Control

# Control — Intel Core i5-9400 + AMD Radeon RX 7700

Control, Remedy’s 2019 action-adventure, is a demanding title that scales heavily with both CPU and GPU resources. The benchmark data for this specific pairing — a six-core Intel Core i5-9400 and the Radeon RX 7700 — reveals a system that is consistently GPU-bound at higher resolutions, but with a CPU ceiling that becomes apparent at 1080p. The measured frames per second across three resolutions and four quality presets show a predictable pattern of degradation as pixel count rises, yet the magnitude of that drop is steep enough to classify this GPU as the primary bottleneck in most scenarios. This combination sits at rank 1294 out of 2888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all possible pairings, which is a respectable position for a desktop setup built around a 47th-percentile CPU and a 58th-percentile GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data shows a clear and consistent drop when moving from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, and the rate of that drop tells a story about where the workload is being processed. At Medium settings, the average frame rate falls from 105 FPS at 1080p to 80 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 25 FPS, and then further down to 54 FPS at 4K, another 26 FPS loss. This linear decline in absolute terms masks a steeper relative drop: 1080p to 1440p is a 23.8% performance loss, while 1440p to 4K is a 32.5% loss. The accelerating decay as resolution climbs is a classic sign of a GPU that is running out of fillrate and memory bandwidth headroom — the RX 7700’s 624.1 GB/s bandwidth is being saturated by the 4K pixel workload.

Looking at High settings, the same pattern emerges: 93 FPS at 1080p, 71 FPS at 1440p (a 23.7% drop), and 48 FPS at 4K (a 32.4% drop from 1440p). The consistency of these percentages across Medium and High presets indicates that the scaling factor is resolution-dominant rather than setting-dominant; the GPU is the limiting component at 4K regardless of whether you choose Medium or High. At 1080p, however, the data suggests a shift. The jump from Low to Medium only costs 43 FPS (148 to 105), but the jump from Medium to High costs just 12 FPS (105 to 93). The Low preset at 1080p hits 148 FPS, which is suspiciously high and hints that the CPU may be preventing higher frame rates at lower settings — the i5-9400’s six threads are likely capping the output before the GPU can stretch its legs.

The Ultra preset across all resolutions reinforces the GPU bottleneck theory. At 4K, Ultra yields 41 FPS versus 48 FPS on High, a 14.6% penalty for the extra effects. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 61 FPS from High’s 71 FPS, and at 1080p, Ultra hits 81 FPS versus 93 FPS on High. The delta between High and Ultra is roughly 12-14 FPS at every resolution, which is a consistent cost for the additional visual fidelity. This uniformity suggests the Ultra preset adds a fixed amount of GPU work rather than a proportional one, and the RX 7700 handles that increment without triggering a CPU-bound collapse at any resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a Coffee Lake Refresh part with 6 cores and 6 threads, a 2.90 GHz base clock, and a 4.10 GHz boost clock. Its benchmark scores are modest: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 6629 and a single-core score of 935, with a Geekbench multi-core of 5141 and single-core of 1389. These numbers place the CPU at the 47th percentile of all processors, and its nearest rivals in aggregate benchmark performance are the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (0.2% faster), the Intel Core i3-10305 (0.4% faster), and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (0.4% slower). This is a tightly clustered group, meaning the i5-9400 is not a standout performer but also not a laggard — it is squarely average for its generation.

In Control, the CPU’s role is most visible at 1080p with lower settings. The Low preset at 1080p achieves 148 FPS, which is 40 FPS higher than the Medium preset at the same resolution. That 40-FPS gap is far larger than the gap between Medium and High (12 FPS) or High and Ultra (12 FPS). This nonlinearity indicates that at Low settings, the GPU has spare capacity, and the frame rate is being held back by the CPU’s ability to feed the render thread. The i5-9400’s six threads, with no hyper-threading, are adequate for Control’s main thread workload but do not provide the headroom needed to push beyond roughly 150 FPS in this title. At 1440p Low, the frame rate drops to 112 FPS, and at 4K Low it falls to 76 FPS — the CPU bottleneck erodes as resolution rises because the GPU takes longer per frame, giving the CPU more time to prepare the next one.

The L3 cache is 9 MB shared, which is modest by modern standards, and the dual-channel DDR4 memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s is a potential limiting factor for a game like Control that streams in environments with high object density. The Cinebench R15 single-core score of 94 and R20 single-core of 392 are unremarkable, and in a title that is known for its physics-heavy combat and destructible environments, the single-thread performance is likely the constraint at high frame rates. The data suggests that owners of this CPU should expect solid 60+ FPS performance at 1440p on Medium or High, but should not chase 144 Hz at 1080p with Low settings — the CPU will cap the frame rate before the GPU can deliver it.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a clear hierarchy for optimal settings at each resolution, and the choice of preset should be driven by the refresh rate of the display and the tolerance for frame time variance. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 105 FPS average with a minimum of 89 FPS and a maximum of 121 FPS, which is a smooth experience for 100 Hz-class monitors. The High preset at 1080p drops to 93 FPS average, which is still playable but loses the headroom needed to avoid dips below 60 FPS in heavy combat. The Low preset at 1080p hits 148 FPS, but the visual quality loss is substantial, and the CPU-bound nature of that setting means the extra frames come with diminishing returns. The Ultra preset at 1080p runs at 81 FPS, which is a 12 FPS penalty over High for marginal visual gains — not recommended unless the user prioritizes image quality over frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is the sweet spot: 80 FPS average with a minimum of 68 FPS and a maximum of 92 FPS. This provides a consistently playable experience on 60-75 Hz displays and even handles 144 Hz monitors with adaptive sync. The High preset at 1440p yields 71 FPS average, which is still fluid but leaves less margin for demanding scenes. The Low preset at 1440p achieves 112 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh gaming, but the visual compromise is severe. The Ultra preset at 1440p sits at 61 FPS, which is right at the edge of 60 FPS playability — the minimum frame rate is not recorded for this setting, but the average suggests occasional dips below 60 FPS are likely.

At 3840x2160, the options are constrained. The Medium preset averages 54 FPS with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 62 FPS, which is borderline playable on a 60 Hz display but will show stutter in busy scenes. The High preset averages 48 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold and not recommended for competitive play. The Low preset at 4K averages 76 FPS, which is surprisingly strong and makes it the only 4K preset that clears 60 FPS comfortably. The Ultra preset at 4K averages 41 FPS, which is too low for smooth gameplay. For 4K users, the recommendation is to use Low settings if frame rate is paramount, or Medium if visual fidelity is acceptable at sub-60 FPS. The data indicates that 1440p Medium is the best overall balance of performance and image quality for this hardware combination.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 on Medium settings delivers an 80 FPS average with a 68 FPS minimum, making it the most balanced experience. At 1080p, the CPU limits frame rates at Low settings (148 FPS), while at 4K, only the Low preset (76 FPS) exceeds 60 FPS.

Q: Is the AMD Radeon RX 7700 or the Intel Core i5-9400 the bottleneck in Control?

A: At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting component, as frame rates drop from 76 FPS on Low to 41 FPS on Ultra. At 1080p Low, the CPU becomes the bottleneck, as the 148 FPS result is likely capped by the i5-9400’s six threads rather than the GPU’s capability.

Q: How does the RX 7700 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 7700 has an average benchmark score of 15852, which is 1% slower than the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (16014) and 1.7% slower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (16129). It is 1.1% faster than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679) and 0.1% faster than the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862).

Q: Can this system run Control at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, which averages 76 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K averages 54 FPS with a minimum of 46 FPS, which is borderline, while High (48 FPS) and Ultra (41 FPS) are below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: What is the frame time variance at 1440p Medium settings?

A: The measured data shows a minimum of 68 FPS and a maximum of 92 FPS, with an average of 80 FPS. This 24 FPS spread indicates moderate frame pacing variance, which should be manageable with adaptive sync technology.

Q: How does the i5-9400’s performance compare to the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500?

A: The i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2254, which is 0.4% higher than the Ryzen 5 PRO 1500’s 2246. The two CPUs are effectively tied in aggregate performance, though the i5-9400 has a 6-core/6-thread configuration versus the Ryzen’s 4-core/8-thread layout.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is a RDNA 3.0 part built on TSMC’s 5 nm process, featuring the Navi 32 chip with 28,100 million transistors on a 346 mm² die. It operates with a base clock of 1900 MHz, a boost clock of 2459 MHz, and a game clock of 2041 MHz. The memory subsystem is substantial: 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, 96 raster operations pipelines, and 40 ray tracing cores, with a peak FP32 throughput of 25.18 TFLOPS. Its synthetic benchmark scores include a PassMark G3D score of 20974 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 106028, placing it at the 58th percentile of all GPUs.

In Control, the RX 7700’s rasterization prowess is evident in the scaling pattern across resolutions. The 4K Medium result of 54 FPS with a 46 FPS minimum shows that the GPU can handle the pixel workload, but the Ultra preset’s 41 FPS reveals that the added effects — likely including ray-traced reflections and volumetric lighting — push the GPU past its comfort zone. The 96 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s, which is sufficient for 4K at Medium settings but not for the full Ultra treatment. The 16 GB VRAM is more than adequate for Control at any resolution, as the game’s texture budgets are unlikely to exceed even 8 GB, so memory capacity is not a limiting factor in these results.

The GPU’s 25.18 TFLOPS FP32 performance translates to strong raw compute, which Control leverages for its physics simulations and particle effects. The texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s ensures that texture filtering is not a bottleneck at High settings, and the 40 ray tracing cores provide hardware acceleration for Control’s optional DXR features, although the measured FPS data does not specify whether ray tracing was enabled. The RX 7700’s nearest rivals in aggregate benchmark score are all within 1.7% of its performance, yet the measured FPS in Control shows this GPU delivering 105 FPS at 1080p Medium — a result that outpaced the 47th-percentile CPU’s ability to feed it at lower settings, confirming that the GPU is the stronger half of this pairing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset for Control with the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 is as follows, organized by resolution and preset:

At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 148 FPS. The Medium preset averages 105 FPS, with a minimum of 89 FPS and a maximum of 121 FPS. The High preset averages 93 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 81 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a total degradation of 67 FPS, but the step from Low to Medium is the largest single drop at 43 FPS, indicating the CPU is the limiter at Low.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 112 FPS. The Medium preset averages 80 FPS, with a minimum of 68 FPS and a maximum of 92 FPS. The High preset averages 71 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 61 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 32 FPS, which is smaller than at 1080p, confirming that the GPU is taking on more of the workload at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 76 FPS. The Medium preset averages 54 FPS, with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 62 FPS. The High preset averages 48 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 41 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 22 FPS, and from Medium to High is 6 FPS, while High to Ultra is 7 FPS. The 4K results show the GPU struggling to maintain 60 FPS on any preset above Low, and the minimum frame rate of 46 FPS at Medium highlights the risk of stutter in intense sequences.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset is the only one that records both minimum and maximum FPS values, providing a complete picture of frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the 89-121 FPS range represents a 32 FPS spread; at 1440p Medium, the 68-92 FPS range is a 24 FPS spread; and at 4K Medium, the 46-62 FPS range is a 16 FPS spread. The narrowing range at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU’s consistent frame times at 4K are a result of the workload being fully GPU-bound, whereas the wider spread at 1080p reflects CPU-side variability. The combo’s rank of 1294 out of 2888 tested configurations underscores that this pairing is above average for Control, capable of delivering high-refresh 1080p gameplay and playable 1440p, with 4K reserved for lower presets.