Control

The Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB delivers a playable but heavily GPU-limited experience in Control. The benchmark data shows that the graphics card is the primary bottleneck, with frame rates scaling directly with resolution and settings, while the 20-core processor provides ample headroom. The combo ranks in the lower half of tested configurations, indicating that this pairing is better suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming than for high-refresh 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and consistent pattern: Control becomes increasingly demanding as resolution increases, and the RX 9060 XT struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces an average of 90 FPS, which drops to 68 FPS at 2560x1440 and further plummets to 46 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 24% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 49% reduction from 1080p to 4K, demonstrating that the GPU's pixel throughput is the limiting factor.

The scaling from Medium to Ultra settings reinforces this interpretation. At 4K, the average frame rate falls from 52 FPS on Medium to 40 FPS on Ultra, a 23% performance penalty for the highest preset. At 1080p, the same settings change results in a drop from 101 FPS to 78 FPS, a similar 23% penaltyches. This uniform percentage loss across resolutions indicates that the GPU core is consistently saturated, and the game's visual effects scale uniformly with pixel count.

The Low preset data provides the clearest evidence of the GPU bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 143 FPS, but at 4K Low it falls to 73 FPS — still a 49% reduction. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the frame rate would plateau at high resolutions regardless of settings. Instead, the monotonically decreasing performance with increasing resolution shows that the RX 9060 XT's 8 GB memory bus and 128-bit interface are insufficient for 4K workloads, even with the processor's strong single-core performance from the 5.40 GHz boost clock.

Interestingly, the gap between Low and High presets narrows at higher resolutions. At 1080p, Low is 59% faster than High (143 vs 90 FPS), but at 4K, Low is only 59% faster as well (73 vs 46 FPS). This proportional difference suggests that the GPU's shading units, not its memory bandwidth, are the primary constraint, as the relative cost of higher-quality shading remains constant across resolutions.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Control?*

A: The data indicates 1920x1080 is the sweet spot. At High settings, the combo achieves 90 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. At 2560x1440 High, performance drops to 68 FPS, still playable but with less headroom for demanding scenes, while 4K High falls to 46 FPS, which may feel stuttery.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 90 FPS at 1920x1080 to 46 FPS at 3840x2160, a 49% reduction. The same proportional loss occurs at Low settings, where 143 FPS at 1080p falls to 73 FPS at 4K, confirming that the GPU is the limiting component across all presets.

Q: Is the Ultra preset worth the performance cost?

A: The Ultra preset delivers 78 FPS at 1080pament, but the gain over High is minimal in terms of average FPS. At 1080p, Ultra is 13% slower than High (78 vs 90 FPS), and at 1440p it is 13% slower (59 vs 68 FPS). For a 60 FPS target, Ultra at 1440p is borderline at 59 FPS, while High at 1440p provides more stable performance.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: No. The i7-14700F has 20 cores and 28 threads, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35122 and a single-core score of 4958. The measured FPS scaling with resolution and settings shows the GPU is saturated first. Evidence: 1080p Low reaches 143 FPS, but 4K Low only reaches 73 FPS, which is a pure GPU workload difference.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among tested systems?

A: This pairing ranks 1908 out of 3720 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 51st percentile. This is a mid-pack result, indicating that while the i7-14700F is a strong processor (91st percentile among all CPUs), the RX 9060 XT's 24th percentile GPU score drags the overall combo down.

Q: How does the RX 9060 XT compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the RX 9060 XT scores 4093. Its nearest rival, the Intel HD Graphics 630, scores 4075 (0.4% slower), while the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M scores 4151 (1.4% faster). These rivals are largely integrated or mobile parts, indicating the RX 9060 XT is a low-end discrete GPU.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F plays a supportive but non-limiting role in Control. With 20 cores, 28 threads, and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, this Raptor Lake-R processor provides substantial compute headroom. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35122 and single-core score of 4958 place it in the 91st percentile among all CPUs, meaning it outperforms the vast majority of processors in both threaded and single-threaded workloads.

In Control, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations. The game's action-adventure genre typically demands strong single-core performance for game logic, and the i7-14700F's 5.40 GHz boost clock is well-suited for this task. However, the benchmark data shows that the GPU becomes the bottleneck before the CPU's limits are reached, as evidenced by the linear scaling of FPS with resolution. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 143 FPS, and the CPU is still not the constraint — otherwise, this frame rate would not improve to 143 FPS from 90 FPS at High settings.

The processor's large L3 cache of 33 MB shared and 2 MB per-core L2 cache helps maintain consistent frame times in complex scenes. The PassMark multi-thread score of 41317 and integer math score of 155808 indicate strong processing capability, but these metrics do not translate directly to gaming performance because the GPU is the limiting factor. The i7-14700F's 65W TDP also ensures it can sustain boost clocks without thermal throttling, which is important for maintaining the 68 FPS average at 1440p High.

Compared to the Intel Xeon 6505P (0.2% faster in average benchmark score) and AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (0.6% slower), the i7-14700F is competitive in synthetic teststons. In gaming, this CPU's performance class is more than sufficient for Control, as the game's engine does not require the full 20-core capability. The bottleneck is purely the GPU's 25.64 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, which is modest for a 2025 discrete card.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data shows that the High preset provides the best balance of visual fidelity and performance for this combo, with the caveat that resolution must be managed carefully. At 1920x1080 High, the combo achieves 90 FPS, which is smooth for a game like Control that features fast-paced combat and physics-heavy environments. This is the recommended configuration for a 60 Hz or 144 Hz display, as it leaves headroom for frame time spikes.

At 2560x1440, High settings yield 68 FPS, which is adequate for 60 Hz monitors but may not sustain 144 Hz. The Medium preset at 1440p produces 77 FPS, a 13% improvement over High, and the visual difference between Medium and High is often subtle in Control due to its art style. For a more consistent 60 FPS experience with vsync, Medium at 1440p is the safer choice, as the min FPS of 65 FPS (from the Medium data) suggests fewer dips below the target.

At 4K, no preset achieves a solid 60 FPS. The best 4K result is Low at 73 FPS, but this sacrifices significant visual quality. Medium at 4K averages 52 FPS with a min FPS of 44, which is playable on adaptive sync displays but not ideal for twitch gameplay. Ultra at 4K is only 40 FPS, which is below the threshold for comfortable play. For 4K users, the recommendation is to use Low or Medium, or to consider lowering the resolution to 1440p for a better experience.

The Low preset at 1080p achieves 143 FPS, which is the highest measured frame rate. This is useful for competitive play or high-refresh displays (165 Hz or 240 Hz), but the visual compromise is substantial. The Ultra preset at 1080p produces 78 FPS, which is still above 60 FPS but offers diminishing returns over High. Given that Ultra is only 13% slower than High across resolutions, players with 1080p displays can comfortably select Ultra if they prioritize image quality over frame rate stability.

How This Combo Ranks

This pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700F and AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB ranks 1908 out of 3720 tested combos in Control, placing it at roughly the 51st percentile. This is a mid-tier result, reflecting a significant mismatch between the high-end CPU and low-end GPU. The i7-14700F alone sits in the 91st percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53620, while the RX 9060 XT sits in the 24th percentile among all GPUs, with a score of 4093 in 3DMark Steel Nomad.

The combo's rank suggests that many other systems with more balanced pairings outperform it in this game. The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are the Intel HD Graphics 630 (0.4% slower) and NVIDIA Quadro K2100M (1.4% faster), which are not gaming-oriented parts. This indicates that the RX 9060 XT is at the entry level of the discrete GPU market, despite being a 2025 release with RDNA 4.0 architecture.

In Control, the combo's rank is more than double the GPU's percentile (24th), which confirms that the CPU is doing heavy lifting to maintain acceptable frame rates. The 20-core processor with 28 threads helps prevent CPU-bound dips, but it cannot compensate for the GPU's limited 322.3 GB/s memory bandwidth and 128-bit bus. The rank of 1908 out of 3720 is a below-average result, meaning that roughly half of all tested systems deliver higher average FPS in Control.

The deltaPct values from the CPU's nearest rivals show that the i7-14700F is within 0.8% of the AMD EPYC 7313P and Intel Xeon 6505P, but these are server processors not relevant to gaming. For gaming combos, the bottleneck is the GPU, and the data suggests that a more powerful GPU would shift the rank significantly higher, while the CPU would remain a constant.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data for this combo in Control is as follows:

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 143 FPS, with no min or max values recorded. The Medium preset averages 101 FPS, with a min of 86 and a max of 117. The High preset averages 90 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 78 FPS. This shows a clear step-down from Low to Ultra, with each higher preset costing approximately 12-13 FPS in average performance.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 108 FPS. The Medium preset averages 77 FPS, with a min of 65 and a max of 88. The High preset averages 68 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 59 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 1440p costs approximately 25% of the average FPS across all presets, confirming the resolution scaling trend.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 73 FPS. The Medium preset averages 52 FPS, with a min of 44 and a max of 60. The High preset averages 46 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 40 FPS. At 4K, the Medium preset's min FPS of 44 is notably close to the average, suggesting frame pacing issues under load.

The data reveals that the Medium preset is the only one with recorded min and max FPS values, which are 86-117 at 1080p, 65-88 at 1440p, and 44-60 at 4K. This indicates that Medium provides a stable frame time distribution, while Low, High, and Ultra were measured only for average FPS. For players seeking predictable performance, Medium is the most reliable preset based on the available data.

The maximum frame rate measured is 143 FPS at 1080p Low, and the minimum is 40 FPS at 4K Ultra. The spread between the highest and lowest measured averages (103 FPS) highlights the GPU's sensitivity to both resolution and settings. The i7-14700F's strong single-core performance (4958 in Cinebench R23) ensures that these GPU-limited frame rates are stable, without CPU-induced stuttering in the measured data.