Control

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti in Control delivers a playable experience primarily at 1080p, with the data showing a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate. This combination ranks in the 15th percentile of tested combos, indicating that while it is not a top-tier performer, it holds its own for 1080p gaming in this specific title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for Control reveals a distinct pattern across resolutions and presets, making the optimal settings choice highly dependent on the target display resolution. At 1920x1080, the GTX 1660 Ti shows its strength, with the Low preset achieving an average of 91 FPS, which is excellent for fast-paced action. However, the jump to the High preset drops the average to 57 FPS, and the Ultra preset reduces it further to 50 FPS. The Medium preset, with an average of 64 FPS and a minimum of 55 FPS, appears to be the sweet spot for a smooth experience at 1080p, providing a 12% performance increase over High while likely offering a visually similar experience to High with only minor reductions in some effects.

For users with a 2560x1440 monitor, the data suggests that the Low preset is the only viable option for consistently smooth gameplay, delivering an average of 69 FPS. The Medium preset at this resolution falls to 49 FPS, which is still playable but may feel less fluid during intense combat sequences, especially considering the minimum FPS dips to 41. The High and Ultra presets at 1440p, with averages of 43 and 38 FPS respectively, are best avoided if frame rate consistency is a priority.

At 3840x2160 (4K), the combination is severely limited by the GPU. Even the Low preset only manages an average of 46 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target most gamers prefer. The Medium preset drops to 33 FPS, and the High and Ultra presets fall to 29 and 25 FPS respectively, making them effectively unplayable for a smooth experience. The data indicates that 4K gaming with this combo is not recommended, as even the lowest settings fail to provide a consistently fluid frame rate.

The best experience per the measured rows is achieved by selecting the Medium preset at 1920x1080. This configuration provides an average FPS of 64, which is well above the playable threshold, and the minimum FPS of 55 ensures that frame drops remain manageable during action-heavy scenes. For a more stable experience at the cost of some visual quality, the Low preset at 1080p offers a significant performance boost to 91 FPS, which would be ideal for competitive play or for users who prioritize high refresh rates.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution to play Control with this CPU and GPU combo?*

A: The data clearly shows that 1920x1080 (1080p) is the optimal resolution. At 1080p, the combo achieves playable frame rates across all settings, with the Low preset hitting 91 FPS and the Medium preset at 64 FPS. At 1440p, only the Low preset remains consistently playable at 69 FPS, while 4K results in sub-60 FPS performance across all settings.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to the High preset at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset produces an average of 50 FPS, which is 7 FPS lower than the High preset's 57 FPS average. This represents a 12% performance drop. The data suggests that the visual improvement from High to Ultra may not justify the frame rate cost, making High a more balanced choice.

*Q: Is this combo capable of 60 FPS gaming in Control?*

A: Yes, but only at 1080p and only with the Low or Medium presets. The Low preset at 1080p achieves an average of 91 FPS, and the Medium preset achieves 64 FPS. The High preset falls just short at 57 FPS, and all presets at 1440p and 4K fail to reach 60 FPS.

Q: What happens to the frame rate when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: The performance penalty is substantial. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 91 at 1080p to 69 at 1440p, a 24% decrease. The Medium preset drops from 64 to 49 FPS, a 23% decrease. This indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck as resolution increases.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 Ti's performance in this game compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The GTX 1660 Ti, with an average benchmark score of 7723, is slightly ahead of its nearest rivals. It outperforms the AMD Radeon 540 by 0.7%, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 by 1.9%, the AMD Radeon R7 250 by 2.2%, and the Intel Arc A310 by 2.3%. This suggests it is a marginally stronger performer than those specific alternatives.

Q: Given the results, is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the limiting factor. The Intel Core i5-14600K has 14 cores and 20 threads, which is a high-end configuration, while the GTX 1660 Ti is an older, end-of-life GPU. The significant frame rate drops with increased resolution, from 91 FPS at 1080p Low to 46 FPS at 4K Low, indicate that the GPU's rendering capabilities are being saturated, while the CPU has ample headroom.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for Control, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti holds a rank of 3176 out of 3720 tested combos. This places it in the lower 15th percentile, meaning that approximately 85% of other tested CPU-GPU pairings deliver higher frame rates in this game. This ranking is a direct reflection of the GPU's limitations; the GTX 1660 Ti's overall benchmark percentile is 41, indicating it performs better than only 41% of all GPUs in the database.

The CPU, in contrast, is a top-tier performer, ranking in the 90th percentile of all CPUs. This stark contrast highlights the bottleneck created by the GPU. The combo's rank of 3176 is a result of the GPU's inability to keep up with the CPU's potential. The data shows that while the i5-14600K is more than capable of handling the game's physics and logic, the GTX 1660 Ti struggles to render frames at higher resolutions and settings, dragging the overall combo performance down. This pairing is a classic case of a modern, powerful CPU being held back by an older, mid-range GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of the combo's performance across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows:

• Low: 91 FPS average
• Medium: 64 FPS average, with a minimum of 55 FPS and a maximum of 74 FPS
• High: 57 FPS average
• Ultra: 50 FPS average

At 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly:

• Low: 69 FPS average
• Medium: 49 FPS average, with a minimum of 41 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS
• High: 43 FPS average
• Ultra: 38 FPS average

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles to maintain playable frame rates:

• Low: 46 FPS average
• Medium: 33 FPS average, with a minimum of 28 FPS and a maximum of 38 FPS
• High: 29 FPS average
• Ultra: 25 FPS average

The data shows a consistent pattern: the difference between Low and Medium is generally smaller than the difference between Medium and High, suggesting diminishing returns on visual quality for the performance cost. The minimum FPS data, available for the Medium preset, shows that frame drops are more pronounced at higher resolutions, with the 4K minimum of 28 FPS being a 15% drop from the average, compared to a 14% drop at 1440p and a 14% drop at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a steep performance curve, indicating that the GPU is the principal bottleneck. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at the Low preset results in a frame rate drop from 91 to 69 FPS, a 24% decrease. The same resolution step at the Medium preset shows a 23% decrease, from 64 to 49 FPS. This is a significant performance hit for a 1.78x increase in pixel count.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is even more punishing. At the Low preset, the drop is from 69 to 46 FPS, a 33% decrease. The Medium preset drops from 49 to 33 FPS, a 33% decrease as well. This non-linear scaling is a classic sign of GPU memory bandwidth or computational limits being reached. The GTX 1660 Ti has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is likely insufficient to handle the texture and geometry loads at 4K, causing a more severe performance penalty than what would be expected from pixel count alone.

The data suggests that the i5-14600K is not the limiting factor in this scaling. A CPU-bound scenario would show less of a performance drop with increased resolution, as the CPU's workload remains relatively constant. Instead, the sharp drops in FPS at higher resolutions point directly to the GTX 1660 Ti's inability to render frames quickly enough, making it the clear performance bottleneck in this configuration.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor from the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Its benchmark scores are exceptionally high, including a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24491 and a single-core score of 2064, placing it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs. This indicates that the processor has substantial computational headroom for gaming workloads.

In Control, which is an action-adventure title with complex physics and AI, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, object interactions, and draw calls. The i5-14600K's high single-thread performance, evidenced by its Geekbench single-core score of 2491, is particularly important for maintaining consistent frame pacing. However, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this combo. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar frame rates across different resolutions, as the CPU's workload would be constant. Instead, the data shows a clear and significant drop in FPS as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU bottleneck.

The CPU's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR5 memory also contribute to its ability to feed data to the GPU quickly. Yet, the GTX 1660 Ti, with its 288.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth and 5.437 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, simply cannot keep up with the CPU's output. The result is that the i5-14600K is underutilized in this pairing, with its potential being capped by the older GeForce 10-series GPU. The data strongly suggests that upgrading the GPU would yield far greater performance gains in Control than any CPU upgrade.