Control

The Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers a playable but demanding experience in Control, with performance scaling that clearly shifts from CPU-bound at 1080p to heavily GPU-bound at 4K. The measured data shows a dramatic drop in average frame rates as resolution increases, particularly when moving from 1440p to 2160p at higher settings. At 1080p High, the combo produces 101.2 FPS, but this falls to 75.2 FPS at 1440p and then plummets to 48.3 FPS at 4K. This represents a 52.3% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K at High settings, indicating that the RTX 3070’s rendering pipeline becomes the primary constraint as pixel count rises. The trend is consistent across all settings, with the gap between 1080p and 4K widening at lower presets, suggesting that the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario at 4K, with the RTX 3070 struggling to maintain high frame rates as the pixel workload increases. At Ultra settings, the transition from 1080p to 1440p costs 15.3 FPS (from 84.4 to 69.1), but the jump from 1440p to 4K costs an additional 24.3 FPS (from 69.1 to 44.8). This steepening decline at 4K is typical of a graphics card with 8 GB of VRAM and a 256-bit memory bus, where the higher resolution demands more bandwidth and capacity. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 44.8 is barely above the threshold for smooth gameplay, while at 4K High it reaches 48.3 FPS, still below the 60 FPS target for most displays. In contrast, at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 159.4 FPS, indicating that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU well beyond what the RTX 3070 can render at higher resolutions. The scaling factor from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 49.4% (from 159.4 to 80.6), which is less severe than at higher settings, suggesting that the GPU’s compute units are more efficiently utilized at lower graphical loads.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF, with its 10 cores and 16 threads, provides a robust foundation for Control, but its influence on frame rates diminishes as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the CPU is clearly the bottleneck, as the 159.4 FPS result is likely constrained by the processor’s single-thread performance and memory latency rather than the GPU’s capabilities. The CPU’s boost clock of 4.90 GHz and base clock of 3.70 GHz, combined with 20 MB of shared L3 cache, allow it to handle the game’s physics and AI calculations without becoming a limiting factor at higher resolutions. However, benchmark results indicate that the 12600KF’s multi-threaded performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 multicore at 23444 points, is strong enough to keep pace with the RTX 3070 at 1440p and 4K, where the GPU takes over as the primary constraint. The CPU’s 3DMark scores, particularly the single-thread result of 1016 and the 2-thread score of 1995, suggest that the game’s main thread benefits from the high boost clock, but the lack of significant FPS differences between 1440p and 4K at the same settings indicates that the CPU is not the limiting component in those scenarios.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this pairing of the i5-12600KF and RTX 3070 ranks 743rd out of 1636 combos for Control, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all tested systems. This rank reflects the balance between the CPU’s strong multi-threaded capabilities and the GPU’s solid but not top-tier performance. The CPU’s percentile versus all CPUs is 84, meaning it outperforms 84% of processors in the database, while the GPU’s percentile is 72, indicating it beats 72% of graphics cards. The combined rank suggests that while the CPU is above average, the GPU holds the combo back from higher positions. When compared to the CPU’s nearest rivals, the i5-12600KF performs nearly identically to the Intel Core i9-10900K, with a deltaPct of 0, and is only 0.1% behind the i5-12600K. This indicates that the CPU is not the differentiator in this combo’s ranking; rather, the RTX 3070’s position relative to other GPUs, such as the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (0.9% ahead) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (1% ahead), determines the overall standing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive picture of performance across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 159.4 FPS on Low, 110.8 FPS on Medium, 101.2 FPS on High, and 84.4 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Ultra is 47.1%, which is significant but expected given the increased graphical demands. Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease to 121.4 FPS on Low, 88.3 FPS on Medium, 75.2 FPS on High, and 69.1 FPS on Ultra. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Ultra settings is 18.1%, which is moderate, but the absolute values remain playable for most users. At 3840x2160, the performance takes a more severe hit: 80.6 FPS on Low, 57.2 FPS on Medium, 48.3 FPS on High, and 44.8 FPS on Ultra. The difference between 1440p and 4K at Ultra is 35.2%, highlighting the GPU’s difficulty with the higher pixel count. Notably, the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows at 4K (from 80.6 to 44.8, a 44.4% reduction) compared to 1080p (from 159.4 to 84.4, a 47.1% reduction), suggesting that the GPU’s memory bandwidth becomes a bottleneck regardless of settings at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 plays the dominant role in this combo’s performance in Control, as evidenced by the significant frame rate drops at higher resolutions. With 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, the GPU delivers a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p but becomes strained at 4K. The GPU’s boost clock of 1725 MHz and base clock of 1500 MHz, combined with 5888 shading units and 96 ROPs, provide solid raw compute power, as reflected in its FP32 performance of 20.31 TFLOPS. The measured data shows that at 4K Ultra, the GPU’s pixel rate of 165.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 317.4 GTexel/s are insufficient to maintain high frame rates, resulting in an average of 44.8 FPS. The GPU’s ray tracing cores (46 RT cores) and tensor cores (184) are present, but the game’s implementation of these features likely contributes to the performance drop at higher settings. The RTX 3070’s percentile versus all GPUs is 72, and its average benchmark score of 28238 places it near the AMD FirePro S7150 (0.6% behind) and the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (0.9% ahead), indicating that its performance is competitive but not exceptional for the tested workload. The GPU’s 220 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest it is a power-hungry component, but the data indicates that its memory subsystem, not its power draw, is the limiting factor in Control at high resolutions.