Control

Control pairs a 14-core Intel Core i5-14600K with an 8 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, a combination that lands near the bottom of the tested field for this title. The measured frame rates show a system that can handle the game at 1080p with adjusted settings, but struggles to maintain playable performance at higher resolutions. This analysis walks through the benchmark data to explain where this combo stands, what each component contributes, and how the numbers break down across every tested resolution and settings preset.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination ranks 1371 out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the lower 16th percentile of all systems evaluated. This is a low position, driven primarily by the GPU’s age relative to the game’s demands. The CPU, by contrast, is a strong performer: its average benchmark score of 49166 puts it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, and it sits within 1% of rivals like the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (49062, +0.2%), the Intel Core i5-14600KF (49367, -0.4%), the AMD EPYC 4345P (49595, -0.9%), and the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48698, +1%). The GPU tells a different story: its average benchmark score of 12331 places it in the 51st percentile of all GPUs, with rivals like the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 (12241, +0.7%), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M (12490, -1.3%), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER (12504, -1.4%), and the NVIDIA Tesla K20Xm (12547, -1.7%) all within roughly 2% of its score. The ranking implies the CPU is not the bottleneck; the GPU’s mid-pack position drags the whole combo down.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K provides 14 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This is a Raptor Lake-R architecture part built on Intel’s 10 nm process, with a 125 W TDP and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. Its benchmark results are strong across the board: Cinebench R23 multi-core scores 32881 and single-core scores 4642, while Geekbench multi-core reaches 15846 and single-core 2803. PassMark multi-thread tests show 38682, and single-thread tests show 4270. These numbers indicate the CPU has ample headroom for gaming workloads, including Control, which typically relies on a few cores for game logic and physics. The 14-core configuration ensures that background tasks and the game’s threaded systems do not starve the main rendering pipeline. However, the benchmark data shows that this CPU’s capability is largely untapped in this pairing; at 1080p Low, the combo hits 94.4 FPS, but at 4K Ultra it falls to 27.3 FPS, a drop that points to the GPU as the limiting factor rather than the processor. The CPU’s 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs reinforces that it is not the weak link.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is a Pascal-architecture card with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1506 MHz with a boost of 1683 MHz, and memory runs at 2002 MHz (8 Gbps effective). The card has 1920 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 107.7 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 6.463 TFLOPS. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 13498 in PassMark G3D and 6102 in GPU compute; Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores are 47490 and 47395, respectively. These figures place the GPU in the 51st percentile of all GPUs, meaning it is exactly average in the broader database. For Control, this translates to a card that can manage 1080p at moderate settings but lacks the raw throughput for high-resolution, high-detail work. The 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for the game’s textures at 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K Ultra preset (27.3 FPS) suggests the GPU’s compute and memory bandwidth are overwhelmed. The 51st percentile ranking, alongside rivals like the GTX 1650 SUPER and GTX 880M, shows this is a mid-tier card by modern standards.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). At 1080p, the combo ranges from 94.4 FPS on Low to 51.6 FPS on Ultra, with Medium at 71.9 FPS and High at 60.3 FPS. This is the only resolution where the system consistently delivers playable frame rates across all presets, though Ultra dips below the 60 FPS threshold. Moving to 1440p, the numbers drop: Low runs at 75.4 FPS, Medium at 54.5 FPS, High at 48.9 FPS, and Ultra at 41.6 FPS. Here, only Low stays above 60 FPS, and Ultra falls well below. At 4K, the situation worsens significantly: Low averages 50.3 FPS, Medium 36.6 FPS, High 31.7 FPS, and Ultra 27.3 FPS. No 4K preset reaches 60 FPS, and even Low struggles to hold 50 FPS. The data shows a clear pattern: the combo is viable for 1080p gaming, marginal for 1440p with reduced settings, and unsuitable for 4K beyond the lowest preset, which still fails to hit 60 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 94.4 FPS; at 4K Low, it drops to 50.3 FPS, a reduction of approximately 47%. For High settings, the drop is from 60.3 FPS at 1080p to 31.7 FPS at 4K, a 47% decrease. Medium settings show a similar trend: 71.9 FPS at 1080p falls to 36.6 FPS at 4K, a 49% reduction. Ultra settings drop from 51.6 FPS at 1080p to 27.3 FPS at 4K, a 47% decrease. These consistent reductions across all presets indicate that the GPU is the primary bottleneck, as resolution scaling impacts the pixel throughput that the GTX 1070 must handle. The CPU’s performance does not degrade with resolution, so the proportional FPS losses align with the GPU’s workload increase. The 1440p numbers sit roughly midway between 1080p and 4K, reinforcing this interpretation: at 1440p High, the combo hits 48.9 FPS, which is between the 1080p High (60.3) and 4K High (31.7). The data suggests that upgrading the GPU would yield the largest gains, while the CPU would remain underutilized.

FAQ

Q: What is the overall rank of this CPU and GPU combo in Control?

A: The combo ranks 1371 out of 1636 tested combinations, placing it in the lower portion of the database for this game.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i5-14600K has an average benchmark score of 49166, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, 0.4% lower than the Intel Core i5-14600KF, 0.9% lower than the AMD EPYC 4345P, and 1% higher than the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H.

Q: What is the best 1080p performance this combo can achieve?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo averages 94.4 FPS. With Ultra settings, it drops to 51.6 FPS, so 1080p Low is the only preset that comes close to high refresh rates.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Control?

A: No preset at 3840x2160 reaches 60 FPS. The highest average is 50.3 FPS on Low settings, while Ultra averages 27.3 FPS, indicating the GPU is insufficient for 4K.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 has an average benchmark score of 12331, which is 0.7% higher than the NVIDIA Quadro K4200, 1.3% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M, 1.4% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, and 1.7% lower than the NVIDIA Tesla K20Xm.

Q: Which component limits performance in this game?

A: The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K are consistent across all settings (roughly 47-49% reductions), which points to the GPU as the limiting factor, as resolution scaling primarily affects the graphics card’s workload.