Control

Control, Remedy’s 2019 action-adventure, presents a demanding environment for the Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti combination. The measured data indicates that this pairing is capable of delivering a playable experience, but only when settings and resolution are managed carefully. The benchmark results show a clear hierarchy across the four tested presets, with the GPU acting as the primary constraint at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

For this specific combination, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium produces an average of 64 FPS, which is only 7 FPS lower than the High preset’s 57 FPS but provides a substantial jump from the Ultra preset’s 50 FPS. The Medium preset also provides the only complete frame time data in the entire set, showing a minimum of 55 FPS and a maximum of 74 FPS at 1080p, indicating consistent frame pacing without severe dips.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset drops to an average of 49 FPS, but this remains above the 43 FPS achieved on High. The gap between Medium and Low at this resolution is 20 FPS (49 vs 69), which suggests that the GPU is still managing the workload effectively. The Medium preset’s minimum of 41 FPS at 1440p is the lowest recorded for this settings tier, but it remains within a tolerable range for slower-paced exploration.

For users prioritizing visual fidelity over frame rate, the High preset is the maximum viable option. At 1080p, High delivers 57 FPS, which is acceptable for this title’s atmospheric gameplay. However, at 1440p, High falls to 43 FPS, and at 4K it drops to 29 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth motion. The Ultra preset is not recommended, as it yields 50 FPS at 1080p and only 25 FPS at 4K, with no measurable benefit in frame consistency over High based on the available data.

The Low preset provides the highest frame rates—91 FPS at 1080p and 69 FPS at 1440p—but it sacrifices visual quality to achieve these numbers. Given that the Medium preset offers a 27 FPS improvement over Low at 1080p while retaining a playable 64 FPS average, Medium is the sweet spot for this hardware configuration.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti ranks 3176 out of 3720 tested combos in Control. This places the pairing in the lower 15th percentile of all configurations, indicating that most other tested systems outperform it in this specific title.

This rank reflects the GPU’s limitations rather than the CPU’s capabilities. The GTX 1660 Ti sits at the 41st percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 7723. Its nearest rivals in the GPU benchmark include the AMD Radeon 540 (0.7% higher score), the AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 (1.9% higher), and the AMD Radeon R7 250 (2.2% higher). These margins are negligible, confirming that the GTX 1660 Ti is positioned at the entry-level tier of modern GPUs.

The CPU, by contrast, is a much stronger component. The i7-12700KF ranks at the 85th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35365. Its nearest rivals in CPU performance are the Intel Core i7-13700T (0.1% lower score), Intel Core i5-13600T (0.2% higher), Intel Core 5 213PE (0.2% lower), and Intel Core i7-12700K (0.2% higher). This places the CPU in the upper echelon of desktop processors, meaning the bottleneck in Control is unequivocally the graphics card.

The disparity between the CPU’s high percentile (85) and the combo’s low rank (15th percentile) underscores that this system is CPU-heavy but GPU-light, a configuration that will consistently underperform in graphically intensive titles like Control.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is the decisive component in this benchmark configuration. It features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1500 MHz with a boost clock of 1770 MHz, and the memory runs at an effective speed of 12 Gbps.

These specifications place the GTX 1660 Ti in the lower tier of Turing-based cards. The GPU’s 41st percentile ranking among all GPUs, coupled with an average benchmark score of 7723, confirms its position as a 1080p-oriented card. The measured results in Control align with this assessment: the GPU maintains playable frame rates at 1080p across all settings, but struggles as resolution increases.

The 6 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Control at 1080p and 1440p, as evidenced by the fact that the Low, Medium, and High presets all produce playable averages at these resolutions. However, the 4K results show a sharp decline, with the High preset falling to 29 FPS and the Ultra preset to 25 FPS. This suggests that the GPU’s raw compute power, rather than its memory capacity, is the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The GPU’s compute capability is measured at 5.437 TFLOPS for FP32 operations, with a pixel rate of 84.96 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 169.9 GTexel/s. These figures are modest by modern standards, and the benchmark data reflects this: the card is simply not equipped to handle 4K rendering in a demanding title like Control, regardless of the CPU’s strength.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates provide a comprehensive picture of the system’s performance across the 12 tested configurations.

At 1920x1080, the results show a clear performance hierarchy:

• Low: 91 FPS average
• Medium: 64 FPS average (min 55, max 74)
• High: 57 FPS average
• Ultra: 50 FPS average

The 1080p data reveals that the GPU has headroom to spare. The jump from Low to Medium costs 27 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High costs only 7 FPS, and High to Ultra costs another 7 FPS. This indicates that the GPU is not fully saturated at 1080p, as the performance drops are not linear with the presumed increase in rendering load.

At 2560x1440, the results show a similar pattern but with lower absolute values:

• Low: 69 FPS average
• Medium: 49 FPS average (min 41, max 56)
• High: 43 FPS average
• Ultra: 38 FPS average

The 1440p results demonstrate a more significant impact from the GPU’s limitations. The gap between Low and Medium is 20 FPS, and between Medium and High is 6 FPS. The Ultra preset at 38 FPS is approaching the edge of playability, and the High preset at 43 FPS is only marginally better.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain playable frame rates:

• Low: 46 FPS average
• Medium: 33 FPS average (min 28, max 38)
• High: 29 FPS average
• Ultra: 25 FPS average

The 4K results show a steep drop-off. Even the Low preset barely manages 46 FPS, and all other presets fall below the 30 FPS threshold that is generally considered the minimum for acceptable gameplay. The Medium preset’s minimum of 28 FPS indicates that frame drops below 30 FPS are common at this resolution.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Control at 4K resolution?

A: The data shows that at 3840x2160, the system achieves 46 FPS on Low, 33 FPS on Medium, 29 FPS on High, and 25 FPS on Ultra. Only the Low preset provides a playable average, and even then, the Medium preset’s minimum of 28 FPS suggests that frame drops below 30 FPS are frequent.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a smooth 60 FPS experience?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 91 FPS, which is the only configuration that exceeds 60 FPS with a comfortable margin. The Medium preset at 64 FPS also meets the 60 FPS target, but the High preset at 57 FPS falls just short.

Q: How does the CPU compare to the GPU in terms of overall performance?

A: The Intel Core i7-12700KF ranks at the 85th percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 35365, while the GTX 1660 Ti ranks at the 41st percentile with an average score of 7723. This makes the CPU significantly more powerful relative to its peers than the GPU.

Q: Is the GTX 1660 Ti’s 6 GB VRAM sufficient for Control?

A: The benchmark results indicate that 6 GB is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, as all presets produce playable frame rates at these resolutions. At 4K, the performance drops sharply, but this is more likely due to the GPU’s compute limits rather than VRAM exhaustion, given that even the Low preset at 4K only achieves 46 FPS.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like on the Medium preset?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with complete frame time data. At 1080p, it shows a minimum of 55 FPS and a maximum of 74 FPS, while at 1440p it shows a minimum of 41 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS. At 4K, the minimum is 28 FPS and the maximum is 38 FPS.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all other tested configurations?

A: This specific combination of the i7-12700KF and GTX 1660 Ti ranks 3176 out of 3720 tested combos in Control, placing it in the bottom 15% of all configurations tested for this game.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a high-end desktop processor with 12 cores and 20 threads, based on the Alder Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 25 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU’s benchmark scores are consistently strong: it achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28838 and a single-core score of 4071, along with a Geekbench multi-core score of 14367 and a single-core score of 2255.

Given these specifications, the CPU is not a limiting factor in Control. The game’s performance scaling across resolutions—from 91 FPS at 1080p Low to 46 FPS at 4K Low—shows a clear GPU bottleneck. The CPU’s high percentile ranking (85th) and its proximity to rivals like the Core i7-13700T (0.1% lower) and Core i5-13600T (0.2% higher) confirm that it has ample processing headroom for this title.

The CPU’s memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5, along with its dual-channel memory bus, provides flexibility for system builders. However, the benchmark data does not indicate that memory bandwidth is a constraint in Control, as the FPS drops are consistent with GPU-bound behavior. The CPU’s 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier make it a capable gaming processor, but in this specific configuration, its performance is masked by the GPU’s limitations.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a consistent pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. On the Medium preset, the average FPS drops from 64 at 1080p to 49 at 1440p and then to 33 at 4K. This represents a 23% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 33% drop from 1440p to 4K.

The scaling pattern is similar across other presets. On High, the averages are 57 FPS at 1080p, 43 FPS at 1440p, and 29 FPS at 4K—a 25% drop followed by a 33% drop. On Low, the averages are 91 FPS, 69 FPS, and 46 FPS, respectively, showing a 24% drop and then a 33% drop.

The consistent percentage drops across all presets indicate that the GPU is the limiting component at every resolution. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a smaller FPS difference between 1080p and 4K, as the CPU workload would remain constant while the GPU workload increases. Instead, the proportional decreases in FPS at each resolution step confirm that the GTX 1660 Ti’s rendering throughput is the decisive factor.

The 4K results are particularly telling: the difference between Low (46 FPS) and Ultra (25 FPS) at this resolution is 21 FPS, which is a smaller absolute gap than at 1080p (41 FPS between Low and Ultra). This suggests that at 4K, the GPU is so heavily saturated that even reducing settings has diminishing returns, as the pixel fill rate becomes the primary constraint.