Control

Control, an Action Adventure title released on 2019-08-26, paired with the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, produces a measured FPS profile that reveals how this combination scales across resolutions and settings. The data shows a system that remains fluid even at 4K Ultra, with the RTX 5080's 16 GB of GDDR7 memory and 960.0 GB/s bandwidth proving sufficient for the game's demands.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a consistent near-halving of frame rates when moving from 1080p to 4K. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 263.1 at 1920x1080 to 131.4 at 3840x2160. The same pattern holds at Ultra: 146.5 FPS at 1080p falls to 75.1 FPS at 4K. This proportional drop across all settings indicates the RTX 5080 is the limiting component at higher resolutions, with pixel count driving the workload rather than any CPU constraint.

The intermediate step from 1440p to 4K shows a steeper decline than 1080p to 1440p. At High settings, 128 FPS at 2560x1440 drops to 84.9 FPS at 4K, while the 1080p-to-1440p step goes from 164.5 to 128. This non-linear scaling is typical of GPU-bound rendering, where the 4K pixel count demands significantly more fill rate and shading work than 1440p.

The fact that the drop from 1080p to 4K is nearly identical in proportional terms across Low, Medium, High, and Ultra settings suggests that the game's rendering pipeline scales uniformly with resolution regardless of quality preset. This points to a GPU that is being saturated by resolution rather than by specific effects or features. The 4K results, ranging from 131.4 FPS on Low to 75.1 FPS on Ultra, confirm that the RTX 5080's rendering throughput is the primary constraint at this resolution.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show that the largest FPS penalty occurs when moving from Low to Medium. At 1080p, Low delivers 263.1 FPS while Medium drops to 186.2. At 4K, the same transition goes from 131.4 to 95.9. Subsequent steps are far cheaper: Medium to High at 1080p goes from 186.2 to 164.5, while High to Ultra goes from 164.5 to 146.5. At 4K, Medium to High goes from 95.9 to 84.9, and High to Ultra goes from 84.9 to 75.1.

For players seeking the best experience per the measured rows, Medium at 4K delivers 95.9 FPS, which is substantially higher than the 75.1 FPS of Ultra while still offering a meaningful visual upgrade over Low. At 1440p, even Ultra maintains 110.4 FPS, and at 1080p, all presets exceed 146 FPS. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for maximizing visual quality per frame-time cost, since it captures most of the visual uplift from Low while leaving substantial headroom.

However, the diminishing returns from Medium to Ultra mean that players with high-refresh displays can comfortably run Ultra at 1440p (110.4 FPS) or High at 4K (84.9 FPS). The measured results indicate that this combo never falls below 75.1 FPS in any tested configuration, making even the most demanding preset viable.

GPU Role

The RTX 5080 brings 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock of 2295 MHz boosts to 2617 MHz, with memory running at 1875 MHz (30 Gbps effective). The GPU's 10752 shading units and 112 ROPs provide the raw throughput needed for Control's particle-heavy combat sequences.

The GPU's benchmark percentile of 89 versus all GPUs places it in the upper tier, with its nearest rival, the Intel Arc A570M, sitting 1.6% behind in average score. The 4K results — 84.9 FPS at High and 75.1 FPS at Ultra — demonstrate that the 16 GB frame buffer and 960.0 GB/s bandwidth are more than adequate for this 2019 title.

The consistent near-halving of FPS from 1080p to 4K across all settings suggests the GPU's shading and rasterization throughput, not its memory subsystem, is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The 960.0 GB/s bandwidth appears sufficient, as the scaling pattern shows no sudden cliff that would indicate VRAM or bandwidth exhaustion. The GPU's 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 879.3 GTexel/s texture rate are evidently well-matched to Control's rendering demands.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 263.1 FPS on Low, 186.2 on Medium, 164.5 on High, and 146.5 on Ultra. These numbers indicate a CPU-GPU pairing that can push well beyond typical display refresh rates even at the highest quality preset.

At 2560x1440, the results are 196.8 FPS on Low, 138.8 on Medium, 128 on High, and 110.4 on Ultra. The 1440p Ultra figure remains above 100 FPS, making this resolution ideal for high-refresh gaming.

At 3840x2160, the combo produces 131.4 FPS on Low, 95.9 on Medium, 84.9 on High, and 75.1 on Ultra. Every 4K preset stays above 75 FPS, which is notable for a game with demanding visual effects.

The spread between Low and Ultra narrows as resolution increases, with the gap at 1080p being the widest and the gap at 4K being the narrowest. This compression indicates that at 4K, the GPU is the dominant constraint, while at 1080p, the CPU has more influence on the ceiling. The 1080p Low result of 263.1 FPS is particularly telling, as it shows the CPU can feed the GPU at very high frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

This CPU-GPU combination ranks 64th out of 1636 tested combos in Control. The CPU's percentile of 93 and GPU's percentile of 89 both sit in the upper range, and the combo rank reflects that alignment.

The rank of 64 suggests that while this is a high-performing pairing, there are other combinations that achieve higher average FPS in this game. Given that the RTX 5080's nearest rivals in the GPU benchmark are within 2.6% of its average score, the ranking is likely influenced by the CPU's position relative to other processors. The i5-14600K's nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, is only 0.2% ahead in average benchmark score, indicating that the CPU is competitive but not class-leading.

The fact that this combo sits at 64th rather than higher suggests that Control's engine may favor certain CPU architectures or that the 14600K's 14-core, 20-thread configuration is not fully utilized by a game from 2019. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (263.1) shows the CPU can drive very high frame rates, but the combo rank indicates other pairings extract even more from the same GPU.

FAQ

Q: What average FPS does this combo achieve at 4K Ultra in Control?

A: The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 75.1 FPS.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested CPU-GPU pairings in Control?

A: It ranks 64th out of 1636 tested combos.

Q: What is the largest FPS drop between consecutive settings at 1080p?

A: The largest drop is from Low to Medium, falling from 263.1 FPS to 186.2 FPS.

Q: What is the RTX 5080's memory bandwidth?

A: The GPU features 960.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth across a 256-bit bus with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory.

Q: What is the i5-14600K's boost clock?

A: The CPU has a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz.

Q: What is the lowest measured 4K result across all settings?

A: The lowest 4K result is 75.1 FPS at Ultra settings, with all other presets delivering higher frame rates.

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. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB L2 per core support the high frame rates seen at 1080p, where the CPU has more influence on performance. The CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32881 and single-core score of 4642 place it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs.

The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, is only 0.2% ahead in average benchmark score, while the Intel Core i5-14600KF is 0.4% behind. This tight grouping suggests the 14600K is well-positioned among high-end desktop processors. In Control, the measured 1080p Low result of 263.1 FPS indicates the CPU can feed the RTX 5080 effectively at lower resolutions where CPU overhead is more likely to surface.

At 4K, the CPU's role diminishes, as evidenced by the consistent near-halving of FPS from 1080p regardless of settings. The 14-core configuration with 20 threads is more than sufficient for a 2019 Action Adventure title, and the single-thread performance (4642 in Cinebench R23 single-core) ensures that the game's main thread is not a bottleneck. The data shows a balanced pairing where the CPU's capabilities are fully leveraged at 1080p and 1440p, while the GPU takes over as the primary constraint at 4K.