Control

Control pairs an Intel Core i5-14600K with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, a combination that lands in the 56th percentile of tested configurations for this title, ranking 2090th out of 3720 combos. The pairing of a modern 14-core processor with a Pascal-era flagship GPU creates a distinct performance profile: the CPU is rarely the bottleneck, but the graphics card dictates the experience at higher resolutions and settings.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-14600K brings 14 cores and 20 threads to Control, running at a 3.50 GHz base clock and boosting up to 5.30 GHz. This Raptor Lake Refresh part, built on Intel's 10 nm process, carries 24 MB of shared L3 cache and supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. For a game like Control, which is an Action Adventure title that leans heavily on GPU throughput for its physics-heavy environments and particle effects, the CPU's job is to feed the graphics card without stalling.

Benchmark data shows the i5-14600K is a high-end part relative to the broader CPU market, sitting in the 90th percentile of all processors. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24491 and single-core score of 2064 indicate substantial headroom for game logic and draw call processing. In the context of this specific combo, the CPU's capabilities are far ahead of what the GTX 1080 Ti can utilize at 1080p, meaning frame rates are rarely limited by processor throughput.

The nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark database confirm this positioning. The i5-14600K scores within 0.8% of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (which sits 0.8% higher) and within 0.7% of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX (which sits 0.7% lower). Against the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, the i5-14600K is 0.2% slower, and against the AMD EPYC 4345P, it is 0.3% faster. These are negligible differences that place the processor in a performance tier where Control's CPU demands are comfortably satisfied.

At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 133 FPS average, which suggests the CPU can push well beyond 130 frames per second when the GPU is not the limiting factor. The gap between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p — a drop from 133 FPS to 73 FPS — is almost entirely attributable to GPU load, not CPU limitations. The i5-14600K's 5.30 GHz boost clock and strong single-thread performance ensure that even the most demanding physics sequences in Control do not cause processor-bound stutters.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how settings impact playability for this combo. At 1080p, the Medium preset delivers 95 FPS average with a minimum of 80 FPS and a maximum of 109 FPS. This represents a 36% improvement over the High preset's 84 FPS and a 30% improvement over Ultra's 73 FPS. The Medium preset also maintains a frame time consistency that keeps the minimum above 60 FPS, which is critical for smooth gameplay in a title with fast-paced combat.

At 1440p, the Medium preset again emerges as the most balanced option. It produces 72 FPS average with a minimum of 61 FPS and a maximum of 82 FPS. This is the only 1440p preset where the minimum FPS stays above the 60 FPS threshold, making it the recommended choice for players using 1440p monitors. The High preset at 1440p drops to 64 FPS average, and while that is playable, the minimum FPS is not recorded, suggesting less consistency. Ultra at 1440p falls to 55 FPS average, which is below the ideal smoothness target.

At 4K, the situation changes dramatically. The Medium preset produces 48 FPS average with a minimum of 41 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold but still playable for a slower-paced Action Adventure game. The High preset at 4K yields 43 FPS, and Low yields 68 FPS. For the best experience at 4K, the data suggests using Low settings to achieve 68 FPS, but if visual fidelity is prioritized over frame rate, Medium at 48 FPS is the highest quality option that stays above 40 FPS.

The recommendation across all resolutions is to favor Medium settings. At 1080p and 1440p, Medium offers the best combination of average FPS and minimum FPS stability. At 4K, Medium is the highest preset that maintains a minimum above 40 FPS, though players who demand 60 FPS at 4K must drop to Low.

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

The FPS scaling across resolutions reveals a GPU-bound system. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 95 to 72, a 24% reduction. Moving from 1440p to 4K at Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 72 to 48, a 33% reduction. The total drop from 1080p Medium to 4K Medium is from 95 FPS to 48 FPS, a 49% decrease.

This scaling pattern is characteristic of a graphics card that is the primary performance limiter. The GTX 1080 Ti's 11 GB of GDDR5X memory and 484.4 GB/s memory bandwidth are being saturated as resolution increases. The pixel throughput demands at 4K — 3840x2160 resolution — are roughly four times that of 1080p, and the GPU's 139.2 GPixel/s pixel rate cannot keep up with the demands of Control's rendering at higher resolutions.

At Low settings, the scaling is slightly more favorable. 1080p Low yields 133 FPS, 1440p Low yields 101 FPS, and 4K Low yields 68 FPS. The percentage drops are 24% from 1080p to 1440p and 33% from 1440p to 4K, which are nearly identical to the Medium preset scaling. This consistency indicates that the GPU is the bottleneck regardless of settings, just at different absolute frame rates.

The CPU's role in this scaling is minimal. If the i5-14600K were the limiting factor, we would expect to see frame rates plateau at higher resolutions, but the data shows a continuous decline that tracks with pixel count. The 14-core processor maintains its performance headroom even at 4K, where the GPU is clearly struggling to maintain playable frame rates on the Ultra preset.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ranks 2090th out of 3720 tested combos in Control. That places it in the 56th percentile of all configurations, meaning roughly 44% of tested systems perform worse and 56% perform better. This is a mid-pack ranking that reflects the age of the GPU relative to the modern CPU.

The ranking makes sense when considering the GPU's position in the broader market. The GTX 1080 Ti sits in the 58th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15548. Its nearest rivals in the GPU database include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, which scores 15290 (1.7% lower), and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500, which scores 15679 (0.8% higher). The GTX 1080 Ti also trades within 0.2% of the AMD Radeon R9 M380 and 1.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580.

The combo's 2090th rank out of 3720 suggests that while the CPU is top-tier, the GPU holds the system back in Control. Many combos with newer GPUs and similar or weaker CPUs will outperform this pairing because Control is a visually demanding game that rewards GPU horsepower. The 56th percentile ranking is respectable for a GPU released in 2017, but it is far from the top of the leaderboard.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the defining component in this combo's Control performance. Built on the Pascal architecture with the GP102 chip, this GPU features 3584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 88 raster operations pipelines. It operates at a base clock of 1481 MHz and a boost clock of 1582 MHz, with memory running at 1376 MHz (11 Gbps effective).

The 11 GB of GDDR5X memory on a 352-bit bus provides 484.4 GB/s of bandwidth. Control is known for its destructible environments and volumetric effects, which can consume significant video memory. The 11 GB capacity is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at all settings, but at 4K Ultra, the memory bandwidth and capacity are likely strained, contributing to the 37 FPS average recorded at that configuration.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 11.34 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and a texture rate of 354.4 GTexel/s. These figures explain the frame rate deltas between settings. The jump from Medium to High at 1440p (72 to 64 FPS, an 11% drop) and from High to Ultra at 1440p (64 to 55 FPS, a 14% drop) reflects the increasing texture and shading workloads that the Pascal architecture must process.

The GTX 1080 Ti lacks dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores, which means Control's optional ray tracing features are not hardware-accelerated. The benchmark data does not include ray tracing measurements, but the standard rasterization performance is clear: the GPU delivers 133 FPS at 1080p Low, 95 FPS at 1080p Medium, and 73 FPS at 1080p Ultra. These numbers indicate a GPU that is well-suited for high-refresh-rate 1080p gaming but struggles to maintain 60 FPS at 4K except on the lowest settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The complete measured FPS dataset provides a thorough picture of this combo's performance envelope. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 133 FPS average, the Medium preset delivers 95 FPS average (with a minimum of 80 FPS and a maximum of 109 FPS), the High preset delivers 84 FPS average, and the Ultra preset delivers 73 FPS average. The 1080p results show a smooth degradation from Low to Ultra, with each settings tier costing approximately 10-12 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset produces 101 FPS average, the Medium preset produces 72 FPS average (with a minimum of 61 FPS and a maximum of 82 FPS), the High preset produces 64 FPS average, and the Ultra preset produces 55 FPS average. The 1440p results show a steeper drop from Low to Medium (29 FPS) compared to the 1080p results (38 FPS), indicating that the GPU is working harder at the higher resolution.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset yields 68 FPS average, the Medium preset yields 48 FPS average (with a minimum of 41 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS), the High preset yields 43 FPS average, and the Ultra preset yields 37 FPS average. The 4K results reveal that only the Low preset achieves a playable 60+ FPS average, while the Medium preset's minimum of 41 FPS indicates occasional dips below smooth gameplay thresholds.

The data shows that the GTX 1080 Ti is most comfortable at 1080p, where even the Ultra preset maintains a 73 FPS average. At 1440p, players must choose between Medium (72 FPS) and High (64 FPS) for a playable experience. At 4K, the GPU is clearly overmatched for high-quality settings, and only the Low preset provides a consistently smooth frame rate. The i5-14600K's performance headroom is never fully utilized in this game, as the GPU becomes the limiting factor across all tested configurations.