Control

Control, the 2019 action-adventure title, presents a demanding workload that scales significantly with both resolution and graphical presets. For the combination of the Intel Core i7-12700KF and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, the measured data shows a system capable of high refresh-rate gaming at 1080p and 1440p, while 4K Ultra settings push the hardware to its limits, resulting in a sub-60 FPS experience. The benchmark results indicate a clear shift in system bottleneck behavior as resolution increases, moving from a more balanced load at 1080p to a heavily GPU-bound scenario at 4K, which is typical for a game with Control's visual complexity.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is substantial and reveals the GPU's dominant role at higher pixel counts. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 131.4 FPS at 1080p to 96.9 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of approximately 26%, and then further to 69.6 FPS at 4K, a 47% drop from the 1440p figure. This scaling pattern indicates that the Radeon RX 7900 XT is the primary limiting component at 4K, as the rendering workload grows exponentially with pixel count.

The scaling becomes even more pronounced at the highest preset. Under Ultra settings, the average FPS drops from 111.4 at 1080p to 86.6 at 1440p, and then plummets to 55.8 at 4K. This 50% performance loss between 1440p and 4K under Ultra settings highlights the extreme demands of the game's ray-traced and high-fidelity effects at native 4K resolution. Conversely, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p is less severe, suggesting that the Core i7-12700KF, with its 12 cores and 20 threads, is still providing sufficient headroom to feed the GPU at those lower resolutions.

At Low settings, the frame rates are remarkably high, with 207.4 FPS at 1080p and 159.1 FPS at 1440p. The drop to 106.9 FPS at 4K Low still represents a 33% reduction from the 1440p result, indicating that even with reduced graphical load, the sheer number of pixels at 4K keeps the GPU as the bottleneck. The data suggests that for players targeting 4K, lowering settings from Ultra to High provides a meaningful 13.8 FPS uplift, while the jump from High to Medium offers a further 8.5 FPS, but the 1440p resolution remains the sweet spot for high refresh rate monitors.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT's specifications directly correlate with the observed performance. Its 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, delivering 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth, is a critical factor for Control, which is known for its high-resolution textures and complex physics simulations. The 20 GB frame buffer ensures that at 4K Ultra, the card does not run into memory capacity limits, allowing the 55.8 FPS result to be a pure measure of compute and fill-rate performance rather than a memory swap penalty.

The GPU's high boost clock of 2394 MHz and its 5376 shading units contribute to the raw compute throughput needed to maintain respectable frame rates. The 51.48 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 192 ROPs are particularly relevant for the rasterization-heavy effects in Control, such as the game's signature particle systems and destructible environments. The pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s further explain why the card handles 1440p Ultra at 86.6 FPS, as these metrics scale directly with resolution.

However, the GPU's performance is not uniform across all settings. The fact that 4K Ultra yields 55.8 FPS, while 4K High yields 69.6 FPS, and 4K Medium yields 78.1 FPS, demonstrates that the card's compute resources are being taxed heavily by the Ultra preset's additional effects. The card's 300 W TDP and dual-slot design are consistent with a high-end part that is expected to operate under significant load in this scenario. The data shows that the RX 7900 XT is a capable 4K card for this title, but only when settings are moderated from the maximum preset.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-12700KF and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT achieves a rank of 353 out of 1636 tested combos in Control. This places the pairing in the top 21.6% of all tested configurations, a strong result that reflects the high-end nature of both components. The ranking indicates that this system outperforms the vast majority of other CPU-GPU pairings in this specific game, though it is not at the very top tier where combinations featuring the absolute fastest consumer hardware reside.

In the context of the CPU's nearest rivals, the i7-12700KF's average benchmark score of 35355 is nearly identical to the Intel Core i5-14400, which scores 35336, a delta of just 0.1%. This means the i7-12700KF provides a negligible performance difference in synthetic tests compared to its direct competitor, suggesting that the GPU is doing the heavy lifting in determining the in-game rank. The CPU's percentile of 89 against all CPUs confirms its high standing, but the in-game rank of 353 is more heavily influenced by the GPU's 82nd percentile ranking.

The fact that the GPU's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile and RTX 4080 Mobile, with delta percentages of 0% and 0.6% respectively, is notable. While these are mobile parts, their average benchmark scores are statistically tied with the desktop RX 7900 XT. This suggests that in a game like Control, which is sensitive to raw compute and memory bandwidth, the desktop RX 7900 XT is performing at a level that places it in direct competition with top-tier laptop GPUs, which helps explain the combo's strong overall rank in the database.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of the combo's performance across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 111.4 FPS on Ultra, 131.4 FPS on High, 146.4 FPS on Medium, and 207.4 FPS on Low. The spread from Low to Ultra is 96.0 FPS, showing a wide range of performance headroom for competitive or high-refresh-rate play. The 207.4 FPS result on Low indicates that the i7-12700KF is capable of feeding the GPU enough data to saturate a 240 Hz monitor in less demanding scenes.

Stepping up to 2560x1440, the average frame rates are 86.6 FPS on Ultra, 96.9 FPS on High, 109.4 FPS on Medium, and 159.1 FPS on Low. The 1440p results show that the combo can comfortably handle high refresh rate gaming at 1440p on High and Medium settings, with the Ultra preset still delivering a playable 86.6 FPS. The Low preset at 159.1 FPS remains far above the 144 Hz threshold, confirming that the system is not CPU-limited at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are 55.8 FPS on Ultra, 69.6 FPS on High, 78.1 FPS on Medium, and 106.9 FPS on Low. The 4K Ultra result is the only sub-60 FPS figure in the entire dataset, making it the sole scenario where the system cannot maintain a consistent 60 FPS target. The 4K High setting at 69.6 FPS crosses that threshold, and the 4K Low setting at 106.9 FPS shows that even at 4K, the system has substantial performance reserves when graphical fidelity is reduced. The data consistently shows a performance hierarchy where each step from Low to Ultra reduces FPS by roughly 15-25%, with the largest absolute drop occurring between Low and Medium at 1080p.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for a 144 Hz monitor?

A: At 2560x1440, both High and Medium settings (96.9 FPS and 109.4 FPS respectively) exceed 90 FPS, while the Ultra preset at 86.6 FPS is close. For a strict 1080p 144 Hz display, High (131.4 FPS) and Medium (146.4 FPS) are sufficient, but Ultra (111.4 FPS) falls short of the 144 FPS target.

Q: Can this system run Control at 4K with a stable 60 FPS?

A: The data shows 4K High averages 69.6 FPS and 4K Medium averages 78.1 FPS, both of which are above 60 FPS. However, the 4K Ultra preset yields an average of 55.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that the maximum preset is not viable for a locked 60 FPS experience at 4K.

Q: How does the Core i7-12700KF compare to its closest rival in synthetic tests?

A: The i7-12700KF has an average benchmark score of 35355, which is only 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i5-14400's score of 35336. This indicates a statistical tie in overall CPU performance, making the GPU selection the primary differentiator for in-game FPS.

Q: Is the 20 GB VRAM of the RX 7900 XT a limiting factor in this game?

A: The benchmark results do not indicate a VRAM capacity issue. The 4K Ultra setting achieves 55.8 FPS, which is a compute-bound result. The 20 GB frame buffer and 800.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient to handle Control's assets without causing memory-related stutters or frame rate collapses.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from Ultra to High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, moving from Ultra to High increases the average frame rate from 86.6 FPS to 96.9 FPS, a gain of 10.3 FPS (approximately 11.9%). This is a significant uplift that can help smooth out frame time spikes without a substantial visual quality loss.

Q: What does the combo's rank of 353 out of 1636 signify?

A: It means this specific CPU-GPU pairing outperforms 78.4% of all other tested combinations in Control. It is a strong result, placing the system in the upper quintile of tested hardware, though it is not in the top 10% where the absolute highest-end configurations reside.