rivals. In Control specifically, the combo rank suggests that while the CPU is capable, the GPU holds the combo back from higher placements, as the game's measured FPS at 1080p Low (101 FPS) approaches the refresh-rate sweet spot but falls short at higher settings. The rank of 2307 out of 2888 indicates that a significant majority of tested combos deliver better average FPS in this title, likely due to more powerful GPUs rather than superior CPUs, given the i5-12600KF's strong synthetic scores.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings depend heavily on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, Low settings deliver 101 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh monitors, but Medium at 71 FPS and High at 63 FPS both remain above the 60 FPS threshold, making High the best balance of visual quality and smoothness. Ultra at 1080p drops to 55 FPS, which is playable but below the 60 FPS mark, so High is recommended over Ultra unless visual fidelity takes priority. At 2560x1440, Low yields 76 FPS, Medium 54 FPS, High 48 FPS, and Ultra 42 FPS. Here, Medium is the sweet spot, as it maintains a playable 54 FPS with better visuals than Low, while High falls below 50 FPS and may feel less fluid. For 3840x2160, the data shows Low at 51 FPS, Medium at 36 FPS, High at 32 FPS, and Ultra at 28 FPS. Low is the only preset that stays above 50 FPS, making it the recommended choice for 4K, while Medium and High dip below 40 FPS, which is marginal for action-heavy gameplay. The Medium preset has recorded frame time data (minimum 31 FPS, maximum 42 FPS) that shows a tight range, but the average of 36 FPS is still low. Across all resolutions, the pattern is clear: this combo cannot sustain 60 FPS at 1440p High or above, nor at 4K Medium or above, so users should target 1080p High for a consistent 60+ FPS experience or 1440p Medium for a sharper image at a slightly lower frame rate.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo achieve 60 FPS at 1080p in Control?

A: Yes, at 1080p Low and Medium settings, the measured average FPS is 101 and 71 respectively, while High settings reach 63 FPS. Ultra settings fall to 55 FPS, so 60 FPS is achievable on High but not on Ultra.

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

A: 1920x1080 is the best resolution, as it is the only one where High settings maintain above 60 FPS (63 FPS). At 2560x1440, even Medium settings only reach 54 FPS, and at 3840x2160, only Low settings exceed 50 FPS.

Q: How does the Arc B570 compare to its nearest GPU rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Arc B570 has an avg benchmark score of 20556, which is 0.1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534) and 0.1% lower than the Intel Arc A750 (20582). The difference is negligible, indicating near-identical synthetic performance.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor. The i5-12600KF has a percentileVsAllCpus of 79, while the Arc B570 has a percentileVsAllGpus of 65. At 4K, the FPS drop from Low (51) to Ultra (28) is a 45% reduction, which is characteristic of GPU saturation, not CPU limits.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like at 1440p Medium?

A: At 2560x1440 Medium, the measured minimum FPS is 46 and maximum is 62, with an average of 54. This 16 FPS range indicates moderate frame pacing variability, but the average stays above 50 FPS for acceptable smoothness.

Q: How does the i5-12600KF rank against its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The i5-12600KF has an avg benchmark score of 27799. The Intel Core i9-10900K is 0.3% faster (27872), the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is 0.3% faster (27896), and the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE is 0.3% slower (27712). All are within a 0.3% margin.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570's specifications directly explain its performance ceiling in Control. With 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, the 380.0 GB/s bandwidth is moderate by modern standards, and the 4K Ultra average of 28 FPS suggests that memory bandwidth or fill rate is a constraint at high pixel counts. The GPU's base and boost clocks are both 2500 MHz, which is a fixed boost behavior rather than a dynamic range, indicating that the card runs at a constant clock under load. The 2304 shading units and 144 TMUs produce a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s, while the 80 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s. These figures translate to the measured FPS: at 1080p Low, the card renders 101 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, it drops to 28 FPS, a 72% reduction that corresponds to the fourfold increase in pixel count. The FP32 performance of 11.52 TFLOPS is the raw compute throughput, and the data shows that this is insufficient for 4K Ultra in Control, which is a demanding title from 2019. The GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 65 places it above the median, but in this game, the nearest rivals—the RTX 3070 Mobile and Arc A750—are within 0.1% in synthetic scores, suggesting that Control's performance is representative of the card's overall capability. The 10 GB VRAM is not explicitly tested in the FPS data, but the fact that 4K Medium shows a minimum of 31 FPS while 4K High shows 32 FPS average implies that VRAM capacity is not the primary bottleneck; rather, the compute and bandwidth limits are. The fixed 2500 MHz boost clock means there is no thermal or power throttling headroom to recover performance, so the measured FPS reflects the card's sustained capability.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF provides ample processing power for Control, as evidenced by its strong synthetic scores and the FPS data showing GPU-bound behavior. With 10 cores and 16 threads, the CPU has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, which in single-threaded workloads like game logic is more than sufficient. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23391 and single-core score of 3302 indicate that the CPU can handle both multi-threaded background tasks and the main game thread without becoming a bottleneck. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache and the Alder Lake architecture with its hybrid core design contribute to a percentileVsAllCpus of 79, meaning it outperforms 79% of all CPUs. In the FPS data, the evidence for a non-limiting CPU is that the performance scales with resolution and settings in a way that tracks GPU load: at 1080p Low, the 101 FPS average is likely near the game's engine limit, but at 4K Ultra, the 28 FPS is clearly GPU-limited. If the CPU were the constraint, the FPS would remain similar across resolutions, but the data shows a 73% drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low (101 to 51 FPS), which is purely due to GPU rendering load. The CPU's nearest rivals, the i9-10900K and Ryzen 7 5800X3D, are within 0.3% in average benchmark scores, confirming that the i5-12600KF is not a weak link in this combo. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 7956 and single-thread score of 1016 further support that the processor has headroom, as Control is not a heavily multi-threaded title and the CPU can easily feed the GPU at all tested settings. The CPU's 125 W TDP and socket LGA 1700 are irrelevant to the game performance, but the core count ensures that any background processes do not interfere with frame delivery.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete FPS dataset for Control with this combo spans three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, Low settings produce an average of 101 FPS, Medium produces 71 FPS with a minimum of 61 and maximum of 82, High produces 63 FPS, and Ultra produces 55 FPS. The Medium frame time range (61-82 FPS) shows a 21 FPS spread, which is reasonably tight, indicating stable performance. At 2560x1440, Low averages 76 FPS, Medium averages 54 FPS with a minimum of 46 and maximum of 62, High averages 48 FPS, and Ultra averages 42 FPS. The 1440p Medium range (46-62 FPS) is a 16 FPS spread, slightly tighter than 1080p Medium, which suggests that the GPU is more consistently loaded at higher resolution. At 3840x2160, Low averages 51 FPS, Medium averages 36 FPS with a minimum of 31 and maximum of 42, High averages 32 FPS, and Ultra averages 28 FPS. The 4K Medium range (31-42 FPS) is an 11 FPS spread, the tightest of all recorded Medium settings, indicating that the GPU is fully saturated and frame times are more uniform. Across all rows, the pattern is that as resolution increases, the gap between Low and Ultra narrows: at 1080p, the difference is 46 FPS (101-55), at 1440p it is 34 FPS (76-42), and at 4K it is 23 FPS (51-28). This convergence is a classic sign of a GPU bottleneck, where the card's maximum throughput is reached even at Low settings when the resolution is high enough. The data also shows that the 4K High average of 32 FPS is only 4 FPS higher than 4K Ultra's 28 FPS, suggesting that the settings curve flattens at the top end. For users seeking the highest frame rates, 1080p Low at 101 FPS is the peak, while 4K Low at 51 FPS is the only 4K option above 50 FPS.