Control

Control, Remedy’s 2019 action-adventure, presents a demanding environment for the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti pairing. The benchmark data reveals a configuration that is consistently playable at 1080p but struggles to maintain smooth frame rates as resolution climbs, with the GPU emerging as the definitive bottleneck. The measured rows provide a clear narrative of how this older graphics card interacts with a modern mid-range processor in a game known for its physics-heavy combat and destructible environments.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The frame rate data across resolutions paints a stark picture of GPU-bound performance. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo achieves an average of 60 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same preset, the average drops to 42.4 FPS, a reduction of roughly 29%. The jump to 3840x2160 is even more punishing, with the average plummeting to 29.3 FPS. This represents a 51% loss from the 1080p baseline, indicating that the pixel throughput demands of 4K are overwhelming the GTX 1660 Ti.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings. At Low settings, the frame rate falls from 92.9 FPS at 1080p to 70.9 FPS at 1440p, and then to 45.3 FPS at 4K. The delta between 1440p and 4K remains substantial, highlighting that the GPU’s fillrate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints. The 6 GB VRAM buffer and 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth are likely saturated at higher resolutions, causing the steep performance cliffs.

This behavior strongly suggests the CPU is not the limiting factor in this game for this combo. The i5-14400F, with its 10 cores and 16 threads, can feed the GPU adequately at lower resolutions, as evidenced by the 92.9 FPS result at 1080p Low. The consistent, large frame rate drops with each resolution increase are the classic signature of a GPU bottleneck. The data implies that for 1440p gaming, users must make significant compromises in graphical fidelity to stay within a playable range, while 4K is largely out of reach for smooth gameplay.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain a 60 FPS average?

A: At 1920x1080, the combo achieves a 60 FPS average on High settings and 68.6 FPS on Medium, making 1080p the only resolution where a stable 60 FPS target is consistently met.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 Ti perform at 1440p Ultra settings?

A: The measured data shows an average of 37.6 FPS at 2560x1440 with Ultra settings, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay but playable for slower-paced moments.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at 4K resolution?

A: No. The frame rate at 3840x2160 drops to 28.8 FPS on Ultra, but this is due to the GPU’s inability to process the pixel load, not a lack of CPU processing power.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: The average frame rate increases from 50.8 FPS on Ultra to 92.9 FPS on Low, a substantial 82.9% performance gain, indicating that settings have a massive impact on the GPU workload.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations for Control?

A: The combo ranks 1420 out of 1636 tested combos, placing it in the lower percentile of performance for this specific game.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration and how does it affect 4K performance?

A: The GTX 1660 Ti features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus with 288.0 GB/s bandwidth, which is insufficient for the high-resolution textures and buffers required at 3840x2160, leading to the sub-30 FPS averages.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy for optimizing the experience. For a smooth 60 FPS target at 1920x1080, the High preset is the optimal choice, delivering exactly 60 FPS. Dropping to Medium yields a slight headroom with 68.6 FPS, which could be beneficial for maintaining frame times during intense combat sequences with heavy physics calculations. The Ultra preset, at 50.8 FPS, is borderline; the 9.2 FPS loss from High may not justify the marginal visual uplift.

At 2560x1440, the data suggests that the Low preset is the only reliable option for high refresh rate play, achieving 70.9 FPS. The Medium preset at 50.7 FPS is a viable compromise for those prioritizing visual quality over frame rate, while High (42.4 FPS) and Ultra (37.6 FPS) are best reserved for single-player exploration where a lower frame rate is acceptable. For 3840x2160, the results are stark: even the Low preset only manages 45.3 FPS, and Ultra is nearly unplayable at 28.8 FPS. This resolution is not recommended for this combo unless the user is willing to accept significant stutter.

The most balanced experience is found at 1080p with High settings, as it provides a perfect 60 FPS lock. If frame rate stability is paramount, Medium offers a safety margin. The data indicates that this GPU is fundamentally a 1080p-class part for Control, with 1440p requiring significant sacrifices and 4K being impractical.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame field places this specific pairing at rank 1420 out of 1636 tested configurations for Control. This percentile is notably low, indicating that the GTX 1660 Ti is a significant drag on the system's overall capability. The GPU itself holds a percentileVsAllGpus of 55, meaning it sits just above the median of all GPUs in the database, but its performance in this specific title is clearly subpar for modern standards.

The CPU, by contrast, is a high performer. The i5-14400F has a percentileVsAllCpus of 88, and its avgBenchmarkScore of 32508 places it in a dead heat with rivals like the Intel Core i7-12800H (32513) and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (32446). This disparity in component rankings reinforces the bottleneck analysis: the CPU is capable of far more, but the GPU cannot translate that potential into high frame rates in Control. The low combo rank suggests that many other, likely balanced, configurations deliver a better experience.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is the clear performance limiter in this pairing. Its specifications, including 1536 shading units, 48 ROPs, and a 192-bit memory bus, are from the Turing architecture but lack the RT and Tensor cores of its more expensive siblings. The boost clock of 1770 MHz is respectable, but the 6 GB frame buffer appears to be a critical weakness in Control.

The measured FPS numbers directly correlate with the GPU's capabilities. The steep drop from 60 FPS at 1080p High to 42.4 FPS at 1440p High suggests that the memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s is insufficient to handle the increased data throughput. At 4K, the 28.8 FPS average on Ultra settings is a clear indicator that the GPU is overwhelmed by the pixel count and texture data. The FP32 performance of 5.437 TFLOPS is modest, and the pixel rate of 84.96 GPixel/s limits how quickly the card can fill the screen. The data implies that the GTX 1660 Ti is a capable 1080p card, but its age and memory configuration prevent it from scaling effectively to higher resolutions in a demanding title like Control.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a comprehensive view of the combo's performance envelope. At 1920x1080, the settings scale from 92.9 FPS (Low), 68.6 FPS (Medium), 60 FPS (High), to 50.8 FPS (Ultra). This 42.1 FPS spread between Low and Ultra highlights the GPU's sensitivity to graphical load.

At 2560x1440, the results are: 70.9 FPS (Low), 50.7 FPS (Medium), 42.4 FPS (High), and 37.6 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 33.3 FPS, suggesting that at this resolution, the GPU is starting to hit other limits, possibly related to memory capacity or bandwidth saturation. The transition from 1080p to 1440p at Ultra results in a 13.2 FPS loss, while the same transition at Low results in a 22 FPS loss, indicating that the higher settings are already primarily bound by the GPU's compute and fillrate capabilities.

At 3840x2160, the numbers collapse further: 45.3 FPS (Low), 30.8 FPS (Medium), 29.3 FPS (High), and 28.8 FPS (Ultra). The performance difference between Medium, High, and Ultra at 4K is minimal (2 FPS), which strongly suggests that the GPU is completely bottlenecked by its memory subsystem and pixel throughput. The 4K Low preset is the only one that approaches playability, but even it fails to reach a stable 60 FPS. The data across all resolutions shows a clear pattern of diminishing returns as settings increase, with the GPU unable to maintain a consistent workload at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F provides a strong foundation for this system, but its performance is largely untapped in Control due to the GPU bottleneck. With 10 cores (likely a mix of performance and efficient cores) and 16 threads, it offers substantial multi-threaded capability, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 and Geekbench multi-core score of 11209. Its single-thread performance is also robust, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3093.

The CPU's clock speeds, with a base of 2.50 GHz and a boost of 4.70 GHz, are sufficient for gaming workloads. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache is ample for feeding the GPU. However, the benchmark results show that the CPU is not the limiting factor. The fact that the frame rate at 1080p Low (92.9 FPS) is significantly higher than at 1080p Ultra (50.8 FPS) indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint, as a CPU bottleneck would show less variance across settings.

The data implies that this processor has headroom to support a more powerful GPU in the future. Its avgBenchmarkScore of 32508 is nearly identical to the Intel Core i7-12800H (32513), suggesting comparable performance in synthetic tests. In Control, the CPU's role is to maintain a stable frame delivery to the GPU, which it does admirably, but the GTX 1660 Ti simply cannot keep up with the demands of higher resolutions and settings. This pairing represents a classic case of a modern CPU being held back by an older, lower-tier GPU.