Control

Control pairs a 14-core Intel Core i5-14600KF with a 6 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, a combination that lands near the bottom of the database for this title. The measured frames per second show a system that is firmly GPU-limited at higher resolutions, with the CPU’s substantial headroom unable to compensate for the graphics card’s age. The data reveals a playable experience at 1080p, a marginal one at 1440p, and a slideshow at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent, confirming that the GTX 1660 SUPER is the bottleneck. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 91.3 FPS at 1920x1080 to 70.0 FPS at 2560x1440, a decline of roughly 23%. Pushing further to 3840x2160 drops the average to 47.4 FPS, which is 48% below the 1080p result. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU’s shading units and memory bandwidth are saturated long before the CPU’s 20 threads are stressed.

The gap between resolutions narrows as settings increase, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario. At High settings, the average goes from 59.7 FPS at 1080p to 46.0 FPS at 1440p, then falls to 30.8 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset tells a similar story: 50.7 FPS at 1080p, 39.7 FPS at 1440p, and 27.2 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1440p to 4K is almost identical across all presets, hovering around 33-35%, which suggests the game’s rendering load scales linearly with pixel count on this hardware.

Interestingly, the delta between Low and Ultra at the same resolution is relatively modest. At 1080p, the spread is 91.3 FPS down to 50.7 FPS, a 44% reduction for maximum quality. At 4K, the spread narrows to 47.4 FPS down to 27.2 FPS, a 43% reduction. This uniformity implies that the GTX 1660 SUPER is consistently the limiting component, and that lowering settings cannot fully rescue 4K performance. The data shows that 1080p is the only resolution where the combo approaches a high-refresh experience, and even then, only at Low settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s position in the global ranking is poor. It sits at rank 1411 out of 1636 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 14% of all systems. This is a stark contrast to the CPU’s individual standing; the Intel Core i5-14600KF ranks in the 93rd percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 49367. The GPU, however, pulls the entire system down, ranking in the 55th percentile among all graphics cards with an average score of 14286.

The mismatch between components is evident when looking at the CPU’s nearest rivals. The Core i5-14600KF is essentially tied with the Intel Core i5-14600K, scoring 0.4% higher, and is 0.6% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. It also edges out the AMD EPYC 4345P by 0.5% and the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H by 1.4%. These are all high-end processors, yet the combo’s rank is dragged down by the GTX 1660 SUPER’s performance class.

On the GPU side, the GTX 1660 SUPER is neck-and-neck with integrated graphics solutions. Its average score of 14286 is only 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 and 0.2% lower than the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics. It also trails the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT by 0.7%. This places the GPU in a strange middle ground—it is a discrete card, but its performance is comparable to modern iGPUs, which explains why the combo ranks so low in a demanding title like Control.

Settings Recommendations

For a smooth experience, the data points overwhelmingly to 1080p with Low settings. The measured average of 91.3 FPS at 1920x1080 Low is the only configuration that clears the 60 FPS threshold by a wide margin, providing headroom for dips. Moving up to Medium at 1080p yields 63.0 FPS, which is still playable but leaves little room for frame-time spikes in combat-heavy scenes.

At 1440p, the situation becomes more difficult. Low settings produce an average of 70.0 FPS, which is acceptable, but Medium drops to 50.1 FPS and High to 46.0 FPS. None of the 1440p presets achieve a locked 60 FPS, so users should stick to Low if they value smoothness over visual fidelity. At 4K, the results are poor across the board: even Low averages only 47.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 27.2 FPS. There is no settings combination at 3840x2160 that provides a consistently playable frame rate.

The best balance of image quality and performance is 1080p High, which averages 59.7 FPS. This is remarkably close to the Medium preset’s 63.0 FPS, suggesting that the High preset adds visual features that are relatively cheap for the GPU to render. For users with a 60 Hz display, 1080p High is the sweet spot. Those with higher refresh monitors should drop to Low to fully utilize the display’s capabilities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the GTX 1660 SUPER shows its limits. The Low preset delivers an average of 91.3 FPS, the highest of any configuration tested. Medium follows at 63.0 FPS, then High at 59.7 FPS, and finally Ultra at 50.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 28.3 FPS, which is the largest single-preset jump, indicating that Medium introduces significant shading or texture work.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages compress. Low yields 70.0 FPS, Medium 50.1 FPS, High 46.0 FPS, and Ultra 39.7 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra here is 30.3 FPS, slightly larger than at 1080p, which shows that the GPU’s pixel throughput becomes more critical as resolution climbs. The High preset at 1440p is only 8.2% slower than Medium, a smaller gap than at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the numbers fall below playability thresholds. Low averages 47.4 FPS, Medium 34.9 FPS, High 30.8 FPS, and Ultra 27.2 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is just 3.6 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is completely starved for memory bandwidth at this resolution. The 6 GB frame buffer and 192-bit memory bus are insufficient for 4K rendering in this title, regardless of preset.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a TU116 chip, manufactured on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It features 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units. The card operates at a base clock of 1530 MHz and boosts to 1785 MHz, with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These specs place it firmly in the entry-level segment, and the benchmark results reflect that positioning.

The GPU’s memory configuration is a critical weakness for Control. The 6 GB capacity is sufficient for 1080p, but the 336.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes a bottleneck at higher resolutions. The pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s are modest, and the FP32 throughput of 5.027 TFLOPS is low by modern standards. In comparison, the CPU’s L3 cache is 24 MB shared, and its 14 cores and 20 threads are vastly overqualified for this pairing.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reinforce its status. It achieves a Passmark G3D score of 12699 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1278. These figures are in line with its percentile rank of 55, meaning it performs better than half of all GPUs but is far from a gaming powerhouse. The card’s DirectX 12 score of 50 in Passmark is particularly low, which explains why Control, a DX12 title, struggles to maintain high frame rates. The GTX 1660 SUPER is end-of-life, and the data shows it is no longer suited for demanding AAA titles beyond 1080p.