Control

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT delivers a solid, if not spectacular, showing in Control, landing at rank 913 out of 1636 tested combinations. This places it near the middle of the pack, suggesting a balanced pairing where neither component is drastically bottlenecking the other. The data reveals a system that can handle the game's demanding physics and particle effects at high frame rates, particularly at 1080p and 1440p, but struggles to maintain smooth performance at 4K Ultra settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain a 60 FPS average?

A: At 1440p with High settings, the combo achieves an average of 69.6 FPS, which is the only configuration at that resolution to clear 60 FPS. Even at 1080p with Ultra settings, the average is 78.6 FPS, making 1440p High the optimal balance for a consistent 60+ FPS experience.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from Ultra to High settings at 1440p?

A: The measured data shows a 10.1 FPS increase, with average frame rates rising from 59.5 FPS at Ultra to 69.6 FPS at High. This is a roughly 17% improvement in average FPS, representing a significant boost for a single step down in visual quality.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU appear to be the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary limiter even at 1080p. The RX 6700 XT, with 12 GB of memory and a 192-bit bus, shows a performance ceiling: the jump from High (87.5 FPS) to Low (142.4 FPS) yields a 54.9 FPS difference, indicating that graphical settings, not CPU processing, are governing the frame rate.

Q: What is the combo's ranking relative to all other tested systems?

A: The combo ranks 913th out of 1636 tested combinations, placing it in the 55.8th percentile. This indicates that while it performs competently, there are 723 other system combinations that achieve higher average frame rates in this specific game.

Q: Is the 4K performance usable for this game?

A: At 4K, the combo only exceeds 60 FPS on Low settings, averaging 70 FPS. High and Medium settings produce averages of 43.8 FPS and 53.1 FPS respectively, while Ultra drops to 37.7 FPS, making a 4K experience feasible only with significant graphical compromises.

Q: How does the CPU's single-core performance relate to the FPS results?

A: The i5-14600KF's strong single-core performance, indicated by a Geekbench single-core score of 2778 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4643, likely prevents CPU-bound frame dips in Control's physics-heavy scenes, allowing the GPU's performance to be the determining factor in the measured results.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the workhorse of this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the FPS scaling across settings. With 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus providing 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, the card has ample resources for Control's textures at 1080p and 1440p. Its boost clock of 2581 MHz and 2560 shading units are put to the test by the game's rendering demands.

The benchmark data shows a clear hierarchy tied to GPU workload. At 1080p, dropping from High (87.5 FPS) to Low (142.4 FPS) yields a massive 54.9 FPS gain, highlighting how sensitive the card is to the game's graphical effects. This trend continues at 1440p, where the gap between High (69.6 FPS) and Low (105.4 FPS) is 35.8 FPS. The card's 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the likely reason it manages to deliver these high averages, but the 4K results reveal its limits. At 4K Ultra, the card produces just 37.7 FPS, suggesting the 384.0 GB/s bandwidth and 64 ROPs are insufficient for the pixel throughput required at that resolution.

The GPU's position relative to its peers reinforces this analysis. It is within 1.3% of the NVIDIA RTX A5000's average score, and only 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6800. This proximity to higher-tier cards suggests the RX 6700 XT is performing near its theoretical maximum in this game, and the FPS numbers are a genuine reflection of its architectural capabilities rather than a driver or configuration issue.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF provides the computational backbone for this system. With 14 cores (6 performance and 8 efficiency) and 20 threads, its multi-threaded capabilities are substantial, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32889. However, for Control, a game that relies heavily on single-threaded physics calculations, the CPU's single-core performance is more critical, and its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4643 is more than adequate.

The data suggests the CPU is not the primary bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system hits 142.4 FPS, a figure that is likely approaching the CPU's frame generation limit but still not capping the GPU's potential. The fact that the FPS scales consistently with graphical settings—from 78.6 FPS at Ultra to 142.4 FPS at Low at 1080p—indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would plateau regardless of settings.

The processor's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 5.30 GHz boost clock help maintain smooth frame pacing. The CPU's 125 W TDP and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory ensure it can feed the GPU data quickly. In the context of this benchmark, the i5-14600KF's performance is strong enough to allow the RX 6700 XT to reach its full potential, making this a well-balanced pairing for a game like Control.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 913 out of 1636 tested combinations places it just above the median, indicating a mid-tier performance level. This is a surprising result given the individual components' strengths. The CPU ranks in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, and the GPU is in the 77th percentile, yet their combined performance in Control is decidedly average.

This suggests that Control may be particularly demanding on a specific aspect of the hardware that this combo doesn't excel at. The game's use of ray tracing and heavy particle effects could be the culprit, as the RX 6700 XT's 40 RT cores may not be sufficient for high ray-traced workloads, even if its rasterization performance is solid. The rank implies that many other system configurations, likely with more powerful GPUs, achieve higher frame rates.

The deltaPct values for the CPU's nearest rivals are all within 1.4%, showing that the i5-14600KF is on par with its direct competition. This means the CPU is not the reason for the middling rank. The GPU's nearest rivals also show small deltas (within 1.3%), suggesting the RX 6700 XT is performing as expected. The mid-tier rank is therefore a consequence of the absolute performance ceiling of this hardware combination, not a sign of any specific inefficiency.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience, the data points to 1440p with High settings as the sweet spot, yielding an average of 69.6 FPS. This provides a smooth frame rate while retaining a high level of visual fidelity. At 1080p, High settings are also excellent, delivering 87.5 FPS, which is ideal for high refresh rate monitors.

Dropping to Medium settings at 1440p (77.8 FPS) or 1080p (99.7 FPS) offers a performance boost but with a noticeable reduction in visual quality. The step from High to Ultra at 1440p (69.6 to 59.5 FPS) is a significant 10.1 FPS loss for what is often a marginal visual improvement, so Ultra is not recommended for a consistent 60 FPS experience.

At 4K, the options are limited. Low settings provide the only playable average (70 FPS), while High (43.8 FPS) and Medium (53.1 FPS) are below the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra at 4K is essentially unplayable at 37.7 FPS. Therefore, for 4K users, Low settings are the only viable choice for this combo.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and consistent scaling pattern across all resolutions and settings.

At 1920x1080:

• Low: 142.4 FPS
• Medium: 99.7 FPS
• High: 87.5 FPS
• Ultra: 78.6 FPS

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 105.4 FPS
• Medium: 77.8 FPS
• High: 69.6 FPS
• Ultra: 59.5 FPS

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 70 FPS
• Medium: 53.1 FPS
• High: 43.8 FPS
• Ultra: 37.7 FPS

The data shows a consistent performance hierarchy: Low > Medium > High > Ultra at every resolution. The scaling is not linear, however. The difference between Low and Medium is much larger than the difference between High and Ultra. For example, at 1080p, the Low-to-Medium gap is 42.7 FPS, while the High-to-Ultra gap is only 8.9 FPS. This suggests that the game's most demanding settings (likely ray tracing and high-res textures) are grouped in the High and Ultra presets, creating a steeper performance cliff.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and reveals the GPU's limitations. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 87.5 at 1080p, to 69.6 at 1440p, and finally to 43.8 at 4K. This represents a 50% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, which is a typical scaling pattern for a GPU with this memory bandwidth.

The scaling strongly indicates that the RX 6700 XT is the limiting component as resolution increases. The pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K, but the FPS does not drop by a corresponding fourfold. Instead, the drop is more gradual, suggesting that the GPU's compute units are still the primary constraint, but the memory subsystem is also being stressed.

At 1080p, the CPU and GPU are likely in a more balanced state, but the 4K results (70 FPS on Low, 43.8 FPS on High) show a clear GPU bottleneck. The i5-14600KF's strong single-core performance means it can keep up with the GPU's frame generation at lower resolutions, but at 4K, the GPU simply cannot render frames fast enough to keep the CPU fully occupied. This is a classic scenario where the GPU becomes the definitive performance limiter, and the data confirms this for the RX 6700 XT in Control.