Control

Control pairs a six-core Intel Core i5-9400 with the flagship-class NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, and the measured frame rates reveal a system that is decisively GPU-limited at higher resolutions but becomes increasingly CPU-bound as resolution drops. The benchmark data for this Action Adventure title shows a wide spread of performance across settings, with the RTX 5080 delivering playable frame rates even at 4K Ultra, while the i5-9400’s six threads cap throughput at 1080p. This combination ranks in the 247th spot out of 1636 tested combos, placing it in the top 15% of all configurations in the database for this game. The following analysis breaks down how resolution scaling, CPU and GPU characteristics, and settings choices interact to produce the measured FPS figures.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and reveals where the bottleneck shifts. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 136.3 FPS at 1920x1080 to 126.8 FPS at 2560x1440, then plunges to 81.8 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 40% reduction from 1080p to 4K, which is a classic sign of the GPU becoming the limiting factor at higher pixel counts. The RTX 5080’s 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 compute are being fully exercised at 4K, while the CPU has more headroom to feed frames.

At Low settings, the scaling pattern changes markedly. The 1080p result is 162.6 FPS, dropping to 145 FPS at 1440p and 130.8 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 1440p is only 17.6 FPS (about 11%), which is much smaller than the 40% drop seen at High. This compression indicates that at Low settings and 1080p, the i5-9400’s six cores and six threads are nearing their limit. The CPU’s boost clock of 4.10 GHz and 9 MB of shared L3 cache help, but they cannot push much beyond 162 FPS in this title. The RTX 5080 is waiting on the CPU at 1080p Low, whereas at 4K Low the GPU is still the primary constraint.

Ultra settings show the most dramatic scaling: 128.8 FPS at 1080p, 107 FPS at 1440p, and 75.7 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is 41% lower than 1080p Ultra, which aligns with the High preset’s scaling and confirms that the GPU is the dominant limiter at maximum quality. The key takeaway is that this combo is well-balanced for 1440p and 4K gaming, but at 1080p the CPU holds back the GPU, particularly at lower settings where the frame rate ceiling is exposed.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a Coffee Lake Refresh part with 6 cores and 6 threads, running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and boosting to 4.10 GHz. Its benchmark scores place it at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 and a single-core score of 1125. In the database, its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-10305 and Intel Core i3-1125G4, which have average scores within 0.2% of the i5-9400’s 2305 average. This puts the CPU in a modest performance tier relative to modern processors, and the data shows that it becomes a limiting factor in Control at 1080p.

The measured FPS at 1080p Low (162.6) versus 1440p Low (145) shows only an 11% drop, which is smaller than the 20% drop seen when moving from 1080p High to 1440p High. This suggests that at Low settings, the CPU is the bottleneck at 1080p, and the GPU has spare capacity. The i5-9400’s lack of hyper-threading means 6 threads must handle the game’s physics and AI, and Control’s action sequences can push single-thread performance. The single-core Cinebench R20 score of 472 is modest, and the boost clock of 4.10 GHz is the peak, not a sustained all-core frequency.

When comparing the CPU’s influence across resolutions, the data shows that at 4K Ultra (75.7 FPS) and 4K High (81.8 FPS), the GPU is clearly the limiter, as the RTX 5080’s 89th percentile ranking among all GPUs means it is far more capable than the CPU’s 50th percentile. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for this game, but they do not provide the headroom needed to exceed roughly 160 FPS at 1080p. Owners of this combo should expect the CPU to cap frame rates at lower resolutions, while the GPU takes over at 1440p and above.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear picture of which preset offers the best experience. At 4K, High settings deliver 81.8 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a fast-paced action game. Medium at 4K gives 95.1 FPS, a 16% improvement over High, while Low at 4K reaches 130.8 FPS. The jump from High to Medium at 4K is significant, and dropping to Medium is the recommended choice for 4K displays, as it keeps frame rates above 90 FPS without sacrificing too much visual quality.

At 1440p, the choice is more nuanced. High settings yield 126.8 FPS, Medium delivers 129.9 FPS, and Ultra drops to 107 FPS. The difference between High and Medium is only 3.1 FPS, making High the better choice for visual fidelity at 1440p. Ultra at 1440p is still smooth at 107 FPS, but the 19.8 FPS penalty compared to High is not worth the extra graphical detail in most scenes. Low at 1440p (145 FPS) is only needed for competitive play or if the user has a high-refresh 1440p monitor, but the CPU limitation is already apparent at this resolution.

For 1080p, all presets are above 128 FPS, with Ultra at 128.8 FPS, High at 136.3 FPS, and Medium at 141.3 FPS. The best experience at 1080p is High or Medium, since Ultra only provides marginal visual gains over High while costing 7.5 FPS. Low at 1080p hits 162.6 FPS, but the CPU bottleneck means that the extra frames over Medium are minimal (21.3 FPS) and require a significant visual downgrade. The data indicates that Medium at 1080p is the sweet spot for balancing visuals and frame rate, while High at 1440p and Medium at 4K are the optimal presets for those resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-9400 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 holds the 247th rank out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 15.1% of all configurations. This is a strong result, but the ranking is held back by the CPU’s 50th percentile performance. The RTX 5080 alone sits in the 89th percentile among GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 59188, and its nearest rivals include the Intel Arc A570M (1.6% lower score) and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500X (2.6% lower). The GPU is clearly the star of this combo, and the ranking would be higher if the CPU could keep up at lower resolutions.

The combo’s rank of 247 out of 1636 indicates that it outperforms the vast majority of tested systems, but it also shows that there is room for improvement. Systems with a stronger CPU would likely rank higher because the 1080p results would improve, pushing the average FPS up. At 4K and 1440p, the RTX 5080 does most of the work, and the combo’s ranking reflects that strength. The data suggests that this pairing is well-suited for high-resolution gaming, but it is not optimal for 1080p high-refresh displays where the CPU becomes the limiting factor.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU built on a 5 nm process, with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus providing 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its 10752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units deliver a pixel rate of 293.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 879.3 GTexel/s. The boost clock of 2617 MHz and 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 compute make it an exceptionally fast card, and its 89th percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms that it is near the top of the performance hierarchy. The measured FPS in Control reflects this, as the GPU drives 4K Ultra to 75.7 FPS and 1080p Low to 162.6 FPS.

The GPU’s role in this combo is dominant at 1440p and 4K, where the frame rates scale directly with settings. At 4K, moving from Ultra (75.7 FPS) to High (81.8 FPS) to Medium (95.1 FPS) to Low (130.8 FPS) shows how the GPU’s compute and memory bandwidth are taxed by resolution and quality. The 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for Control, even at 4K Ultra, and the 960.0 GB/s bandwidth ensures that texture streaming is not a bottleneck. The RTX 5080’s DirectX 12 Ultimate support with feature level 12_2 allows the game to use modern rendering techniques, and the 84 RT cores are available for ray tracing effects, though the measured data does not separate ray tracing performance.

At 1080p, the GPU is underutilized, as the i5-9400 cannot feed it enough frames. The difference between 1080p Low (162.6 FPS) and 1440p Low (145 FPS) is only 17.6 FPS, which is much smaller than the GPU’s capability would suggest. This indicates that the RTX 5080 has spare headroom at 1080p, and a faster CPU would unlock higher frame rates. The GPU’s 360 W TDP and 1x 16-pin power connector are typical for a card of this class, and the 750 W suggested PSU is adequate.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data for this combo in Control is as follows. At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are 81.8 FPS on High, 130.8 FPS on Low, 95.1 FPS on Medium, and 75.7 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 55.1 FPS, with Ultra being 42% slower than Low. At 2560x1440, the results are 126.8 FPS on High, 145 FPS on Low, 129.9 FPS on Medium, and 107 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p spread is 38 FPS, and the difference between High and Medium is just 3.1 FPS, making High the clear choice for quality.

At 1920x1080, the measured averages are 136.3 FPS on High, 162.6 FPS on Low, 141.3 FPS on Medium, and 128.8 FPS on Ultra. The 1080p spread is 33.8 FPS, and the gap between Low and Medium is 21.3 FPS, which is the largest jump between any adjacent settings at this resolution. Notably, the 1080p Low result of 162.6 FPS is the highest frame rate in the entire dataset, but it is only 17.6 FPS higher than the 1440p Low result of 145 FPS, confirming the CPU bottleneck. The 1080p Ultra result of 128.8 FPS is lower than the 1440p High result of 126.8 FPS by just 2 FPS, showing that the GPU is not the limiting factor at 1080p Ultra either; the CPU is.

Across all resolutions, the data shows that the RTX 5080 delivers excellent performance at 1440p and 4K, with 4K High being perfectly playable and 4K Medium offering a smooth 95.1 FPS. The i5-9400 holds the combo back at 1080p, where the maximum frame rate is 162.6 FPS on Low, and this is the primary reason the combo ranks 247th rather than higher. For a 1080p gamer, this pairing is overkill on the GPU side, and the CPU will limit performance. For 1440p or 4K, the combo is well-matched, with the GPU doing the heavy lifting and delivering frame rates that are competitive with much more expensive CPU configurations.