Control

Control on the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 shows a pairing where the GPU dominates the experience, delivering high frame rates across all tested configurations. The data indicates that this combo is firmly in the upper echelon for this title, ranking in the 80th position out of 1636 tested combinations, which places it in the top 5% of all recorded systems. The benchmark results show that the RTX 5080’s raw power is the primary driver of performance, while the Core i5-14400F provides sufficient support to avoid bottlenecking at most settings, though the gap between the CPU's capabilities and the GPU's headroom becomes apparent at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data clearly indicates that the High preset offers the most balanced experience for this hardware combination. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers an average of 167.9 FPS, which is a substantial 25.3 FPS higher than the Ultra preset's 142.6 FPS at the same resolution. The visual fidelity difference between High and Ultra in a game like Control is often marginal, but the performance cost is significant—a pattern that holds across all resolutions. For example, at 2560x1440, High achieves 123.1 FPS compared to Ultra's 107.4 FPS, representing a 15.7 FPS advantage.

For players prioritizing maximum frame rates, the Low preset provides the highest headroom, with an exceptional 250.6 FPS at 1080p and 195.1 FPS at 1440p. However, this comes at the cost of the atmospheric lighting and particle effects that define Control's visual identity. The Medium preset serves as a reasonable middle ground, offering 185.9 FPS at 1080p and 143.3 FPS at 1440p, but it still sacrifices more visual quality than High while only gaining 18.0 FPS over High at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the choice becomes more critical. The Ultra preset drops to 71.5 FPS, which is playable but not optimal for a fast-paced action game. High at 4K maintains 86.3 FPS, while Medium offers 97.1 FPS. The data suggests that High is the definitive recommendation across all resolutions, as it consistently provides the best trade-off between visual quality and performance, with the 4K result of 86.3 FPS being well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is the undisputed performance leader in this combination, as evidenced by its benchmark scores and the measured FPS data. The GPU features 10752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 render output units, operating at a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2617 MHz. This hardware configuration allows the card to achieve a Passmark G3D score of 36565, placing it in the 89th percentile of all GPUs.

The 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s, which is more than sufficient for Control's texture-heavy environments at any resolution. The GPU's FP32 compute performance of 56.28 TFLOPS ensures that the complex physics and destructible environments in Control are rendered without issue. The data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the RTX 5080 maintains 71.5 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU is rarely the limiting factor in this pairing.

The GPU's nearest rival in benchmark scores is the Intel Arc A570M, which has an average score of 58239 compared to the RTX 5080's 59188, a delta of 1.6%. This indicates that while the RTX 5080 is ahead, the performance margin over some competing parts is not always overwhelming, though in actual game tests the measured FPS shows this GPU is exceptionally well-suited to Control.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 achieves a combo rank of 80 out of 1636 tested combinations in Control. This places the system in the top 4.9% of all recorded hardware pairings for this game, which is a strong result given that Control is a demanding title that scales well with GPU power. The rank reflects the RTX 5080's dominance, as the CPU is a mid-range part that performs adequately but does not boost the system's standing.

The CPU itself has an average benchmark score of 32508, placing it in the 88th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-12800H, has a nearly identical average score of 32513, with a delta of 0%. This suggests that the i5-14400F provides comparable computational performance to a mobile i7 part, which is sufficient for gaming but not exceptional. The combo's high rank is therefore almost entirely attributable to the GPU's performance, which is further confirmed by the fact that the system achieves over 250 FPS at 1080p Low, a result that would be impossible with a weaker graphics card.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low delivers 250.6 FPS, Medium delivers 185.9 FPS, High delivers 167.9 FPS, and Ultra delivers 142.6 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a consistent decrease in performance, with a total drop of 108.0 FPS between the lowest and highest settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain highly playable: Low achieves 195.1 FPS, Medium achieves 143.3 FPS, High achieves 123.1 FPS, and Ultra achieves 107.4 FPS. The performance gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 87.7 FPS, which is slightly smaller than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is beginning to become more of a limiting factor at higher resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the data shows a more significant impact from the resolution increase: Low delivers 132.4 FPS, Medium delivers 97.1 FPS, High delivers 86.3 FPS, and Ultra delivers 71.5 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 60.9 FPS, which is the smallest absolute gap across all resolutions. This pattern demonstrates that while the RTX 5080 is powerful, the demands of 4K rendering reduce the relative performance difference between settings.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals important insights about the system's bottleneck characteristics. At the High preset, performance drops from 167.9 FPS at 1080p to 123.1 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 86.3 FPS at 4K. This represents a 48.6% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, which is a substantial decrease but not as severe as it would be in a more GPU-bound scenario.

The Low preset shows a similar pattern, with 250.6 FPS at 1080p dropping to 195.1 FPS at 1440p and 132.4 FPS at 4K, a 47.2% decrease. The fact that the percentage drop is nearly identical between Low and High settings suggests that the GPU is the primary limiting factor even at lower settings, as the CPU is not creating a bottleneck that would flatten the scaling curve.

However, the Ultra preset tells a slightly different story. At 1080p, Ultra delivers 142.6 FPS, which drops to 107.4 FPS at 1440p and 71.5 FPS at 4K, a 49.9% reduction. This slightly larger percentage drop at Ultra indicates that the more demanding settings are pushing the GPU harder, making it even more of a constraint. The data overall suggests that the Core i5-14400F is sufficient to feed the RTX 5080 at all tested settings, as the scaling is consistent and predictable, with no signs of a CPU-induced plateau at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain 144+ FPS?

A: At 1920x1080, the High preset achieves 167.9 FPS and Medium achieves 185.9 FPS, both exceeding 144 FPS. At 2560x1440, only the Low preset at 195.1 FPS and Medium at 143.3 FPS come close to or exceed 144 FPS, while High is below at 123.1 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5080 compare to its nearest benchmark rival?

A: The RTX 5080 has an average benchmark score of 59188, which is 1.6% higher than the Intel Arc A570M's 58239 score. It also outperforms the Intel Arc A580, which scores 57756, by 2.5%.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at 1080p?

A: The data shows no significant bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 250.6 FPS, and the scaling from 1080p to 4K is consistent (around 47-50% drop), indicating the GPU is the primary limiting component across all resolutions.

Q: What is the performance difference between High and Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p, High delivers 167.9 FPS while Ultra delivers 142.6 FPS, a difference of 25.3 FPS. At 1440p, the gap is 15.7 FPS (123.1 vs 107.4), and at 4K, it narrows to 14.8 FPS (86.3 vs 71.5).

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems?

A: The combo ranks 80th out of 1636 tested combinations for Control, placing it in the top 4.9% of all systems. This rank is driven primarily by the RTX 5080's performance.

Q: Is the 4K Ultra experience playable?

A: At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average FPS is 71.5, which is above the 60 FPS standard for playability. However, the High preset at 86.3 FPS provides a more comfortable margin for maintaining smooth gameplay.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. The CPU's 20 MB of shared L3 cache and support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory provide adequate bandwidth for feeding the RTX 5080. Its benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 and a single-core score of 3093, which are respectable figures for a mid-range desktop processor.

In the context of Control, the CPU's role is to handle the game's physics simulation and AI logic, which are not particularly demanding compared to the GPU's rendering workload. The i5-14400F's 10 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for this task, as evidenced by the fact that frame rates scale consistently with resolution changes. If the CPU were a bottleneck, we would expect to see diminishing returns at higher resolutions, but the data shows a linear relationship between pixel count and performance.

The CPU's Passmark multithread score of 25783 and single-thread score of 3723 indicate that it has adequate computational power for gaming. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645, has an average score of 32446, which is only 0.2% lower than the i5-14400F's 32508. This parity confirms that the CPU is not a weak link in this system, even though it is significantly less powerful than the GPU in terms of overall performance contribution. The data ultimately shows that the i5-14400F provides stable, consistent performance that allows the RTX 5080 to operate at its full potential in Control.