Control

Control on the Intel Core i5-14600KF and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is a study in GPU-bound scaling. The data shows a 14-core CPU with a 5.30 GHz boost clock that never becomes the primary constraint, leaving the Radeon RX 6600 XT to dictate performance across all tested resolutions. The benchmark results indicate that the experience hinges entirely on the graphics card's capability, with the CPU providing ample headroom to push frame rates as high as the GPU allows.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frames per second across the four presets point to a clear verdict: High settings at 1920x1080 is the optimal balance for this combination. At this resolution, the High preset delivers 73.9 FPS, which is 9.3 frames ahead of the 64.6 FPS achieved on Ultra, while remaining visually superior to the 82.1 FPS of Medium and the 116.1 FPS of Low. The data suggests that the step from High to Ultra costs 9.3 FPS, a 12.6% performance penalty, for what is typically a marginal visual gain in this title.

For users prioritizing smoothness over fidelity, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 is the fallback option. The 62.3 FPS average at Medium on 1440p stays above the 60 FPS threshold, whereas High at this resolution drops to 55.1 FPS. The Ultra preset at 2560x1440 falls to 51 FPS, which is noticeable in fast-paced action. At 3840x2160, the results are less forgiving: only the Low preset achieves a playable 61.7 FPS, while Medium and High produce 41.6 FPS and 36.5 FPS respectively, making 4K gaming impractical for this pairing.

The recommendation is to start with High at 1080p. If the display is 1440p, the data supports dropping to Medium to maintain fluidity. The gap between Medium and High at 1440p is 7.2 FPS, which is less severe than the 13.7 FPS drop seen when moving from High to Ultra at the same resolution.

FAQ

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

A: Only at the lowest settings. The data shows 61.7 FPS on Low at 3840x2160, but this falls to 41.6 FPS on Medium and 36.5 FPS on High. The Ultra preset yields 35.7 FPS, indicating that 4K is only viable with significant graphical compromises.

Q: What is the best resolution for the highest visual quality without sacrificing smoothness?

A: 1920x1080 with the High preset provides the best combination, achieving 73.9 FPS. This is 9.3 FPS faster than Ultra at the same resolution, suggesting that High is the ceiling for quality while maintaining performance.

Q: How does the CPU affect performance in this game?

A: The Intel Core i5-14600KF appears to have minimal impact on the results. With 14 cores and 20 threads boosting to 5.30 GHz, the processor is not the limiting factor. The consistent frame rate drops from 1080p to 4K across all settings indicate the GPU is the bottleneck, not the CPU.

Q: Is the drop from 1080p to 1440p severe?

A: It depends on the preset. On High, the drop is from 73.9 FPS to 55.1 FPS, a 25.4% reduction. On Medium, the drop is from 82.1 FPS to 62.3 FPS. The Low preset drops from 116.1 FPS to 88.9 FPS, showing that the GPU is heavily stressed by the resolution increase.

Q: Should I use the Ultra preset?

A: The data suggests avoiding Ultra unless the resolution is low. At 1080p, Ultra delivers 64.6 FPS, which is playable but 9.3 FPS slower than High. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 51 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 35.7 FPS, making it the worst choice for frame rate stability.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested systems?

A: The combination ranks 1230 out of 1636 tested combos for this game, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. This ranking reflects the GPU's limitations at higher resolutions, despite the CPU's strength.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF is a 14-core processor with 20 threads, built on the Raptor Lake architecture with a 10 nm process. Its base clock of 3.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.30 GHz provide substantial single-thread performance, which is critical for game logic and physics. The benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32889 and a single-core score of 4643, placing it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs.

In Control, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU without becoming a bottleneck. The data supports this: the frame rates scale almost linearly with resolution, which is a hallmark of GPU-bound scenarios. At 1080p Low, the system hits 116.1 FPS, but this drops to 88.9 FPS at 1440p and 61.7 FPS at 4K. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the 1080p results would show less variation across settings, but the 51.5 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p proves the GPU is working hard.

The CPU's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help maintain consistent frame pacing, but the processor’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks—such as the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X with a 0.6% higher average score—do not indicate any advantage in this game. The i5-14600KF’s 93rd percentile ranking versus all CPUs suggests it is more than adequate for this title, leaving the RX 6600 XT as the decisive component.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1230 out of 1636 tested combinations in the database for Control, placing it in the 25th percentile of all systems. This is a modest ranking, driven primarily by the GPU's position in the market. The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT sits in the 71st percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27985, which is nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (deltaPct of 0.1%) and slightly behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (deltaPct of -0.9%).

The CPU, by contrast, ranks in the 93rd percentile, with an average benchmark score of 49367. This discrepancy highlights a significant pairing imbalance: the processor is capable of driving much higher frame rates, but the GPU cannot keep pace. The combo rank of 1230 reflects this mismatch, as the system's performance in Control is constrained by the graphics card at every resolution above 1080p Low.

When compared to other combos in the database, this pairing is not competitive at 4K, where it falls below 60 FPS on all but the Low preset. At 1440p, it only manages to exceed 60 FPS on the Low and Medium presets. The ranking suggests that users seeking higher frame rates in Control would need a more powerful GPU to match the CPU's capabilities.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals a steep decline as resolution increases, confirming that the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is the primary performance limiter. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 73.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 55.1 FPS at 2560x1440, a 25.4% reduction. Moving to 3840x2160 further reduces the average to 36.5 FPS, a 50.6% drop from the 1080p baseline.

This scaling pattern is consistent across all presets. On Low settings, the system achieves 116.1 FPS at 1080p, 88.9 FPS at 1440p, and 61.7 FPS at 4K. The relative drop from 1080p to 4K is 46.9% on Low, 50.6% on High, and 44.7% on Ultra. The uniformity of these reductions indicates that the GPU's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors, not the CPU or system memory.

The data also shows that the gap between 1440p and 4K is larger than the gap between 1080p and 1440p for most presets. For example, on Medium, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 19.8 FPS, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 20.7 FPS. This suggests that the RX 6600 XT’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the higher pixel counts, leading to diminishing returns as resolution increases.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured results provide a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 116.1 FPS on Low, 82.1 FPS on Medium, 73.9 FPS on High, and 64.6 FPS on Ultra. The spread of 51.5 FPS between the lowest and highest presets shows that the GPU has significant headroom at this resolution, but the CPU is not limiting the frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 88.9 FPS on Low, 62.3 FPS on Medium, 55.1 FPS on High, and 51 FPS on Ultra. The drop from High to Ultra is only 4.1 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset’s additional effects are not heavily taxing the GPU at this resolution, but the overall performance is starting to struggle.

At 3840x2160, the results are 61.7 FPS on Low, 41.6 FPS on Medium, 36.5 FPS on High, and 35.7 FPS on Ultra. The difference between High and Ultra is a mere 0.8 FPS, indicating that the GPU is fully saturated and the preset settings have minimal impact on the final frame rate. The 4K results confirm that this pairing is not suited for high-fidelity gaming at this resolution, with only the Low preset reaching a playable 60 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a 7 nm process and features 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units. Its boost clock of 2589 MHz and game clock of 2359 MHz provide a solid foundation for 1080p gaming, but the 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes a bottleneck at higher resolutions.

The GPU's benchmark results show a PassMark G3D score of 16461 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1804, placing it in the 71st percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, has a nearly identical average score (deltaPct of 0.1%), while the RTX 3070 is slightly ahead (deltaPct of -0.9%). This data positions the RX 6600 XT as a mid-range card that excels at 1080p but struggles with 1440p and 4K.

In Control, the GPU's role is decisive. The frame rate differences between presets at 1080p show that the card can handle the load, but the 50% performance drop from 1080p to 4K on High settings highlights its memory bandwidth limitations. The 10.60 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is sufficient for the game's physics and effects, but the 128-bit memory interface cannot feed the GPU fast enough at higher resolutions, leading to the observed scaling pattern. The 32 ray accelerators do not provide a meaningful advantage in this title, as the measured data shows no ray tracing-specific benchmarks.