Control

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti produces a clear performance curve in Control, with the data indicating that the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor as resolution increases. At 1920x1080, the system delivers substantial headroom, with the Low preset achieving 147.8 FPS. Scaling to 2560x1440 drops this to 110.1 FPS, a reduction of 37.7 FPS. Moving to 3840x2160 yields 72.2 FPS on Low, showing a further 37.9 FPS decline. The progression from 1080p to 4K on the Low preset represents a total drop of 75.6 FPS, or roughly half the original performance. This steep decline indicates that while the CPU is capable of feeding high frame rates at lower resolutions, the RTX 3060 Ti's rendering throughput cannot sustain those rates when pixel count quadruples.

The High preset tells a similar story with slightly compressed margins. At 1080p High, the combo produces 91.4 FPS. At 1440p High, this falls to 70.2 FPS, and at 4K High, it bottoms out at 47.9 FPS. The gap between 1080p and 4K on High is 43.5 FPS, which is proportionally smaller than the Low preset's drop. This compression suggests that at higher settings, the GPU is already working closer to its limit even at lower resolutions, so the additional pixel load has relatively less impact. The Ultra preset follows this pattern: 78.8 FPS at 1080p, 60 FPS at 1440p, and 44.2 FPS at 4K. The data indicates that the RTX 3060 Ti, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, begins to saturate as resolution climbs, making the Core i7-13700K's 16 cores and 24 threads largely idle during 4K runs.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS deltas between resolutions reveal where the bottleneck shifts. At 1080p Low, the 147.8 FPS figure is high enough that the CPU's single-thread performance likely matters more. The i7-13700K's 3dmark_single_thread score of 1136 and passmark_single_thread score of 4333 indicate strong per-core capability. However, dropping to 4K Low (72.2 FPS) cuts performance by more than half, demonstrating that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth become decisive. The RTX 3060 Ti's pixel rate of 133.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 253.1 GTexel/s are fixed hardware limits that no amount of CPU headroom can overcome.

Comparing the Medium preset across resolutions shows the most consistent scaling behavior. At 1080p Medium, the system hits 101.9 FPS. At 1440p Medium, it drops to 77.5 FPS, a 24.4 FPS reduction. At 4K Medium, it falls to 55.7 FPS, another 21.8 FPS drop. The near-linear decline from 1080p to 1440p to 4K suggests that the game's rendering workload scales predictably with pixel count on this preset. The Ultra preset exhibits the smallest absolute deltas, moving from 78.8 FPS at 1080p to 60 FPS at 1440p to 44.2 FPS at 4K. This tightening indicates that Ultra settings introduce additional shading and post-processing costs that already tax the GPU at 1080p, leaving less room for resolution-based scaling to manifest.

GPU Role

The RTX 3060 Ti's specifications directly influence these results. With a boost clock of 1665 MHz and 4864 shading units, the GPU delivers 16.20 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p in Control but becomes a constraint at 4K. The 80 ROPs handle pixel output, and the 152 TMUs manage texture filtering. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the combo only reaches 44.2 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold commonly associated with smooth gameplay. The GPU's passmark_g3d score of 20349 and avgBenchmarkScore of 25120 place it in the 69th percentile of all GPUs, indicating it is a mid-range part that cannot fully saturate the CPU's potential in this title.

The VRAM capacity also plays a role. Control at 4K with High or Ultra settings can exceed 8 GB of video memory usage, and the measured 47.9 FPS at 4K High versus 55.7 FPS at 4K Medium suggests that texture streaming and memory pressure are impacting performance. The GPU's memory clock of 1750 MHz, translating to 14 Gbps effective, provides the bandwidth needed for most scenes, but the capacity limit is the more likely constraint. The nearestRivals for the GPU include the AMD Radeon RX 6700M with an avgScore of 25180 and a deltaPct of -0.2, meaning the RTX 3060 Ti is essentially performance-equivalent to that mobile part. The AMD Radeon RX 6600 also sits close with an avgScore of 25235 and a deltaPct of -0.5, further confirming the RTX 3060 Ti's mid-range positioning.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the Medium preset at 1440p offers the most balanced experience. The 77.5 FPS average is well above the 60 FPS threshold, and the visual uplift from Low is significant. At 1080p, the High preset at 91.4 FPS provides a strong experience without the performance overhead of Ultra, which only gains 78.8 FPS. For users targeting 4K, the Low preset at 72.2 FPS is the only row that clears 60 FPS, but the visual compromises are substantial. The Medium preset at 4K (55.7 FPS) and High at 4K (47.9 FPS) are both playable but sub-60, and Ultra at 4K (44.2 FPS) dips below 45 FPS, which may feel sluggish in action sequences.

The data suggests that the optimal configuration depends on the display resolution. At 1080p, High is the sweet spot, delivering 91.4 FPS while maintaining better image quality than Medium's 101.9 FPS. At 1440p, Medium (77.5 FPS) beats High (70.2 FPS) by 7.3 FPS while still offering a stable frame rate. At 4K, Low (72.2 FPS) is the only preset that maintains smoothness, but users accepting 55-60 FPS could consider Medium. The Ultra preset never provides a meaningful frame rate advantage over High, and its 4K figure of 44.2 FPS is the lowest measured, so it should only be used at 1080p where the 78.8 FPS result is still acceptable.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full preset range is usable. Low produces 147.8 FPS, Medium 101.9 FPS, High 91.4 FPS, and Ultra 78.8 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 69 FPS, showing that the CPU and GPU combo has significant headroom at this resolution. The 1080p results indicate that even the most demanding preset stays above 75 FPS, making this resolution the safest choice for high-refresh-rate displays. The data shows a clear step-down from Low to Medium (45.9 FPS drop), then a smaller step to High (10.5 FPS drop), and a final step to Ultra (12.6 FPS drop).

At 2560x1440, the same preset order produces 110.1 FPS on Low, 77.5 FPS on Medium, 70.2 FPS on High, and 60 FPS on Ultra. The Low-to-Ultra spread narrows to 50.1 FPS. The Medium preset at 77.5 FPS is the only one that comfortably exceeds 60 FPS, while High and Ultra sit at 70.2 and 60 FPS respectively. The 1440p results suggest that users should prioritize Medium or High, as Ultra's 60 FPS is a marginal result that may dip in demanding scenes. The drop from Low to Medium is 32.6 FPS, which is less severe than at 1080p, indicating the GPU is becoming more of a factor.

At 3840x2160, the results compress further. Low achieves 72.2 FPS, Medium 55.7 FPS, High 47.9 FPS, and Ultra 44.2 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread is only 28 FPS. This compression confirms that the GPU is the limiting component, as all presets cluster in a narrower range. The 4K Low result is the only one above 60 FPS, and even it is only 12.2 FPS above that threshold. The Medium preset at 55.7 FPS is the best visual-to-performance trade-off if 60 FPS is not mandatory. The data indicates that 4K gaming on this combo requires accepting either Low settings for smoothness or Medium/High for image quality at lower frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 834th out of 1636 tested configurations in Control. This places it in the 49th percentile of all combos, meaning slightly below the median. The rank reflects the RTX 3060 Ti's mid-range status rather than the CPU's capability. The i7-13700K ranks in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs with an avgBenchmarkScore of 47282, while the GPU ranks in the 69th percentile with an avgBenchmarkScore of 25120. The discrepancy between these percentile positions suggests that the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing, dragging the overall combo rank below what the CPU alone would achieve.

The CPU's nearestRivals include the Intel Core i7-13700KF with an avgScore of 47334 and a deltaPct of -0.1, meaning the 13700K is essentially identical to the KF variant. The AMD EPYC 4364P has an avgScore of 47131 with a deltaPct of 0.3, and the Intel Core i9-12900F has an avgScore of 47081 with a deltaPct of 0.4. These small deltas indicate that the 13700K is well-positioned among its peers, but this strength does not translate to a high combo rank because the game's performance is bounded by the GPU. The GPU's nearestRivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6700M (deltaPct -0.2), RX 6600 (deltaPct -0.5), and Radeon 890M (deltaPct -0.5), all of which are within 0.7% of the RTX 3060 Ti's avgScore, confirming that this GPU is a standard mid-range part.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K provides ample compute resources for Control. Its 16 cores (8 performance and 8 efficiency) and 24 threads deliver strong multi-threaded performance, as seen in the cinebench_r23_multicore score of 39000 and passmark_multithread score of 45887. The base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz give it excellent single-thread performance, reflected in the cinebench_r23_singlecore score of 5505 and geekbench_singlecore score of 2850. These scores suggest that the CPU is never the bottleneck in this game, as Control is not heavily threaded and the GPU workload dominates at higher resolutions.

The CPU's 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency, which is beneficial for frame pacing. The 3dmark_16_threads score of 10717 and 3dmark_max_threads score of 12412 indicate strong scaling across threads, but the game's actual usage is likely limited to a few cores. The passmark_physics score of 2716 is modest, suggesting that the CPU's physics throughput is not a limiting factor in Control. The data shows that at 1080p Low, where the CPU has the most influence, the combo reaches 147.8 FPS, which is approaching the CPU's practical limit for this title. At 4K, the CPU's role diminishes entirely, as the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth cap performance regardless of CPU speed. The launch MSRP for the CPU is $409, and the GPU's launch MSRP is 399 USD, but neither price affects the measured performance.