Control

Control with an Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is a combination that delivers high frame rates across the board, but the data reveals a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution increases. This pairing sits at rank 107 out of 1636 tested combos for this game, placing it in the top 6.5% of all systems measured. The RTX 4080 SUPER, with its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 736.3 GB/s bandwidth, proves to be a formidable match for Control's demanding rendering, while the 10-core Alder Lake CPU provides enough headroom to keep pace at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a predictable yet steep decline as resolution scales from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At High settings, the transition from 1080p to 1440p results in a drop from 153.1 FPS to 115.7 FPS, a 24.4% reduction. Moving from 1440p to 4K at High settings further drops performance to 78.7 FPS, another 32% decrease. This pattern indicates that the GPU becomes increasingly the limiting factor at higher resolutions, which is expected given the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K.

The scaling behavior is even more pronounced at Low settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 248 FPS, but this falls to 186.4 FPS at 1440p and then to 123.1 FPS at 4K. The fact that 1080p Low produces nearly double the frame rate of 4K Low (248 vs 123.1) suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is likely the primary constraint, preventing the GPU from fully stretching its legs. At 4K, however, the GPU's rendering workload dominates, and the frame rate becomes more representative of pure graphics throughput.

Ultra settings tell a similar story: 134.1 FPS at 1080p, 100.7 FPS at 1440p, and 70.8 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 1440p at Ultra is 25%, while the gap between 1440p and 4K is 29.7%. This consistency suggests that the game's engine scales predictably with resolution, and the RTX 4080 SUPER's 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is being utilized effectively. For players targeting 4K, the data shows that High settings are the practical ceiling for maintaining smooth gameplay, as Ultra dips below 71 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to run Control with this CPU and GPU combo?

A: The data shows 1440p as the sweet spot. At High settings, 1440p delivers 115.7 FPS, which is a 47% improvement over 4K High's 78.7 FPS while still offering a significant visual upgrade over 1080p. For competitive play, 1080p Low at 248 FPS is the clear winner.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER's average benchmark score of 53610 places it 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (53489). It also leads the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M by 0.4% and the AMD Radeon RX 7700S by 2.1%.

Q: Is the i5-12600KF a bottleneck at 1080p in Control?

A: Yes, the evidence points to CPU limitation at 1080p Low, where the system hits 248 FPS. At 4K Low, the frame rate drops to 123.1 FPS, a 50.4% reduction, indicating the GPU workload scales more than the CPU can offset. The CPU's 16 threads are likely saturated at high frame rates.

Q: What CPU performance tier does the i5-12600KF belong to?

A: It sits at the 84th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27827. Its nearest rival is the Intel Core i9-10900K with a score of 27829, a 0% delta, meaning they are statistically identical in overall performance.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 4080 SUPER have, and does it matter for Control?

A: The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus. Given that the game runs at 4K Ultra with 70.8 FPS, the memory capacity is sufficient, but the 736.3 GB/s bandwidth is likely a more critical factor for texture streaming at high resolutions.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K with maximum settings?

A: No. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 70.8, which is above 60, but the margin is thin. At 4K High, the average rises to 78.7 FPS, providing more comfortable headroom. For a locked 60 FPS experience, 4K Ultra is achievable but leaves little room for dips.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the game's performance at higher resolutions. Built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process, the GPU packs 10240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. Its boost clock of 2550 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz drive a pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s. These figures translate into raw throughput that Control's physics-heavy combat and destructible environments can exploit.

The 16 GB of GDDR6X memory operating at 23 Gbps effective provides 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth. In Control, which features complex particle effects and reflective surfaces, this bandwidth is crucial for maintaining frame rates at 4K. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the system averages 70.8 FPS, which is only 10.8 FPS below the 4K High result of 78.7 FPS. This small delta (10.2%) between High and Ultra at 4K suggests that the game's Ultra preset introduces settings that tax the GPU's compute units more than its memory subsystem.

The GPU's 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present, and while Control supports ray tracing, the measured data does not specify whether RT is enabled. Given that the game launched in 2019, before the RTX 40-series, the rasterization performance is likely the primary driver of these results. The RTX 4080 SUPER's 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is more than sufficient for Control's non-RT rendering, as evidenced by the 248 FPS at 1080p Low. At 4K, the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth become the bottlenecks, which explains the 50.4% drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full dataset provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 248 FPS at Low, 176.9 FPS at Medium, 153.1 FPS at High, and 134.1 FPS at Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 113.9 FPS, or 45.9%, indicating that the CPU is still able to feed the GPU adequately at this resolution, but the GPU's workload increases significantly with each preset level.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers are 186.4 FPS at Low, 131.5 FPS at Medium, 115.7 FPS at High, and 100.7 FPS at Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is uniform across presets: Low drops 24.8%, Medium drops 25.7%, High drops 24.4%, and Ultra drops 24.9%. This consistency points to a resolution-bound scaling where the GPU's pixel throughput is the limiting factor. The 1440p Ultra result of 100.7 FPS is particularly strong, showing that this combo can handle high refresh rate 1440p monitors with maximum settings.

At 3840x2160, the performance curve steepens. Low settings yield 123.1 FPS, Medium produces 92.1 FPS, High drops to 78.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 70.8 FPS. The relative drop from 1440p to 4K is larger than the drop from 1080p to 1440p: Low falls 34%, Medium falls 30%, High falls 32%, and Ultra falls 29.7%. This suggests that at 4K, the GPU's memory bandwidth and ROP throughput are being saturated. The 4K Low result of 123.1 FPS is still highly playable, but the 4K Ultra result of 70.8 FPS is the only sub-75 FPS measurement in the entire dataset.

Settings Recommendations

For 4K gaming, the data clearly favors High settings. The jump from High to Ultra at 4K costs 7.9 FPS (from 78.7 to 70.8), a 10% penalty, for what is typically a marginal visual improvement in Control. High settings at 4K provide a comfortable 78.7 FPS average, which is smooth on most displays. Medium settings at 4K offer 92.1 FPS, a 17% improvement over High, and are recommended for players who prioritize frame rate over visual fidelity. Low settings at 4K, at 123.1 FPS, are only advisable for competitive play where every frame matters, as the visual compromise is significant.

At 1440p, Ultra settings are the recommended choice. The 100.7 FPS average at Ultra is well above the 60 FPS threshold and provides the best visual experience without sacrificing smoothness. High settings at 1440p, at 115.7 FPS, are a viable alternative for those who want extra headroom for frame time spikes. The 1440p Medium result of 131.5 FPS is also strong, but given the GPU's capability, there is little reason to drop below High.

At 1080p, the recommendation depends on the display's refresh rate. For 240 Hz monitors, Low settings at 248 FPS are the only way to fully utilize the panel. For 144 Hz displays, Ultra settings at 134.1 FPS are ideal, as they provide maximum visual quality while staying above the refresh rate. Medium settings at 176.9 FPS are a balanced option for 165 Hz monitors, offering a 42.8 FPS buffer over the 144 Hz threshold.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF plays a supporting role in this system, but its specifications reveal why it does not become a severe bottleneck until very high frame rates. With 10 cores and 16 threads, the Alder Lake architecture splits into performance and efficiency cores, though the FACT PACK does not specify the exact core configuration. The base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 4.90 GHz, combined with 20 MB of shared L3 cache, provide solid single-thread and multi-thread performance. Its benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23444 and a single-core score of 3309.

In Control, which is primarily a GPU-bound title, the CPU's role is to maintain a high enough frame rate ceiling. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system hits 248 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's practical limit for this game. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 3925 and multithread score of 27575 indicate strong per-core performance, which is essential for games that rely on a few heavily loaded threads. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1995 and 4-thread score of 3806 suggest that Control's engine may use 4-6 threads effectively, and the CPU's 16 threads provide ample headroom.

The CPU's 84th percentile ranking among all CPUs places it in the upper echelon, with an average benchmark score of 27827. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-10900K, scores 27829, a 0% delta, meaning they are functionally equivalent in synthetic tests. The i5-12600KF also matches the i5-12600K (27851, -0.1%) and the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H (27872, -0.2%). This equivalence suggests that the "KF" variant's lack of integrated graphics does not impact CPU compute performance. For Control, the CPU is sufficient to drive the RTX 4080 SUPER at 1440p and 4K, where the GPU is the clear bottleneck. Only at 1080p Low does the CPU start to limit performance, but even then, 248 FPS is far beyond the needs of most displays.