Control

# Control: Intel Core i5-14600KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

This combination ranks 241st out of 3,720 tested configurations for Control, placing it in the top 7% of all hardware pairings. The data shows a system that delivers excellent frame rates across all resolutions, though the scaling pattern reveals a GPU-bound experience at 4K that transitions to CPU influence at 1080p. The RTX 4080's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth pair with the i5-14600KF's 14 cores and 5.30 GHz boost to produce consistently high averages, but the settings curve is not linear—the gap between Low and Ultra narrows as resolution drops, indicating where each component takes the lead.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal preset depends heavily on target resolution, and the measured data points to a clear winner at each tier. At 3840x2160, High settings deliver 79 FPS average, which is 10 FPS above Medium (89 FPS) being the actual peak—wait, the data shows Medium at 89 FPS is the highest average outside of Low (126 FPS). For 4K, Medium settings provide the best balance: 89 FPS average with a minimum of 76 FPS and maximum of 103 FPS. This is the only preset at 4K with complete min/max data, and it comfortably exceeds 60 FPS while maintaining visual quality. Ultra drops to 69 FPS, which is playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes, while High sits at 79 FPS—still above the 60 FPS threshold but 10 FPS behind Medium.

At 2560x1440, the picture changes. High settings produce 118 FPS average, which is a 33% improvement over 4K High and only 14 FPS behind 1440p Ultra (102 FPS). The 1440p Medium preset shows 132 FPS average with a minimum of 113 FPS and maximum of 152 FPS—this is the sweet spot for high-refresh monitors. The data suggests that at 1440p, High settings are nearly as fast as Medium (118 vs 132 FPS) while offering better visuals, making High the recommendation for most users. Ultra at 102 FPS still clears 100 FPS but sacrifices 16 FPS compared to High.

For 1920x1080, the recommendation shifts decisively to High settings. The 1080p High preset achieves 156 FPS average, which is 21 FPS ahead of Ultra (135 FPS) and only 19 FPS behind Medium (175 FPS). Given that the minimum FPS data is only available for Medium (149 FPS), and High typically tracks close to Medium in this game, High at 1080p offers the best combination of visual fidelity and headroom above 144 Hz displays. Low settings at 246 FPS are only useful for extreme competitive play, but the 90 FPS gap between Low and High suggests diminishing returns from dropping quality.

The overall pattern indicates that Medium is the best default preset across all resolutions: it delivers 89 FPS at 4K, 132 FPS at 1440p, and 175 FPS at 1080p, with the only complete min/max data in the entire dataset. The 4K Medium preset's minimum of 76 FPS ensures no drops below 60 FPS, which is the critical threshold for smooth gameplay.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF brings 14 cores and 20 threads to Control, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This Raptor Lake-R architecture chip on Intel's 10 nm process shows strong synthetic performance that translates into the frame rates seen at lower resolutions. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32,544 and single-core score of 4,594 indicate a processor capable of feeding even a high-end GPU, and the Geekbench multi-core score of 17,085 reinforces this.

The CPU's role becomes most apparent at 1080p, where the frame rates scale dramatically with settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 246 FPS average, which is 39% higher than 1080p Ultra (135 FPS). This spread suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU's ability to feed draw calls and physics calculations limits the GPU. However, the i5-14600KF's PassMark single-thread score of 4,273 and multi-thread score of 38,697 indicate it has substantial headroom. The processor's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide the memory hierarchy needed for Control's physics-heavy combat sequences.

The CPU's percentile rank of 90 against all CPUs places it in the top decile, and its nearest rival comparisons show a balanced field. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900 scores 0.3% higher on average, while the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G is 0.4% higher and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is 0.8% higher. The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 is 0.8% lower. This clustering within 1% suggests that the i5-14600KF is not the limiting factor in most scenarios—the GPU takes over at higher resolutions, but at 1080p the CPU's 5.30 GHz boost clock helps maintain the 156 FPS High average.

The 14-core configuration with 20 threads matters for Control because the game's asynchronous compute and physics simulations benefit from available threads. The PassMark physics score of 2,449 and data compression score of 485,140 indicate solid integer and floating-point throughput, which supports the game's destructible environments and particle effects. At 1080p, the 246 FPS Low result demonstrates that the CPU can drive frame rates well beyond typical display refresh rates, confirming it is not a bottleneck in this pairing.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm TSMC process, is the dominant component in this configuration for Control. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient even at 4K Ultra where the game's textures and post-processing demand significant memory throughput. The GPU's 9,728 shading units, 304 TMUs, and 112 ROPs deliver a fill rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s.

The RTX 4080's benchmark scores show a GPU that performs near the top of the stack. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,567, PassMark G3D score of 34,457, and Geekbench Vulkan score of 263,779 all indicate strong DirectX 12 and Vulkan performance, which aligns with Control's use of these APIs. The GPU's percentile rank of 86 against all GPUs places it in the top 14% of hardware, and its nearest rival comparisons are remarkably tight: the RTX 4080 SUPER is 0.1% higher, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is 1.1% lower, the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 2.6% lower, and the AMD Radeon 8060S is 2.7% lower.

The GPU's role is most evident at 4K, where frame rates show strong scaling with settings. At 4K Ultra, the system averages 69 FPS, which drops to 79 FPS at High and 89 FPS at Medium. The 4K Low setting reaches 126 FPS, demonstrating that the RTX 4080 has substantial headroom when visual effects are reduced. The 4K Medium preset's minimum of 76 FPS and maximum of 103 FPS show a 27 FPS spread, indicating that the GPU's 2,505 MHz boost clock can vary based on thermal and power conditions.

The GPU's 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 76 RT cores provide the compute power for Control's ray-traced reflections and DLSS implementation, though the measured data does not include ray tracing-specific tests. The 16 GB VRAM ensures that even at 4K Ultra with high-resolution textures, the frame buffer does not overflow, which would cause stuttering. The RTX 4080's memory clock of 22.4 Gbps effective and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth are critical for the game's heavy texture streaming at 4K, where the 89 FPS Medium result indicates the memory subsystem is not a limiting factor.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Control?

A: The data shows 2560x1440 High settings delivers 118 FPS average, which is the best balance of visual quality and performance. At 4K, the maximum playable average is 89 FPS on Medium settings, while 1080p High reaches 156 FPS. For high-refresh 144 Hz monitors, 1440p High is the clear choice.

Q: How much performance is lost going from 1080p to 4K?

A: At High settings, the drop from 1080p (156 FPS) to 1440p (118 FPS) is 24%, and from 1080p to 4K (79 FPS) is 49%. At Ultra settings, the pattern is similar: 1080p Ultra runs at 135 FPS, 1440p Ultra at 102 FPS, and 4K Ultra at 69 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 4080 or the i5-14600KF the bottleneck?

A: The scaling pattern indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, where settings changes produce large FPS swings (69 FPS Ultra to 126 FPS Low). At 1080p, the CPU becomes more influential, as evidenced by the 246 FPS Low result versus 135 FPS Ultra, showing the GPU is waiting on CPU-provided data at lower resolutions.

Q: Does the RTX 4080's 16 GB VRAM matter for Control?

A: The 16 GB GDDR6X memory with 716.8 GB/s bandwidth supports all tested settings without frame drops. The 4K Medium preset maintains a 76 FPS minimum, suggesting no VRAM-related stuttering. The GPU's 86th percentile rank and tight rival comparisons (0.1% to 2.7% deltas) indicate memory capacity is sufficient for this game.

Q: How does the i5-14600KF compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The i5-14600KF scores 49,394 average benchmark points, ranking in the 90th percentile. It trails the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 by 0.3%, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G by 0.4%, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 by 0.8%, while leading the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 by 0.8%. These differences are negligible for gaming.

Q: What settings should be avoided for 4K gaming?

A: The data shows 4K Ultra at 69 FPS average, which is below the 72 FPS threshold for smooth 120 Hz displays. While 69 FPS is playable, the 4K Medium preset at 89 FPS with a 76 FPS minimum provides a more consistent experience. The 20 FPS gap between Ultra and Medium at 4K suggests Ultra's visual gains come at a high performance cost.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling across resolutions reveals a classic GPU-bound pattern. At High settings, the progression is 156 FPS at 1080p, 118 FPS at 1440p, and 79 FPS at 4K. This represents a 24% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 49% drop from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is not linear—the pixel count increases by 78% from 1080p to 1440p (2.07 million to 3.69 million pixels) and by 300% from 1080p to 4K (8.29 million pixels), yet the FPS drops are proportionally smaller. This indicates that the RTX 4080's 716.8 GB/s bandwidth and 48.74 TFLOPS compute can partially compensate for the increased pixel workload.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is steeper: 135 FPS at 1080p, 102 FPS at 1440p, and 69 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 4K drop of 49% is identical to High settings, but the absolute values are lower. This suggests that Ultra settings introduce a fixed cost that scales with resolution, likely from increased shading complexity and texture sampling. The 4K Ultra result of 69 FPS is only 9 FPS above the 60 FPS threshold, confirming that Ultra is not recommended for 4K on this hardware.

The Low settings show the least resolution sensitivity: 246 FPS at 1080p, 186 FPS at 1440p, and 126 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 4K drop is 49% again, but the absolute values are high enough that even 4K Low exceeds 120 FPS. This consistent 49% drop across all settings suggests that the pixel fill rate is the limiting factor, rather than specific rendering features. The RTX 4080's 280.6 GPixel/s pixel rate supports this interpretation—at 4K, the GPU must fill 8.29 million pixels per frame, and at 126 FPS Low, it is processing approximately 1.04 billion pixels per second, which approaches the theoretical fill rate limit.

The transition from 1440p to 4K shows the most significant FPS drop in percentage terms at each setting: High drops from 118 to 79 FPS (33% reduction), Medium from 132 to 89 FPS (33% reduction), and Ultra from 102 to 69 FPS (32% reduction). The consistency of this 32-33% drop across all settings strongly indicates that the GPU's memory bandwidth and pixel throughput are the determining factors at 4K, while the CPU's role diminishes. At 1080p, the 246 FPS Low result versus 135 FPS Ultra shows a 45% spread, indicating that the CPU can drive higher frame rates but the GPU's rendering workload at Ultra settings becomes the constraint even at 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 246 FPS average
• Medium: 175 FPS average, with a minimum of 149 FPS and maximum of 201 FPS
• High: 156 FPS average
• Ultra: 135 FPS average

At 1080p, the system delivers exceptional performance across all settings. The Low preset's 246 FPS is more than double the Ultra preset's 135 FPS, showing the substantial cost of high-quality effects. The Medium preset's complete data (149-201 FPS range) indicates a 52 FPS variance, which is the largest spread in the entire dataset. This suggests that at 1080p, the CPU's frame pacing varies more significantly, likely due to the i5-14600KF's 14 cores being partially utilized while the GPU waits for draw calls.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 186 FPS average
• Medium: 132 FPS average, with a minimum of 113 FPS and maximum of 152 FPS
• High: 118 FPS average
• Ultra: 102 FPS average

The 1440p results show a more compressed range: from 186 FPS Low to 102 FPS Ultra, a spread of 84 FPS compared to 111 FPS at 1080p. This compression indicates that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor. The Medium preset's 113-152 FPS range (39 FPS variance) is tighter than at 1080p, suggesting more consistent frame delivery. The 118 FPS High average is notable because it exceeds the 114 FPS threshold needed for 120 Hz displays with a small margin for frame time variance.

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 126 FPS average
• Medium: 89 FPS average, with a minimum of 76 FPS and maximum of 103 FPS
• High: 79 FPS average
• Ultra: 69 FPS average

At 4K, the range narrows further to 57 FPS (from 126 to 69), confirming the GPU as the dominant bottleneck. The Medium preset's 76-103 FPS range (27 FPS variance) is the tightest in the dataset, indicating that the RTX 4080's 716.8 GB/s bandwidth provides stable memory throughput at this resolution. The 69 FPS Ultra average is the only result below 70 FPS, and it still exceeds the 60 FPS minimum standard. The 4K High result of 79 FPS offers a 10 FPS advantage over Ultra, making High the recommended preset for 4K gaming on this hardware, despite Medium's higher 89 FPS average.

The progression from 1080p to 4K shows that the RTX 4080 maintains playable frame rates at every setting and resolution combination tested. The lowest result is 4K Ultra at 69 FPS, which remains above the 60 FPS baseline. The highest result is 1080p Low at 246 FPS, which exceeds the refresh rates of most gaming monitors. This configuration's 241st rank out of 3,720 tested combos places it in the 93rd percentile of all hardware pairings, reflecting the strong synergy between the i5-14600KF's 5.30 GHz boost clock and the RTX 4080's 2,505 MHz boost clock.