Control

The pairing of an Intel Core i7-13700K with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER in Control is a study in contrasts: a top-tier 16-core processor driving a mid-range Turing card that is now several generations old. The data shows a combination that is heavily constrained by the GPU at higher resolutions, yet one that can still deliver a fully playable experience at 1080p with the right settings. The benchmark results paint a clear picture of where this system’s limits lie and how to best configure the game to work within them.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is the defining characteristic of this combo. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 120.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 60.5 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a 50% reduction in throughput. This steep decline is a textbook indicator of a GPU-bound scenario. The RTX 2060 SUPER’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth are simply being saturated as the pixel count quadruples.

The scaling pattern becomes even more telling when examining the Ultra preset. Here, the frame rate drops from 65.8 FPS at 1080p to 32.9 FPS at 4K, a 50% loss that mirrors the Low preset’s relative decline but from a much lower starting point. The absolute gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is a mere 27.6 FPS, whereas at 1080p that gap expands to 55.1 FPS. This compression of the settings range at higher resolutions confirms that the GPU is the limiting component; the CPU has ample headroom, but the graphics card cannot translate lower quality settings into proportionally higher frame rates once the resolution becomes demanding enough.

At 2560x1440, the combo sits in a middle ground. The High preset achieves 56.6 FPS, which is a 38.4% drop from its 1080p counterpart of 72.7 FPS. This resolution is the practical ceiling for this combination if you wish to maintain a consistent 60 FPS experience, and only with the Low preset (88.6 FPS) do you get comfortable margin. The data strongly suggests that the i7-13700K’s 16 cores and 24 threads are never the bottleneck here; instead, the RTX 2060 SUPER’s Turing architecture and 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 compute are the factors that dictate the performance envelope.

Settings Recommendations

For a balanced experience that prioritizes frame rate without abandoning visual fidelity, the High preset at 1920x1080 is the sweet spot. The measured 72.7 FPS average provides a smooth foundation for the game’s fast-paced action, and it sits well above the 60 FPS threshold that most players target. Dropping to Medium yields 83.6 FPS, a 15% improvement, but the visual cost in a game as atmospheric as Control may not be worth the gain when High is already playable.

At 2560x1440, the recommendation changes. High settings produce 56.6 FPS, which is close to but not quite at the 60 FPS mark. In this case, the Medium preset at 62.3 FPS is the better choice, as it crosses the 60 FPS line while still maintaining a moderate level of detail. The Low preset at 88.6 FPS is an option for competitive play or if you prioritize frame time consistency, but the visual downgrade is significant.

The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution. At 1080p it yields 65.8 FPS, but at 1440p it falls to 47.6 FPS and at 4K it bottoms out at 32.9 FPS. The performance cost of Ultra settings is disproportionate to the visual returns on this hardware. For 4K gaming, the Low preset at 60.5 FPS is the only viable option, and it will still feel marginal. The data indicates that this combo is best used as a 1080p machine for Control, with 1440p possible if you are willing to compromise on quality.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested configurations for Control, this specific pairing of the i7-13700K and RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 1175 out of 1636 total combos. This places it in the bottom 28% of all tested systems, which is a sobering statistic given the strength of the CPU. The rank is a direct consequence of the GPU’s age and position in the market; the RTX 2060 SUPER sits at the 63rd percentile among all GPUs, while the i7-13700K is in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs.

This disparity is the key takeaway. The combo rank is dragged down by the graphics card, not the processor. The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-13700KF (with a deltaPct of -0.1) and the AMD EPYC 4364P (with a deltaPct of 0.3), show that the processor is performing exactly as expected. The bottleneck is unequivocally the GPU. If you were to pair this same CPU with a more powerful graphics card, the combo rank would improve dramatically, as the GPU’s percentile is the limiting factor in Control’s performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the complete settings ladder is fully playable. The Low preset delivers an average of 120.9 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors. Medium follows at 83.6 FPS, High at 72.7 FPS, and Ultra at 65.8 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 37.3 FPS drop, the largest single-step decline in the entire dataset, indicating a significant increase in shader complexity or texture detail at that setting.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates begin to show strain. Low yields 88.6 FPS, still very good, but Medium drops to 62.3 FPS. High settings produce 56.6 FPS, and Ultra falls to 47.6 FPS. The gap between Low and High at this resolution is 32 FPS, showing that the GPU’s fill rate is being taxed more heavily. The 4K results are the most telling. Low settings average 60.5 FPS, which is a marginal 60 FPS. Medium dips to 45.4 FPS, High to 39.7 FPS, and Ultra to 32.9 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 27.6 FPS, which is the smallest absolute spread across all resolutions, confirming that the GPU is the hard limit.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is the primary determinant of performance in this game. With 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, it offers a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. This is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K results suggest that the memory capacity and bandwidth are being pushed to their limits. The GPU’s 2176 shading units and 64 ROPs are responsible for the pixel throughput, and the data shows that they are overwhelmed at higher resolutions.

The GPU’s boost clock of 1650 MHz is modest by modern standards, but its architecture is the limiting factor. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (32.9 FPS) is below the 60 FPS target, and even at 1440p Ultra (47.6 FPS) it fails to reach that mark. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 19774 places it at the 63rd percentile, and its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, has a deltaPct of 0.5, showing that it is performing within a narrow band of its expected capability. The 12 nm TU106 chip is simply outclassed by the demands of Control’s higher presets at high resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a formidable processor that is not the bottleneck in this configuration. Its 16 cores and 24 threads, with a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, provide ample headroom for Control’s game logic and physics. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 39000 and single-core score of 5505 are exceptional, and its 30 MB of shared L3 cache helps maintain smooth frame delivery.

The data shows that the CPU is not holding the GPU back. Even at 1080p Low, where the GPU is least stressed and the CPU would be most likely to become a limiting factor, the system achieves 120.9 FPS. This is a clear indication that the i7-13700K can feed frames to the RTX 2060 SUPER far faster than the GPU can render them. The CPU’s nearest rivals, including the AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 5945 with a deltaPct of -0.5, show that it is performing as expected. In this game, the i7-13700K is a future-proofing investment; it provides a massive amount of processing power that will remain relevant long after the GPU has been upgraded.