Control

The Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT delivers a performance profile in Control that shifts decisively based on resolution and quality settings. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 159.5 FPS, while at 4K Ultra, it drops to 43 FPS. This scaling pattern reveals a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but shows signs of CPU headroom at the lowest settings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate curve from 1080p to 4K follows a predictable trajectory, but the magnitude of the drop varies significantly by settings preset. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 (159.5 FPS) to 3840x2160 (80.6 FPS) represents a 49.5% reduction in average frame rate. This halving of performance across a 4x pixel increase suggests that even at Low settings, the GPU is the primary limiting factor at 4K, though the CPU still has influence at 1080p.

Moving to High settings, the drop from 1080p (100 FPS) to 1440p (77 FPS) is 23%, and then to 4K (52 FPS) is another 32.5% reduction from 1440p. The steeper decline from 1440p to 4K indicates that the RX 7700 XT's rendering pipeline becomes saturated as pixel count multiplies. At Ultra settings, the pattern accelerates: 1080p yields 88 FPS, 1440p drops to 68.9 FPS (21.7% reduction), and 4K falls to 43 FPS (37.6% reduction from 1440p). The increasing percentage drops at higher settings confirm that the GPU's compute resources—not the CPU—dictate performance ceilings as resolution climbs.

The Medium preset shows a similar trend, with 117.9 FPS at 1080p, 88.4 FPS at 1440p (25% drop), and 59.6 FPS at 4K (32.6% drop from 1440p). Across all presets, the largest proportional losses occur between 1440p and 4K, which points to the 12 GB GDDR6 memory buffer and 192-bit bus being sufficient for 1440p but increasingly strained at 4K, where texture and geometry demands expand. The data shows that 1080p High (100 FPS) is the practical ceiling for smooth gameplay, while 4K High (52 FPS) approaches the lower boundary of playability.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7700 XT's specifications explain much of this scaling behavior. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivers 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p but becomes a constraint at 4K Ultra. The GPU's 3456 shading units, 216 TMUs, and 96 ROPs process geometry and pixels at rates that translate to the measured FPS figures. The boost clock of 2544 MHz and game clock of 2171 MHz represent the sustained operating envelope; the 1435 MHz base clock is rarely relevant during gaming workloads.

The benchmark data for the GPU places it in the 73rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30097. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, scores 30109—a deltaPct of 0—meaning the RX 7700 XT is statistically tied with that card. Interestingly, the AMD Radeon RX 570 also appears as a rival with a score of 30158 (deltaPct -0.2), though that card's architectural differences make direct game comparisons misleading. The RTX 5070 Mobile trails at 29928 (deltaPct 0.6), suggesting the desktop RX 7700 XT holds a slight edge over that mobile part.

In Control, the GPU's compute throughput (35.17 TFLOPS FP32) and texture rate (549.5 GTexel/s) are the key contributors to the frame rates observed. The game's physics and particle effects rely heavily on these resources, which is why the Ultra preset at 4K (43 FPS) falls below the 60 FPS threshold—the GPU simply runs out of pixel throughput and memory bandwidth. The DirectX 12 Ultimate support and 54 RT cores are present in the specification, but the measured data does not isolate ray tracing performance, so no conclusion can be drawn about that feature's impact here.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Control?

A: The maximum measured average is 159.5 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The 1080p Ultra setting produces 88 FPS, and 1080p High yields 100 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 7700 XT compare to its nearest GPU rival?

A: The RX 7700 XT scores 30097 on average benchmarks, which is within 0.4% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (30109, deltaPct 0). The RX 570 scores 30158 (deltaPct -0.2), making the three cards effectively equivalent in synthetic tests.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 4K?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor at 3840x2160. At Low settings, 4K produces 80.6 FPS versus 159.5 FPS at 1080p Low—a 49.5% drop. The CPU's role diminishes as resolution increases because pixel throughput becomes the dominant workload.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested configurations?

A: This CPU-GPU combination ranks 717th out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the upper-middle portion of the database. The 88th percentile CPU score and 73rd percentile GPU score contextualize this ranking.

Q: How much difference does the settings preset make at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low yields 120.3 FPS, Medium produces 88.4 FPS, High delivers 77 FPS, and Ultra drops to 68.9 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 51.4 FPS, showing that settings have a substantial impact even at this resolution.

Q: Does the CPU's benchmark performance align with its in-game results?

A: The i5-14400F scores 21914 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 3093 in single-core, placing it in the 88th percentile of all CPUs. These strong scores support the observation that the CPU is not the primary constraint at higher resolutions, given its nearest rivals (i7-12800H, Ryzen 5 PRO 7645) have nearly identical average benchmark scores with deltaPct values of 0 and 0.2.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT occupies the 717th position out of 1636 tested combos in Control. This rank places it in the 56th percentile of all configurations, meaning roughly 44% of tested combos achieve better average frame rates in this game. The ranking reflects a balanced pairing where neither component drastically underperforms relative to the other.

To contextualize this rank, the CPU sits in the 88th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU sits in the 73rd percentile among all GPUs. The discrepancy between these two percentiles suggests the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing, which aligns with the resolution scaling data showing GPU-bound behavior at 1440p and 4K. If the CPU were paired with a stronger GPU, the combo rank would likely improve; conversely, the current rank indicates the GPU limits the overall performance headroom.

The measured FPS data confirms this interpretation. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 159.5 FPS, which is well above typical display refresh rates. At 4K Ultra, the 43 FPS result is below the 60 FPS target that many users expect. The rank of 717 out of 1636 suggests that while this combo is not at the top tier, it outperforms a majority of alternatives in the database, particularly those with weaker GPUs or older CPUs.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F provides the processing foundation for this combo. Its 10 cores and 16 threads operate at a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost up to 4.70 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process, includes 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core. This configuration supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory, though the measured FPS data does not specify which memory type was used in testing.

The CPU's benchmark results demonstrate strong multi-threaded capability: 21914 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, 9203 in Cinebench R20 multi-core, and 11209 in Geekbench multi-core. Single-thread performance is also solid, with 3093 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 2333 in Geekbench single-core. These scores place the i5-14400F in the 88th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32508. Its nearest rivals—the Intel Core i7-12800H (32513, deltaPct 0), AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (32446, deltaPct 0.2), AMD Ryzen 7 250 (32584, deltaPct -0.2), and Intel Core i7-13705H (32586, deltaPct -0.2)—are all within 0.2% of its score, indicating that the i5-14400F performs essentially identically to these alternatives in synthetic workloads.

In Control, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p Low, where the frame rate reaches 159.5 FPS. At this setting, the GPU has relatively little work per pixel, allowing the CPU to feed frames quickly. The jump from 1080p Low to 1080p Medium (117.9 FPS) is a 26.1% reduction, which reflects the GPU's increased workload rather than a CPU limitation. The fact that 1080p Ultra still produces 88 FPS suggests the CPU can sustain high frame rates even when the GPU is more heavily tasked, as long as the resolution remains modest.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data for this combo in Control covers four resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 159.5 (Low) to 88 (Ultra), with Medium at 117.9 and High at 100. The spread of 71.5 FPS between Low and Ultra demonstrates the significant impact of quality settings at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the values compress: Low produces 120.3 FPS, Medium 88.4 FPS, High 77 FPS, and Ultra 68.9 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread narrows to 51.4 FPS, showing that the GPU's workload becomes more consistent across settings as resolution increases. The 1440p results remain playable across all presets, with even Ultra staying above 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the data reveals the GPU's limits: Low yields 80.6 FPS, Medium 59.6 FPS, High 52 FPS, and Ultra 43 FPS. Only the Low preset maintains an average above 60 FPS, while Ultra falls below 45 FPS, which would be perceptibly stutter-prone in fast-paced action sequences. The transition from 1440p Ultra (68.9 FPS) to 4K Ultra (43 FPS) is a 37.6% drop, the steepest single-step reduction in the dataset.

Comparing across resolutions at a fixed setting, High shows the clearest scaling: 100 FPS at 1080p, 77 FPS at 1440p (23% drop), and 52 FPS at 4K (32.5% drop from 1440p). Low settings show similar proportions: 159.5 to 120.3 (24.6% drop) to 80.6 (33% drop from 1440p). These consistent patterns confirm that the RX 7700 XT's performance degrades predictably as pixel count increases, with the 4K resolution imposing a roughly one-third penalty over 1440p regardless of settings. The absence of min or max FPS values means the data reflects average performance only, which may mask frame time spikes that could affect perceived smoothness.