Control

The Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT holds the 1139th position out of 1636 tested combinations in Control. This places the combo in the lower third of all tested systems, indicating that while it is capable of running the game, it is not a high-end performer in this title. The ranking reflects a balanced pairing where neither component is a severe bottleneck, but the overall frame rates are constrained by the GPU's mid-range positioning rather than the CPU's capabilities.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 1139 out of 1636 places it below the median of all tested configurations. The data shows this pairing is firmly in the mid-range tier for Control, with the GPU's performance ceiling being the primary determinant of the final ranking. The CPU's benchmark scores are notably strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 and a single-core score of 3093, placing it in the 88th percentile against all CPUs. However, the GPU's average benchmark score of 27985 puts it in only the 71st percentile against all GPUs, which explains the combined system's modest standing.

Relative to its nearest CPU rivals, the i5-14400F is essentially tied with the Intel Core i7-12800H, which shows a 0% deltaPct in average score, and is just 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645. The Ryzen 7 250 is 0.2% behind, and the Intel Core i7-13705H is also 0.2% behind. This tight clustering indicates the processor is performing exactly as expected for its class. For the GPU, the RX 6600 XT is 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti and 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon R9 M395X, while sitting 0.9% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and 1.5% behind the AMD FirePro S7150. These narrow margins confirm the GPU is a solid mid-range option that holds its own against older high-end cards but loses ground to newer mid-range offerings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1968 MHz and boosts up to 2589 MHz, with a game clock of 2359 MHz. These specifications are well-suited for Control, a game that relies heavily on GPU compute for its physics and particle effects. The memory configuration is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but becomes a limiting factor at 4K resolutions, where the higher memory pressure and bandwidth demands exceed what the 128-bit bus can comfortably deliver.

The GPU's architecture, RDNA 2.0 on a 7 nm process, includes 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operations units. The pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s and texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s are respectable for the card's class. The measured frame rates show that the GPU scales predictably with settings changes, indicating that the card is the primary driver of performance in this title. The CPU, with its 10 cores and 16 threads, provides ample headroom, as evidenced by its high multi-threaded scores, meaning that the bottleneck in most configurations will be the GPU rather than the processor.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the High preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1080p, the High preset delivers 74.3 FPS, which is a comfortable margin above the 67.2 FPS of the Ultra preset while still providing visually rich graphics. The Medium preset at 85.7 FPS is also viable, but the jump to High is relatively small in performance cost and likely provides a noticeable visual improvement. At 1440p, the High preset yields 54.3 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action; the Medium preset at 65.5 FPS offers a smoother experience if visual fidelity can be slightly reduced.

For 4K, the situation becomes more challenging. The High preset drops to 36.2 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset at 42 FPS is marginally better but still not ideal. The Low preset at 62.8 FPS is the only 4K option that provides consistently playable frame rates, but it does so at a significant visual cost. Given these results, the recommended approach is to use the High preset at 1080p as the primary gaming configuration, with the option to drop to Medium at 1440p for a higher resolution experience. The Ultra preset offers minimal performance gains over High at any resolution, with only 67.2 FPS at 1080p compared to 74.3 FPS on High, making it generally not worth the additional GPU load.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the frame rates across settings are as follows: Low delivers 117.2 FPS, Medium delivers 85.7 FPS, High delivers 74.3 FPS, and Ultra delivers 67.2 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a performance drop of 50 FPS, which is a substantial cost for the visual upgrades. The difference between Medium and High is 11.4 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 7.1 FPS, indicating diminishing returns as settings increase.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scale shifts downward. Low settings produce 89.5 FPS, Medium produces 65.5 FPS, High produces 54.3 FPS, and Ultra produces 51.6 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a drop of 24 FPS, which is the largest single-setting penalty at this resolution. The High to Ultra difference narrows to just 2.7 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset is largely redundant at 1440p when the High preset offers nearly identical performance.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's limitations become apparent. Low settings achieve 62.8 FPS, Medium achieves 42 FPS, High achieves 36.2 FPS, and Ultra achieves 34.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 20.8 FPS, while the difference between High and Ultra is a mere 1.5 FPS. These numbers illustrate that even the Low preset is barely playable at 4K, and any setting above Medium results in sub-40 FPS performance. The data shows that the RX 6600 XT is not designed for 4K gaming in Control, as even the most modest settings struggle to maintain a consistent 60 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is severe across all settings, revealing the GPU as the limiting component. At Low settings, performance falls from 117.2 FPS at 1080p to 89.5 FPS at 1440p and finally to 62.8 FPS at 4K. This represents a 46.4% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The Medium preset shows a similar trend, dropping from 85.7 FPS to 65.5 FPS to 42 FPS, a 51% decrease from 1080p to 4K.

The High preset follows the same pattern: 74.3 FPS at 1080p, 54.3 FPS at 1440p, and 36.2 FPS at 4K, a 51.3% reduction. The Ultra preset declines from 67.2 FPS to 51.6 FPS to 34.7 FPS, a 48.4% drop. These consistent percentage decreases across all settings indicate that the GPU's raw compute and memory bandwidth are being saturated as pixel count rises, with the CPU playing a negligible role in the scaling. The 8 GB VRAM and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K resolution demands more than the card can deliver, resulting in the sub-40 FPS figures seen on the higher presets. The data clearly shows that this combo is optimized for 1080p gaming, with 1440p being a secondary option at reduced settings, and 4K being impractical for anything beyond the Low preset.