Control

Control with the Intel Core i7-12700K and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT presents a dataset where the GPU consistently dictates performance ceilings, but the CPU’s substantial headroom prevents it from ever becoming a bottleneck. The measured rows show a clear progression of frame rates that scales inversely with resolution and settings, revealing a system that is well-balanced for 1080p and 1440p play but struggles to maintain fluid motion at 4K. The benchmark results indicate that this combination ranks in the 74th percentile of all tested combos for this title, placing it firmly in the upper-middle tier of available hardware pairings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and unambiguous, confirming that the Radeon RX 5700 XT is the limiting component at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 115 at 1920x1080 to 87 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 28 frames, and then drops further to 59 at 3840x2160. This represents a 48.7% decrease in average FPS from 1080p to 4K at the lowest preset. The pattern holds across all settings; at High settings, the averages are 73, 55, and 37 for 1080p, 1440p, and 4K respectively, illustrating a consistent performance penalty as pixel count increases.

The scaling behavior suggests that the GPU’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K data points reveal a system that is overtaxed. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 32, which is barely above a slideshow threshold for action gameplay. The delta between Medium and Ultra at each resolution is also telling: at 1440p, Medium yields 62 FPS while Ultra yields 48 FPS, a 14-frame gap that widens to 10 frames at 4K (42 vs 32). This indicates that the GPU’s compute resources, which include 2560 shading units and a 9.754 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, are the primary constraint once resolution exceeds 1080p.

Notably, the 1080p results show less variance between settings, with Low at 115 FPS and High at 73 FPS. This narrower spread suggests that at 1080p, the CPU’s 12 cores and 20 threads can feed the GPU adequately, but the GPU still hits its architectural limits. The data does not include any 4K Medium minimum or maximum frame times, but the 4K Medium row does list a min of 36 and max of 48, which brackets the average of 42. This range of 12 frames indicates frame pacing inconsistencies that would be perceptible during combat sequences with destructible environments.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is built on the RDNA 1.0 architecture with a 7 nm process node from TSMC, featuring 10,300 million transistors on a 251 mm² die. Its clock behavior is defined by a base of 1605 MHz, a game clock of 1755 MHz, and a boost clock of 1905 MHz. The memory operates at 1750 MHz, which translates to 14 Gbps effective across a 256-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications directly correlate with the measured FPS: the card’s 64 ROPs and 160 TMUs handle pixel and texture fill rates of 121.9 GPixel/s and 304.8 GTexel/s respectively, which are adequate for 1080p but insufficient for 4K Ultra settings.

Benchmark data places this GPU in the 59th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 16361. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (0.1% faster), the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (0.3% slower), and the AMD Radeon PRO W7500 (0.3% slower). These marginal deltas suggest that the RX 5700 XT is a mid-range performer that trades blows with professional workstation cards. In Control specifically, the 4K Ultra result of 32 FPS aligns with the GPU’s PassMark DirectX 12 score of 64, which is notably lower than its DirectX 11 score of 116, indicating that the card is less optimized for modern API workloads.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is a critical factor in the resolution scaling. At 1080p Low, the card can allocate resources freely, but at 4K High and Ultra, the texture and geometry demands likely approach the memory ceiling. The data shows that 4K High averages 37 FPS, which is only 5 FPS above 4K Ultra, suggesting that the card is memory-bandwidth-limited rather than compute-limited in these scenarios. The GPU’s TDP of 225 W and suggested PSU of 550 W indicate a power-hungry part, but the benchmark results do not include thermal throttling data, so performance consistency cannot be inferred.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-12700K and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT achieves a combo rank of 2767 out of 3720 tested combinations in Control. This places the system in the 74th percentile of all combos, meaning that roughly a quarter of tested hardware configurations deliver higher average frame rates in this game. The ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU’s mid-range status; the CPU alone sits in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU is in the 59th percentile of all GPUs, so the combo’s overall position is dragged down by the graphics card.

Compared to other combos in the database, this pairing is likely outperformed by systems using higher-tier GPUs but may beat configurations with weaker CPUs and similar graphics cards. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 35287 is nearly identical to that of the Intel Core i5-13600T (35305, -0.1% delta) and the Intel Core i7-12700KF (35365, -0.2% delta), indicating that the 12700K is a strong processor that does not limit the GPU in most scenarios. However, the GPU’s average score of 16361 is only 0.1% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M, which is a mobile workstation part, underscoring the RX 5700 XT’s position as a capable but not exceptional desktop GPU.

The combo rank of 2767 suggests that for users seeking 60 FPS at 1440p High, this system will fall short, as the measured average is 55 FPS. At 1080p High, the 73 FPS average is more respectable, and at 1080p Low, the 115 FPS average is excellent for competitive play. The rank also implies that the system is better suited for 1080p gaming or 1440p with reduced settings, rather than 4K, where even Low settings only produce 59 FPS on average.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 provides the most consistent frame rates, with averages ranging from 63 FPS on Ultra to 115 FPS on Low. At 2560x1440, averages drop to 48-87 FPS depending on settings, while 3840x2160 only manages 32-59 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 5700 XT compare to its nearest GPU rival in terms of average score?

A: The RX 5700 XT has an average benchmark score of 16361, which is 0.1% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (16351) and 0.3% higher than the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (16408, where the RX 5700 XT is 0.3% slower).

Q: Does the Intel Core i7-12700K bottleneck the RX 5700 XT in this game?

A: Based on the CPU’s 84th percentile ranking and its average score of 35287, which is only 0.1% below the Intel Core i5-13600T, the processor provides ample headroom. The FPS scaling with resolution indicates the GPU is the limiting factor, not the CPU.

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

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the average FPS is 62, with a minimum of 53 and a maximum of 71. This 18-frame range suggests some frame pacing instability during intense scenes.

Q: Is this combo suitable for 4K gaming in Control?

A: No, the 4K results show averages of 32 FPS on Ultra and 37 FPS on High, which are below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Even Low settings only reach 59 FPS at 4K, which is marginal.

Q: How does the combo rank relative to other tested systems?

A: This combo ranks 2767 out of 3720 tested combinations, placing it in the 74th percentile. This means it performs better than about 74% of all tested systems in Control.

Settings Recommendations

For a balance of visual fidelity and playable frame rates, the 2560x1440 Medium preset is the most sensible recommendation from the measured data. At this resolution and setting, the combo produces an average of 62 FPS with a minimum of 53 FPS, which falls within the acceptable range for action-adventure gameplay. The 1440p High preset drops to 55 FPS on average, which is close to the 60 FPS target but may dip below it during heavy particle effects or physics interactions.

For users prioritizing smoothness over visuals, 1920x1080 High offers an average of 73 FPS, which is a significant improvement over 1440p High and still provides decent image quality. The 1080p Low preset yields 115 FPS on average, which is ideal for users with high refresh rate monitors, but it sacrifices the atmospheric lighting and texture detail that Control is known for. The 4K presets are not recommended, as even Low settings only produce 59 FPS on average, and Ultra drops to 32 FPS, which is unplayable for most users.

The Medium preset at 1080p provides 82 FPS on average with a minimum of 70 FPS, offering a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. This suggests that 1080p Medium is the safest choice for consistent performance, while 1440p Medium offers a better visual experience at the cost of a 20 FPS average reduction. The data does not include any ray tracing performance, so those settings cannot be evaluated, but the base rasterization results indicate that Medium settings are the sweet spot for this hardware.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K is a 12-core, 20-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3 cache. This processor supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration and connects via PCIe Gen 4 with 20 lanes. Its benchmark results show a single-thread 3DMark score of 1043 and a max-thread score of 9979, indicating strong per-core performance that is essential for game logic.

In Control, the CPU’s role is to handle physics calculations, AI, and the game’s complex destruction system. The 12700K’s Cinebench R23 multicore score of 19784 and single-core score of 1850.5 suggest that it can process these workloads without becoming a bottleneck. The measured FPS differences between resolutions at the same settings are entirely attributable to the GPU, as the CPU maintains consistent frame delivery across all tested configurations. For instance, at High settings, the FPS drops from 73 at 1080p to 55 at 1440p to 37 at 4K, which is a GPU-bound scaling pattern.

The processor’s PassMark single-thread score of 4013 and multithread score of 34404 further confirm its capability. Compared to its nearest rivals, the 12700K is 0.1% slower than the Intel Core i5-13600T in average score (35287 vs 35305) and 0.2% slower than the Intel Core i7-12700KF (35365). These negligible differences mean that in a GPU-bound game like Control, upgrading the CPU would yield no measurable FPS improvement. The CPU’s 84th percentile ranking versus all CPUs reinforces that it is not the limiting component in this combination.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings produces playable results. Low settings average 115 FPS, Medium averages 82 FPS with a minimum of 70 and maximum of 94, High averages 73 FPS, and Ultra averages 63 FPS. The 52-frame spread between Low and Ultra indicates that the GPU’s compute units are the primary differentiator, as the CPU can handle all settings equally.

At 2560x1440, performance drops noticeably. Low settings average 87 FPS, Medium averages 62 FPS with a minimum of 53 and maximum of 71, High averages 55 FPS, and Ultra averages 48 FPS. The Medium preset at this resolution shows the largest frame time variance, with a 18-FPS range between minimum and maximum, which could cause noticeable stuttering during fast camera movements.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain fluid motion. Low settings average 59 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS target. Medium averages 42 FPS with a minimum of 36 and maximum of 48, High averages 37 FPS, and Ultra averages 32 FPS. The 4K Medium data is the only 4K row with min/max values, and the 12-FPS range indicates inconsistent frame delivery. The step-down from 1440p to 4K at High settings is an 18-FPS reduction (55 to 37), which is the largest percentage drop across the resolution ladder, confirming that the GPU’s memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s is insufficient for 4K High textures.