Control

The Intel Core i5-14600K and AMD Radeon RX 9060 combination delivers a playable but not flawless Control experience, with the strongest balance of smoothness and visual fidelity achieved at 1920x1080 on High settings, where the measured average of 82 FPS provides a clear margin over the 60 FPS threshold. At higher resolutions, the combo struggles to maintain that pace, with 2560x1440 High dropping to 62 FPS and 3840x2160 High falling to 42 FPS, indicating that the GPU becomes the primary constraint as pixel count rises. Benchmark results place this pairing at rank 1632 out of 2888 tested combos in this game, a mid-pack standing that reflects a capable CPU paired with a mid-range GPU that is adequate for 1080p and entry-level 1440p play but not for 4K.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows show a clear hierarchy across the four settings presets at each resolution, and the data favors High settings at 1920x1080 as the optimal experience. At 1920x1080, Low produces 130 FPS, Medium 92 FPS, High 82 FPS, and Ultra 71 FPS. The jump from Low to High costs 48 FPS, but the visual improvement from Low to High is substantial in a game like Control with its heavy use of reflective surfaces and dynamic lighting. High at 82 FPS leaves enough headroom for demanding scenes, while Ultra at 71 FPS is still playable but sacrifices 11 FPS for what is often a marginal increase in shadow and texture detail. Medium at 92 FPS is a safer choice for those who prioritize frame rate over image quality, but High delivers the best compromise.

At 2560x1440, High yields 62 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS baseline for smooth gameplay. Medium provides 70 FPS and Low 98 FPS, while Ultra drops to 54 FPS. For 1440p, Medium is the recommended preset because it offers 70 FPS, an 8 FPS improvement over High, while maintaining most of the visual features that matter in this game. High at 62 FPS is acceptable for players who tolerate occasional dips, but Medium provides a more consistent experience without a major visual penalty. Low at 98 FPS is only for competitive or frame-rate-sensitive users, as it strips out too much of the game’s atmosphere.

At 3840x2160, no preset achieves 60 FPS. Low reaches 66 FPS, Medium 47 FPS, High 42 FPS, and Ultra 36 FPS. Low is the only 4K option that clears the 60 FPS line, but it does so by disabling most of the graphical features that make Control visually striking. Medium at 47 FPS is playable for those who accept sub-60 frame rates, but the drop from Low to Medium is 19 FPS, a significant cost for moderate visual gains. High and Ultra at 42 and 36 FPS respectively are too slow for a smooth experience. The data suggests that 4K should be avoided with this combo unless the player is willing to use Low settings, which undermines the purpose of rendering at that resolution.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 is the deciding factor in this combo’s Control performance, as the measured FPS scaling across resolutions follows a GPU-bound pattern. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s, and its boost clock reaches 2990 MHz with a game clock of 2400 MHz. The 8 GB frame buffer is sufficient for Control at 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, where the game’s texture and geometry demands are within limits, but at 3840x2160 the higher memory pressure likely contributes to the steep FPS drop from 66 at Low to 42 at High.

The RX 9060’s compute capabilities, measured at 21.43 TFLOPS FP32, are modest by modern standards, and its benchmark percentile of 59 versus all GPUs places it in the lower half of the performance spectrum. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, posts an average benchmark score of 16129, which is only 0.7% higher than the RX 9060’s 16014 average, indicating that this AMD card trades blows with a last-generation mid-range GPU. In Control, this translates to 1080p performance that is solid but not exceptional, and 1440p performance that is borderline, with the 1440p High average of 62 FPS reflecting a GPU that is just barely adequate for that resolution.

The card’s 132 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest it is a power-efficient part, and its PCIe 5.0 x16 interface provides ample bandwidth for the game’s data streaming. The 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is a potential bottleneck at 4K, where the pixel fill rate of 191.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s are insufficient to maintain high frame rates. The measured data confirms this: the 4K Ultra average of 36 FPS is nearly half the 1080p Ultra average of 71 FPS, a scaling penalty that is steeper than expected and points to the GPU’s memory subsystem as a limiting factor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is not the limiting factor in this combo for Control, as its performance headroom far exceeds what the game requires at the tested settings. The CPU has 14 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, and its 24 MB of shared L3 cache provides ample capacity for game logic and physics calculations. In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-14600K achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24491 and a single-core score of 2064, both of which are strong results that place it at the 90th percentile versus all CPUs.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48698, -0.2% delta) and the AMD EPYC 4345P (48470, 0.3% delta), showing that the i5-14600K sits in a tight cluster of high-performing processors. For Control, which is a DirectX 12 title that can utilize multiple threads, the CPU’s 20 threads ensure that frame pacing remains stable even in combat-heavy scenes with destructible environments. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU bottlenecks, as the frame rate scales consistently with resolution changes, which is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario.

The i5-14600K’s boost clock of 5.30 GHz is particularly beneficial for Control’s single-threaded physics and AI routines, and the fact that the 1080p Low preset produces 130 FPS indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU with frames well beyond the GPU’s rendering capacity. Even at 1080p Ultra, where the GPU is under maximum load, the CPU maintains an average of 71 FPS without any reported minimum FPS drops, further confirming that the processor is not a constraint. The CPU’s 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier also suggest that it can be overclocked for additional headroom, though the data does not include overclocked results.

How This Combo Ranks

This combo ranks 1632 out of 2888 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the 56th percentile of all tested systems. That mid-pack positioning is consistent with the GPU’s own percentile rank of 59 versus all GPUs, while the CPU’s 90th percentile rank shows that the processor is outperforming the graphics card by a wide margin. The data indicates that this is a system where the GPU is the weak link, and the overall combo rank would improve significantly if the RX 9060 were replaced with a higher-tier GPU.

In the context of the nearest rivals, the RX 9060’s average benchmark score of 16014 is within 1% of the RTX 3060 Ti (16129) and the AMD Radeon RX 7700 (15852), meaning that this combo’s Control performance is representative of what those GPU pairings would deliver. The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX (48287, 0.7% delta) and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (48995, -0.8% delta), show that the i5-14600K is not significantly better or worse than its direct competitors in raw compute, so the ranking is primarily driven by the GPU.

The rank of 1632 out of 2888 is not a poor result, but it is not a strong one either. Many combos with higher-end GPUs will achieve significantly better frame rates in Control, while combos with weaker CPUs and comparable GPUs will likely land in a similar range. The data suggests that this pairing is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can deliver high frame rates at high settings, and that pushing to 1440p or 4K will result in compromises that push the combo further down the ranking.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Control?

A: The measured FPS data shows that 1920x1080 is the only resolution where all four settings presets exceed 60 FPS, with Low at 130 FPS, Medium at 92 FPS, High at 82 FPS, and Ultra at 71 FPS. 2560x1440 only achieves 60+ FPS on Low (98 FPS) and Medium (70 FPS), while 3840x2160 only reaches 60+ FPS on Low (66 FPS).

Q: How does the RX 9060 compare to its nearest GPU rival?

A: The Radeon RX 9060 has an average benchmark score of 16014, which is 0.7% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti’s score of 16129. It is also 0.3% to 2.1% faster than the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862), the AMD Radeon RX 7700 (15852), and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679).

Q: Is the Core i5-14600K a bottleneck in this game?

A: No. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24491 and single-core score of 2064, combined with its 14 cores and 20 threads, provide far more processing power than Control requires. The FPS scaling across resolutions follows a GPU-bound pattern, confirming the CPU is not limiting performance.

Q: What FPS can I expect at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured data shows a 2560x1440 High average of 62 FPS, with no minimum FPS recorded. This is just above the 60 FPS threshold, but players should expect occasional dips in demanding scenes.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM cause issues at 4K?

A: The 3840x2160 results show a sharp drop from Low (66 FPS) to Medium (47 FPS), a 19 FPS loss, which is consistent with the 8 GB frame buffer being exhausted as texture and geometry detail increases. The 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth also appears insufficient for 4K Ultra, which only averages 36 FPS.

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

A: This combo ranks 1632 out of 2888 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the lower half of the database. The GPU’s percentile rank of 59 versus all GPUs is the primary driver of this mid-pack position.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results across all presets. Low settings produce an average of 130 FPS, Medium 92 FPS with a minimum of 78 FPS and a maximum of 106 FPS, High 82 FPS, and Ultra 71 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 59 FPS, which means players must choose between maximum visual fidelity and high refresh rates. Medium at 92 FPS with a recorded minimum of 78 FPS is the most consistent preset, as the minimum FPS stays well above the 60 FPS line.

At 2560x1440, performance drops noticeably. Low averages 98 FPS, Medium 70 FPS with a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS, High 62 FPS, and Ultra 54 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 59 FPS is the only recorded minimum across all settings at this resolution, and it is just below the 60 FPS target, indicating that Medium is the edge of smooth gameplay. High at 62 FPS is marginal, while Ultra falls below the acceptable threshold for most players.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles to maintain playable frame rates. Low averages 66 FPS, which is the only preset above 60 FPS. Medium averages 47 FPS with a minimum of 40 FPS and a maximum of 54 FPS, High averages 42 FPS, and Ultra averages 36 FPS. The 4K Medium minimum of 40 FPS shows that even the middle preset cannot hold a smooth frame rate, and the overall 4K performance is not recommended for this pairing. The data reveals a steep performance cliff between Low and Medium at 4K, which suggests that the GPU’s 8 GB memory capacity and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth are the primary limits at this resolution.