Control

Control is an action-adventure title that stresses both the GPU’s raw throughput and the CPU’s ability to feed it, and the Intel Core i7-14700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combo shows a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution climbs. At 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound, but by 4K, the GPU becomes the dominant constraint. The measured data reveals a predictable scaling pattern: average frame rates drop by roughly half when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings, which is typical for a title with heavy particle effects and physics simulation.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS deltas between resolutions are stark and informative. At Low settings, the combo delivers 247 FPS at 1920x1080, 185.1 FPS at 2560x1440, and 126.7 FPS at 3840x2160. That’s a 24.9% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 31.6% drop from 1440p to 4K. The gap between 1440p and 4K is larger than the gap between 1080p and 1440p, which indicates the GPU is starting to saturate at higher pixel counts. At High settings, the pattern repeats: 153.2 FPS at 1080p, 119.7 FPS at 1440p, and 80.6 FPS at 4K. The 4K result is 47.4% lower than the 1080p result, showing that the RTX 4080 SUPER’s compute resources are the limiting factor at 4K.

Ultra settings amplify this trend. The combo hits 138.1 FPS at 1080p, 100.9 FPS at 1440p, and 67.5 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra score is less than half of the 1080p Ultra score, confirming that ray tracing and high-resolution textures place an outsized burden on the GPU. The data suggests that for competitive play at 1080p, the CPU is the bottleneck, but for a cinematic 4K experience, the GPU is working at its limits. The scaling from Medium to High is smaller than from High to Ultra, indicating that Ultra settings introduce a disproportionate performance cost.

GPU Role

The RTX 4080 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock of 2550 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz are high for a 320 W TDP part, and the 10240 shading units provide substantial FP32 throughput of 52.22 TFLOPS. In Control, the GPU’s memory bandwidth is critical at 4K, where texture streaming and particle effects demand rapid data access. The 16 GB VRAM is ample for this game’s highest settings, as the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (67.5 FPS) suggests the GPU is compute-limited rather than VRAM-limited.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reinforce its position. It scores 34245 in Passmark G3D, which places it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in synthetic tests include the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (0.2% slower) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (2.9% faster), showing that the 4080 SUPER sits at the top of the performance stack. The GPU’s DirectX 12 score of 134 in Passmark is a synthetic metric, but the real-world Control results show that the card can maintain 80+ FPS at 4K High, which is a strong outcome for a demanding title. The 1438 MHz memory clock (23 Gbps effective) is a key contributor to the 736.3 GB/s bandwidth, and it shows in the 4K scaling.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor from the Raptor Lake Refresh generation, with a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. Its 33 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample on-die storage for game logic and physics calculations. In Control, which relies heavily on single-threaded performance for game logic and multi-threaded performance for physics, the 14700F’s combination of high boost clocks and high core count is well-suited. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35443 and single-core score of 5003 indicate strong all-around performance.

The CPU’s 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54097, places it just behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X (0.6% faster) and AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D (1.1% faster), but ahead of the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 (1.2% slower) and AMD EPYC 7313P (1.7% slower). In Control, the CPU’s impact is most visible at 1080p Low, where the combo reaches 247 FPS. That score is likely limited by the CPU’s ability to issue draw calls, as the GPU has plenty of headroom at that resolution. The boost clock of 5.40 GHz is crucial for maintaining high frame rates in scenes with many dynamic objects, and the 28 threads help with background physics simulation.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this CPU + GPU combination ranks 100th out of 1636 tested combos for Control. That places it in the top 6.1% of all systems tested, which is a strong showing for a pairing of a 14th-gen Core i7 with a 40-series flagship. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU’s high single-thread performance and the GPU’s high rasterization throughput. For comparison, the GPU alone ranks in the 88th percentile, and the CPU ranks in the 94th percentile, so the combo is slightly bottlenecked by the GPU at higher resolutions, but the overall system is well-matched.

The rank of 100 out of 1636 means that 1536 other combos perform worse in this specific game, but 99 perform better. Those higher-ranked combos likely feature faster GPUs (such as the RTX 5090 or RX 7900 XTX) or CPUs with higher boost clocks (like the Core i9-14900K). However, the 14700F + 4080 SUPER combo’s performance is consistent across all settings, showing no significant dips below 60 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is a key threshold for smooth gameplay. The data indicates that this combo is a high-end pairing that can handle Control at maximum settings with playable frame rates, but it does not have the headroom to run 4K Ultra at 100+ FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Control?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 247, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This shows the CPU’s ability to push extremely high frame rates when the GPU is not stressed.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo delivers an average of 67.5 FPS. This is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play, but it is the lowest measured result in the dataset.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the main bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the CPU is the primary limiter. Evidence comes from the 247 FPS at Low settings, which is far above the 138.1 FPS at Ultra, indicating that the GPU has headroom but the CPU cannot feed it faster.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other systems in Control?

A: The combo ranks 100th out of 1636 tested combinations. This places it in the top 6.1% of all systems, which is a strong result for a high-end desktop pairing.

Q: What is the FPS difference between High and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, High settings produce 119.7 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 100.9 FPS. That is an 18.8 FPS drop, or about 15.7%, for the jump to Ultra quality.

Q: Does the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM limit performance in this game?

A: The measured data does not show VRAM-related stutters or frame drops. At 4K Ultra, the combo still hits 67.5 FPS, indicating that the 16 GB of GDDR6X memory is sufficient for Control’s texture loads.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo’s performance scales from 247 FPS at Low to 173.2 FPS at Medium, 153.2 FPS at High, and 138.1 FPS at Ultra. The jump from Low to Medium is a 29.9% drop, while the jump from High to Ultra is a 9.9% drop, showing that Low settings are CPU-limited and Ultra settings introduce GPU-heavy effects.

At 2560x1440, the results are 185.1 FPS at Low, 132.5 FPS at Medium, 119.7 FPS at High, and 100.9 FPS at Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium (28.4%) is similar to 1080p, but the gap between High and Ultra (15.7%) is larger, indicating the GPU is becoming more involved. The 1440p Ultra score of 100.9 FPS is a strong result for high-refresh-rate monitors.

At 3840x2160, the combo delivers 126.7 FPS at Low, 91.2 FPS at Medium, 80.6 FPS at High, and 67.5 FPS at Ultra. The 4K Low score is still above 120 FPS, which is impressive, but the Ultra score drops below 70 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K is a 46.7% reduction, which is the largest relative drop across all resolutions, confirming that the GPU is the limiting component at 4K. Overall, the data shows a system that is capable of high-refresh-rate 1440p gaming and smooth 4K gaming, with the CPU providing a strong foundation and the GPU handling the heavy lifting at higher resolutions.