Control

Control with an Intel Core i5-14600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER delivers a playable experience primarily at 1080p, with the Ultra preset pushing the GPU to its limits and resulting in a 65 FPS average. The data indicates that the system is heavily GPU-bound across all tested resolutions, as the RTX 2060 SUPER's 8 GB VRAM and Turing architecture become the limiting factor well before the 14-core Raptor Lake CPU shows any strain.

Settings Recommendations

The measured results show a clear hierarchy of performance across the four available presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves a 118 FPS average, while Medium drops to 84 FPS, High to 74 FPS, and Ultra to 65 FPS. The most significant performance jump occurs between Low and Medium, a 34 FPS difference, whereas the transition from High to Ultra only costs 9 FPS. For the best balance of visual fidelity and smooth gameplay, the High preset at 1080p is the recommended choice, as it maintains a 74 FPS average while avoiding the steep performance penalty of the Low preset.

The Medium preset at 1440p deserves consideration, as it produces a 63 FPS average with a minimum of 54 FPS, which is within the range of acceptable smoothness for most action-adventure titles. However, the High preset at 1440p drops to 56 FPS, and Ultra falls to 49 FPS, both of which risk noticeable stuttering during intense combat sequences. At 4K, only the Low preset achieves a 60 FPS average, with Medium falling to 43 FPS, High to 38 FPS, and Ultra to 33 FPS. For a consistent experience across all resolutions, the Medium preset offers the most reliable frame pacing, as evidenced by the recorded minimum FPS values of 71 at 1080p, 54 at 1440p, and 36 at 4K.

The data suggests that enabling ray tracing or other high-end features is not viable for this combo, as the Ultra preset already represents a significant performance burden. The RTX 2060 SUPER's 272 tensor cores and 34 RT cores provide hardware support for such features, but the measured FPS at Ultra settings indicates the GPU lacks the headroom for additional computational load. Therefore, the recommended configuration is the High preset at 1080p for the best visual-to-performance ratio, or the Medium preset for users prioritizing frame rate stability across multiple resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER serves as the definitive performance bottleneck in this combination. The GPU's 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves insufficient for high-resolution textures in Control's demanding environments. At 4K, the Ultra preset yields only 33 FPS, while the Low preset achieves 60 FPS, indicating that memory capacity and bandwidth constraints directly impact the ability to render at higher detail levels. The GPU's 2176 shading units and 64 ROPs, running at a boost clock of 1650 MHz, deliver 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, but this compute power is not enough to maintain fluid frame rates at higher resolutions.

The GPU's Turing architecture, built on TSMC's 12 nm process with 10,800 million transistors, demonstrates its age when compared to modern counterparts. The RTX 2060 SUPER's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile with a deltaPct of -0.4%, and the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 at -0.5%, showing that the desktop 2060 SUPER performs nearly identically to these alternatives. However, the measured in-game results reveal that Control's specific workload favors the GPU's raw rasterization capabilities over its ray tracing hardware, as the 33 FPS at 4K Ultra indicates the RT cores are not being effectively utilized. The GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 62 places it in the upper-middle tier, but the 4K performance gap between Low and Ultra settings—a 27 FPS difference—underscores the VRAM limitation as the primary constraint.

FAQ

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

A: Based on the measured data, 1920x1080 is the optimal resolution, as it is the only resolution where all four presets exceed 60 FPS. The Low preset achieves 118 FPS, Medium 84 FPS, High 74 FPS, and Ultra 65 FPS.

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

A: Only at the Low preset, which achieves exactly 60 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 43 FPS, High to 38 FPS, and Ultra to 33 FPS, making 4K gaming impractical at higher detail settings.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i5-14600KF has an average benchmark score of 49394, which is 0.3% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 and 0.4% higher than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G. It trails the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 by -0.8%.

Q: Is the RTX 2060 SUPER more similar to a mobile or desktop GPU in performance?

A: In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 2060 SUPER's average score of 18093 is -0.4% relative to the RTX 3060 Mobile, indicating near-identical performance. It also closely matches the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 with a -0.5% delta.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like at different settings?

A: The Medium preset shows the most consistent frame pacing, with recorded minimums of 71 FPS at 1080p, 54 FPS at 1440p, and 36 FPS at 4K. The corresponding maximums are 96, 73, and 49 FPS, respectively.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from Low to Ultra at 1080p?

A: The drop from Low to Ultra at 1080p represents a 53 FPS decrease, from 118 FPS to 65 FPS, which is a 45% reduction in average frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 2650 out of 3720 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 28.8th percentile of all configurations. This ranking reflects the GPU's mid-tier status, as the CPU is a high-end desktop processor with a percentileVsAllCpus of 90 and an average benchmark score of 49394, which outperforms the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 by 0.3%. The disparity between the CPU's strong synthetic performance and the combo's modest in-game ranking confirms that the RTX 2060 SUPER is the limiting component.

The GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 62 and average benchmark score of 18093 place it in the lower-middle tier of graphics cards, with nearest rivals including the RTX 3060 Mobile and Radeon Pro 5700. The combo's rank of 2650 indicates that in Control, the RTX 2060 SUPER's 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the game's demanding rendering requirements, particularly at higher resolutions. The CPU's 14 cores and 20 threads, capable of a 5.30 GHz boost clock, remain underutilized, as evidenced by the significant FPS drops when increasing resolution—the primary indicator of GPU-bound performance. This rank suggests that users seeking improved Control performance should prioritize GPU upgrades over CPU upgrades.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution increases. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 118 at 1080p to 89 at 1440p, then to 60 at 4K, representing a 49% reduction from 1080p to 4K. For the Medium preset, the FPS decreases from 84 at 1080p to 63 at 1440p and 43 at 4K, a 49% drop. The High preset shows a similar pattern: 74 FPS at 1080p, 56 FPS at 1440p, and 38 FPS at 4K, a 49% decline. The Ultra preset maintains this trend with 65 FPS at 1080p, 49 FPS at 1440p, and 33 FPS at 4K, a 49% reduction.

The consistent ~49% performance loss from 1080p to 4K across all settings indicates that the system is entirely GPU-limited, as the CPU's performance headroom is not being taxed by the increased resolution. The RTX 2060 SUPER's 8 GB VRAM becomes a critical constraint at 4K, where the Ultra preset's 33 FPS average suggests the GPU is unable to hold all necessary textures in memory. The scaling pattern also shows that the delta between 1080p and 1440p is smaller than the delta between 1440p and 4K, with an average drop of 27 FPS versus 26 FPS, respectively, highlighting the disproportionate impact of 4K rendering on this mid-tier GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080: The Low preset delivers the highest performance with an average of 118 FPS. The Medium preset achieves 84 FPS with a minimum of 71 and maximum of 96 FPS. The High preset reaches 74 FPS average, while the Ultra preset drops to 65 FPS average. All presets at this resolution remain above the 60 FPS threshold, with the Low preset providing a 53 FPS advantage over Ultra.

2560x1440: The Low preset maintains a playable 89 FPS average. The Medium preset yields 63 FPS with a minimum of 54 and maximum of 73 FPS. The High preset produces 56 FPS average, and the Ultra preset falls to 49 FPS average. The Medium preset is the only configuration that consistently stays above 60 FPS at this resolution.

3840x2160: The Low preset is the only playable option, achieving exactly 60 FPS average. The Medium preset drops to 43 FPS with a minimum of 36 and maximum of 49 FPS. The High preset reaches 38 FPS average, and the Ultra preset bottoms out at 33 FPS average. The 27 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K highlights the GPU's VRAM and bandwidth limitations.