Control

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX delivers a formidable Control experience, but the performance curve across resolutions reveals a system that is heavily optimized for high-refresh-rate 1440p gaming. At 1080p, the combination is almost absurdly fast, with frame rates that suggest the CPU is doing the heavy lifting; at 4K, the GPU takes over as the primary bottleneck, though the results remain highly playable. The data indicates a well-balanced pairing where neither component is drastically holding the other back, but the scaling behavior offers clear insights into where each part’s strengths lie.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a classic resolution-scaling trend, with the most significant drop occurring between 1440p and 4K. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 143.1 FPS at 1080p to 106.1 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of roughly 26%. The jump to 4K is more severe, with the average plummeting to 70.6 FPS, which represents a 33% decline from the 1440p figure. This pattern strongly indicates that the RX 7900 XTX is the limiting factor at 4K, as the pixel throughput demand outstrips what the GPU can deliver, even with its substantial 960.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

At 1080p, the story is different. The difference between Low and High settings is relatively modest, with Low hitting 222.6 FPS and High reaching 143.1 FPS. This suggests that at this resolution, the CPU and its 14 cores are capable of feeding the GPU enough data to keep it busy, but the frame rates are so high that the game’s engine overhead becomes a factor. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings (222.6 FPS to 171.8 FPS) shows a 23% drop, which is less severe than the High setting drop, implying that the GPU is still not fully saturated at these lower graphical loads.

The 4K data reveals the true GPU bottleneck. At 4K Low, the system still manages 113.3 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, it falls to 65.5 FPS. This 42% reduction from Low to Ultra at the same resolution shows that the RX 7900 XTX’s rendering capabilities are being taxed heavily by the higher graphical fidelity, particularly with its 61.39 TFLOPS of FP32 performance being pushed to its limits. The data suggests that for competitive or high-refresh-rate play, 1440p is the sweet spot, while 4K is best reserved for visually demanding single-player sessions where 60 FPS is the target.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy of performance across presets, and the data suggests that High settings offer the best balance of visual quality and frame rate headroom. At 1440p, High delivers 106.1 FPS, which is only 12% lower than Medium’s 118.2 FPS but provides a substantial visual upgrade. The step to Ultra at 1440p drops the average to 93.9 FPS, which is still smooth, but the 11% performance penalty over High may not justify the marginal visual gains in a fast-paced action game.

At 1080p, the choice is less critical. High settings at 143.1 FPS are well above the threshold for high-refresh-rate monitors, and even Ultra at 124.5 FPS leaves plenty of headroom. For players using 4K displays, the data suggests that Medium settings (79.7 FPS) are the practical ceiling for maintaining a consistent 60+ FPS experience, as High (70.6 FPS) and Ultra (65.5 FPS) dip dangerously close to the 60 FPS line, which could result in noticeable frame pacing issues during intense combat sequences.

The Low preset is only recommended for extreme competitive play, where the 222.6 FPS at 1080p and 171.8 FPS at 1440p provide a significant advantage in input latency. However, the visual compromise is severe, and the data shows that the GPU is capable of much more. The optimal configuration is High at 1440p, which leverages the RX 7900 XTX’s 24 GB of GDDR6 memory and 192 ROPs to deliver a premium experience without sacrificing responsiveness.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly correlate with the measured performance. With 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, the card has ample bandwidth (960.0 GB/s) to handle Control’s texture streaming demands at 4K, which is evident in the relatively small performance gap between 4K Medium (79.7 FPS) and 4K High (70.6 FPS). The GPU’s 96 ray-tracing cores and 6144 shading units are also put to work, though Control’s implementation is not as demanding as newer titles.

The clock speeds play a significant role in the scaling behavior. The boost clock of 2498 MHz and game clock of 2365 MHz allow the card to maintain high utilization across all resolutions, but the thermal and power constraints (355 W TDP) become apparent at 4K Ultra, where the frame rate drops to 65.5 FPS. The GPU’s 85th percentile ranking among all GPUs, based on an average benchmark score of 44019, places it well above most competitors, and the nearestRivals data shows it is 0.8% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile and 1.6% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro M6000, though it trails the AMD Radeon Pro 580 by 0.4%.

The benchmark scores reinforce the GPU’s capabilities. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6841 and Passmark G3D score of 31238 indicate strong DirectX 12 performance, which is the primary API for Control. The Vulkan score of 192597 suggests that if the game were to use that API, the results would be even better. The GPU’s memory bandwidth is particularly beneficial at 4K, as the 24 GB capacity prevents any texture-related stuttering, even at Ultra settings.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this pairing of the Core i5-14600K and RX 7900 XTX ranks 238th out of 1636 combos for Control, placing it in the top 15% of all tested systems. This rank is impressive given that the CPU is not a flagship model, but the GPU’s high percentile (85th) compensates for any CPU limitations. The combo’s performance is consistent with the individual component benchmarks, where the CPU’s average score of 49166 and the GPU’s average score of 44019 both sit in the upper echelon of their respective categories.

The rank suggests that this system outperforms a significant majority of tested configurations, but it is not at the absolute top tier. The data implies that systems with higher-end CPUs, such as those in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, would achieve better frame rates at 1080p, where the CPU is more influential. However, at 4K, the GPU’s role becomes dominant, and the combo’s rank is likely limited by the fact that some configurations use more powerful GPUs like the RTX 4090, which would push the frame rates higher.

The deltaPct values from the nearestRivals provide context for the CPU’s performance. The i5-14600K is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and 1% ahead of the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, but 0.4% behind the i5-14600KF and 0.9% behind the AMD EPYC 4345P. These margins are negligible, indicating that the CPU is not a limiting factor in most scenarios. The combo’s rank is therefore primarily determined by the GPU, and the data shows that the RX 7900 XTX is a strong performer for this title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, and its contribution to Control’s performance is most evident at lower resolutions. With a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, the CPU can deliver high single-thread performance, which is critical for game logic and physics. The Passmark single-thread score of 4270 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4642 indicate strong per-core performance, and this is reflected in the 1080p results where the frame rates are exceptionally high.

The CPU’s 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency, which is beneficial for Control’s open-world environments. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 222.6 FPS, which is likely near the engine’s maximum frame rate limit. At 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 124.5 FPS, but this is still a 43% reduction from Low, indicating that the GPU is starting to become more involved even at 1080p.

The CPU’s 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49166, places it in the top tier of processors. The nearestRivals data shows it is competitive with the Ryzen 9 5950X (0.2% ahead) and i5-14600KF (0.4% behind), but the core count difference (14 vs. 16 for the Ryzen) does not translate to a significant advantage in this game. The CPU’s role becomes less critical at 4K, where the GPU’s rendering load dominates, but the data still shows that the i5-14600K is more than capable of keeping the RX 7900 XTX fed, as evidenced by the 4K Low result of 113.3 FPS, which is not CPU-limited.