Control

# Control on Intel Core i7-14700F + Intel Arc B370

The Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the Intel Arc B370 delivers playable performance at 1080p Low settings in Control, but the data reveals a system that struggles to maintain smooth frame rates as resolution and quality settings increase. With an average FPS of 59 at 1080p Low, this combo sits near the threshold of playability, while higher settings and resolutions quickly push frame rates into single-digit or low-twenties territory. The measured results indicate a profound bottleneck in the graphics subsystem, as the CPU's substantial processing power remains largely underutilized in this title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about which component is limiting performance in Control. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 59 FPS, but moving to 1440p Low drops the average to 45 FPS, and at 4K Low it falls to 30 FPS. This represents a 24% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 33% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The scaling pattern is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where increasing pixel count directly impacts the rendering workload.

At High settings, the resolution scaling becomes even more dramatic. The 1080p High average of 37 FPS drops to 28 FPS at 1440p, then to 19 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are roughly 24% and 32% respectively, showing that the GPU's performance ceiling is being hit regardless of the quality preset. This uniformity across settings suggests that the Intel Arc B370's raw throughput, not the CPU or memory subsystem, is the decisive factor.

The Ultra preset reveals the most severe scaling penalties. Starting at 32 FPS in 1080p, the frame rate falls to 25 FPS at 1440p and 17 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 4K at Ultra is 15 FPS, which is nearly half the 1080p value. These numbers indicate that the GPU's fill rate and compute capabilities are exhausted early, and each resolution step compounds the deficit. The data strongly implies that no amount of CPU headroom can compensate for the Arc B370's limitations at higher resolutions.

Interestingly, the Medium preset shows a slightly different scaling curve. At 1080p Medium, the average is 42 FPS, dropping to 32 FPS at 1440p and 21 FPS at 4K. The 4K Medium frame rate of 21 FPS is actually higher than the 1440p High frame rate of 28 FPS when scaled proportionally, suggesting that the Medium preset's reduced effects load allows the GPU to maintain slightly better efficiency at higher resolutions. However, the overall trend remains clear: the GPU is the limiting component, and resolution scaling consistently punishes this combo.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the only truly playable configuration for this combo is 1080p Low, which delivers 59 FPS on average. This is the sole preset and resolution combination that approaches the 60 FPS threshold, making it the recommended setup for smooth gameplay. The 1080p Medium preset at 42 FPS is technically playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes, while the 1440p Low at 45 FPS offers a middle ground for users willing to accept occasional dips.

The data shows a clear trade-off between resolution and settings. At 1080p, dropping from Medium to Low gains 17 FPS (from 42 to 59), which is a substantial improvement. At 1440p, the same settings change yields 13 FPS (from 32 to 45). At 4K, the gain is only 9 FPS (from 21 to 30). This diminishing return at higher resolutions reinforces the notion that pixel count is the primary bottleneck, not the complexity of the visual effects.

For users prioritizing visual quality over frame rate, 1080p Medium at 42 FPS with a minimum of 36 FPS offers a reasonable compromise. The minimum FPS data available only for Medium presets shows that the 36 FPS floor at 1080p is more stable than the 27 FPS minimum at 1440p or the 18 FPS minimum at 4K. This suggests that 1080p Medium provides a more consistent experience than any higher-resolution option, even if the average frame rate is lower than 1080p Low.

The Ultra preset is not recommended under any resolution, as the highest average achieved is 32 FPS at 1080p. The 4K Ultra average of 17 FPS is effectively unplayable for most action-oriented gameplay. Given that the Arc B370 has only 20 ROPs and 40 TMUs, the data reflects a hardware ceiling that cannot be overcome through settings alone. Users should consider 1080p Low as the baseline for acceptable performance, with 1080p Medium as the maximum quality setting that maintains a playable frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 2657 out of 2888 tested combinations in Control, placing it in the bottom 8% of all tested systems. This percentile ranking is consistent with the GPU's overall standing, as the Intel Arc B370 sits at the 5th percentile among all GPUs in the database. The CPU, by contrast, ranks at the 91st percentile among all CPUs, creating a significant mismatch between the two components' capabilities.

The GPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, which scores 1186 versus the Arc B370's 1184, a negligible 0.2% difference. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 scores 1190, just 0.5% higher, while the AMD Radeon HD 7650M scores 1192, 0.7% higher. These comparisons highlight that the Arc B370's raw GPU compute is on par with decade-old discrete graphics solutions, which explains its poor showing in a modern title like Control.

The CPU's nearest rivals paint a different picture. The Intel Xeon 6505P scores 53701, a 0.2% advantage over the i7-14700F's 53620 average. The Intel Xeon Phi 7290 scores 53469, just 0.3% lower, while the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X scores 53288, 0.6% lower. These deltas are all within 1%, indicating that the i7-14700F is competitive with high-end server and desktop processors in synthetic benchmarks, yet the gaming combo still ranks poorly due to the GPU constraint.

The disparity between the CPU's 91st percentile ranking and the combo's 8th percentile ranking in Control underscores a fundamental imbalance. The data suggests that this pairing would require a far more capable GPU to leverage the i7-14700F's processing power in gaming workloads. In its current configuration, the combo's rank is almost entirely determined by the GPU's limitations, with the CPU contributing little to the final frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS values show a clear progression across settings. Low delivers 59 FPS average, Medium delivers 42 FPS with a minimum of 36 and maximum of 48, High delivers 37 FPS, and Ultra delivers 32 FPS. The 27 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p demonstrates that settings have a substantial impact at this resolution, though even the best case barely reaches 60 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages drop across all presets. Low delivers 45 FPS, Medium delivers 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 and maximum of 37, High delivers 28 FPS, and Ultra delivers 25 FPS. The relative ordering remains consistent, but the gaps between settings narrow slightly. The 20 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1440p is smaller than at 1080p, indicating that resolution is beginning to dominate over settings.

At 3840x2160, the performance collapses further. Low delivers 30 FPS, Medium delivers 21 FPS with a minimum of 18 and maximum of 25, High delivers 19 FPS, and Ultra delivers 17 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is now only 13 FPS, showing that at 4K, even the lowest settings cannot escape the GPU's pixel throughput limitations. The 4K Medium minimum of 18 FPS is the lowest recorded value across all tested configurations.

The min and max FPS data, available only for Medium presets, provides additional insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the range from 36 to 48 FPS represents a 33% variance from the minimum to maximum, while at 1440p Medium the range is 27 to 37 FPS, a 37% variance. At 4K Medium, the range is 18 to 25 FPS, a 39% variance. This increasing instability at higher resolutions further suggests that the GPU is struggling to maintain consistent rendering times as pixel count rises.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is an integrated graphics solution with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz. It features 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster output units, along with 10 ray tracing cores. The memory configuration is system shared, with bandwidth described as system dependent, which means the GPU relies on the CPU's memory subsystem rather than dedicated VRAM.

The GPU's FP32 performance is rated at 6.144 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 12.29 TFLOPS using a 2:1 ratio. The pixel rate is 48.00 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 96.00 GTexel/s. These specifications, while modest by modern discrete GPU standards, are consistent with the measured performance in Control. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 benchmark score of 1184 places the GPU at the 5th percentile among all GPUs, confirming its entry-level positioning.

The system shared memory architecture is a critical factor in Control's performance. Unlike discrete GPUs with dedicated high-bandwidth VRAM, the Arc B370 must share the system's memory bus, which can introduce latency and bandwidth constraints. The data shows that even at Low settings, the GPU cannot maintain 60 FPS at 1080p, suggesting that memory bandwidth limitations may be compounding the already limited compute resources.

The GPU's 25 W TDP and IGP slot width indicate that this is designed for power efficiency rather than performance. The boost clock of 2400 MHz is relatively high for an integrated solution, but the small number of execution units limits overall throughput. The ray tracing cores, while present, are unlikely to provide meaningful performance in Control given the low baseline frame rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3 cache, providing ample capacity for gaming workloads.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i7-14700F demonstrates strong performance. It scores 35122 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4958 in single-core, along with 14751 in Cinebench R20 multi-core and 2082 in single-core. The Geekbench scores are 19620 multi-core and 2429 single-core, while PassMark shows a multi-thread score of 41317 and a single-thread score of 4257. These results place the CPU at the 91st percentile among all CPUs.

Despite this processing power, the CPU's role in Control is largely supplementary due to the GPU bottleneck. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU limitation, as frame rates scale consistently with resolution and settings changes. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see similar FPS across different resolutions, but the data shows significant drops as resolution increases, confirming that the GPU is the primary constraint.

The i7-14700F's nearest rivals in CPU benchmarks include the Intel Xeon 6505P with an average score of 53701, the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 at 53469, and the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X at 53288. All of these are within 1% of the i7-14700F's average score of 53620, indicating that the CPU is well within the performance envelope of modern high-end processors. In Control, however, this CPU performance is effectively wasted, as the Arc B370 cannot translate the CPU's capabilities into higher frame rates.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for playable frame rates in Control?

A: The only configuration that approaches 60 FPS is 1920x1080 with Low settings, which delivers 59 FPS average. The 1440p Low setting at 45 FPS is the next best option, while 4K Low at 30 FPS is borderline playable but below typical smoothness thresholds.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B370 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The Arc B370 scores 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, which is 0.2% lower than the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 at 1186, 0.5% lower than the ATI Radeon HD 5770 at 1190, and 0.7% lower than the AMD Radeon HD 7650M at 1192. The AMD FirePro M2000 scores 1168, which is 1.4% lower than the Arc B370.

Q: Why does the combo rank so low in Control despite having a powerful CPU?

A: The combo ranks 2657 out of 2888 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 8%. This poor ranking is driven by the GPU's 5th percentile standing among all GPUs, while the CPU sits at the 91st percentile. The GPU bottleneck limits frame rates regardless of CPU capability.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low delivers 59 FPS while Ultra delivers 32 FPS, representing a 27 FPS difference. This is the largest settings spread across all resolutions, indicating that at 1080p, quality settings have a more significant impact on performance than at higher resolutions.

Q: How does the Medium preset's minimum FPS vary across resolutions?

A: At 1080p Medium, the minimum FPS is 36. At 1440p Medium, it drops to 27. At 4K Medium, it falls to 18. This progressive decline in minimum frame rates indicates worsening frame time consistency as resolution increases, with the 4K minimum being only 30% of the 1080p minimum.

Q: How does the CPU's benchmark performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The i7-14700F has an average benchmark score of 53620, which is 0.2% lower than the Intel Xeon 6505P at 53701, 0.3% higher than the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 at 53469, and 0.6% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X at 53288. All rivals are within 1% of the i7-14700F's score.