Control

Control on the Intel Core i7-14700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB delivers a broad spread of performance across its four settings presets and three resolutions, with the data indicating that the pairing is capable of high refresh rate play at 1080p but becomes increasingly GPU-bound as resolution climbs. The measured rows show a clear hierarchy where the Low preset provides the highest frame rates, while the Ultra preset demands a significant performance tax at every resolution tested.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data for this configuration shows a consistent and predictable scaling pattern across the four available presets. For players prioritizing maximum smoothness and responsiveness, the Low preset is the clear standout, delivering the only triple-digit average frame rates at 1440p and the highest overall score of 161 FPS at 1080p. At 4K, the Low preset still maintains a highly playable 82 FPS average, which is 30 FPS higher than the High preset at the same resolution.

The Medium preset emerges as the balanced recommendation for most users. It offers a substantial improvement in visual fidelity over Low while incurring a moderate performance penalty. At 1080p, Medium yields 114 FPS average with a minimum of 97 FPS, ensuring that even the most demanding scenes stay well above 60 FPS. The 1440p Medium result of 87 FPS average, with a minimum of 74 FPS, is particularly strong, providing a comfortable buffer for high-refresh-rate monitors. The step from Medium to High costs 12 FPS at 1080p, 10 FPS at 1440p, and 6 FPS at 4K, which is a relatively small price for the visual upgrade.

The Ultra preset, while delivering the most demanding visuals, pushes the RTX 5060 Ti to its limits. At 4K, the Ultra preset drops to 45 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the standard for smooth action-adventure gameplay. At 1440p, Ultra maintains 67 FPS average, and at 1080p it reaches 88 FPS average. Given that Control is a game with intense particle effects and destructible environments, the data suggests that the Medium preset at 1080p or 1440p offers the best experience per the measured rows, balancing a high average frame rate with a respectable minimum frame rate. For users with high refresh rate displays at 1080p, the High preset at 102 FPS average is also a strong choice, offering a 12 FPS improvement over Ultra while still maintaining triple-digit performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB is the primary driver of the frame rate differences observed across the settings presets. The GPU's 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus provides a memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s, which is sufficient for the game's texture and geometry workloads at the tested resolutions. The core configuration includes 4608 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units, with a boost clock of 2572 MHz.

The performance scaling from Low to Ultra presets reflects the increasing load placed on the GPU's compute and memory subsystems. At 1080p, the jump from Low to Ultra costs 73 FPS (from 161 to 88), a 45% reduction in average frame rate. This is a substantial drop, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects, such as ray tracing and higher-quality shadows, are heavily taxing the GPU's 23.70 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power. The 4K results further emphasize the GPU's limitations, as the Ultra preset falls to 45 FPS, suggesting that the 8 GB VRAM capacity and the 128-bit memory interface become bottlenecks at higher resolutions with maximum settings.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 29th percentile versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 4901. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD FirePro W5130M (avgScore 4904, deltaPct -0.1) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 (avgScore 4893, deltaPct 0.2), which are significantly older and less capable parts. This positioning highlights that the RTX 5060 Ti, while a modern Blackwell 2.0 architecture part, is positioned in the lower tier of the current GPU stack. The measured game performance, however, shows that it handles Control well at 1080p and 1440p, particularly at Medium and High settings, but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K with the Ultra preset.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals the expected pattern of a GPU-bound workload, with the RTX 5060 Ti facing increasing pressure as pixel count rises. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 161 at 1080p to 122 at 1440p (a 24% reduction) and then to 82 at 4K (a further 33% reduction from 1440p). This steep decline indicates that the GPU's render output units and shading units are fully utilized at higher resolutions, with the 4K resolution requiring over four times the pixel work of 1080p.

The Medium preset shows a similar trend: 114 FPS at 1080p, 87 FPS at 1440p, and 58 FPS at 4K. The High preset follows with 102 FPS, 77 FPS, and 52 FPS respectively. The Ultra preset, which is the most demanding, drops from 88 FPS at 1080p to 67 FPS at 1440p and finally to 45 FPS at 4K. Across all presets, the performance gap between 1080p and 1440p is smaller than the gap between 1440p and 4K, reflecting the quadratic increase in pixel count as resolution approaches 4K.

This scaling behavior suggests that the limiting component at 4K is clearly the GPU. The CPU, with its 20 cores and 28 threads, is unlikely to be a bottleneck at any of the tested resolutions, as its high single-thread and multi-thread performance scores (Cinebench R23 single-core 4958, multi-core 35122) indicate ample headroom for the game's physics and AI workloads. The data shows that users targeting 4K gaming should stick to the Low or Medium presets to maintain playable frame rates, while those with 1080p or 1440p displays can afford to use higher presets without sacrificing smoothness.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 5060 Ti delivers its strongest performance. The Low preset achieves an average of 161 FPS, which is the highest measured score in the entire dataset. The Medium preset averages 114 FPS with a minimum of 97 FPS and a maximum of 132 FPS, providing a tight frame time distribution. The High preset averages 102 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 88 FPS. All four presets at 1080p are above the 60 FPS threshold, meaning users have full flexibility to choose their preferred visual quality.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but begins to show the GPU's limits. The Low preset averages 122 FPS, still well above 100 FPS. The Medium preset averages 87 FPS with a minimum of 74 FPS and a maximum of 100 FPS, ensuring that the frame rate rarely dips below 70 FPS. The High preset averages 77 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 67 FPS. The 1440p results indicate that the Medium preset is the sweet spot, offering a 10 FPS improvement over High while maintaining a minimum frame rate above 70 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's performance drops significantly. The Low preset averages 82 FPS, which is the only 4K result above 60 FPS. The Medium preset averages 58 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS, which may cause noticeable stutters in intense combat scenarios. The High preset averages 52 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 45 FPS. The 4K data demonstrates that the RTX 5060 Ti is not well-suited for high-fidelity 4K gaming in Control, and users should expect to make significant compromises in settings to achieve playable frame rates.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1440p gaming with this configuration?

A: The Medium preset offers the best balance at 2560x1440, delivering an average of 87 FPS with a minimum of 74 FPS. This provides smooth gameplay while maintaining a higher level of visual fidelity than the Low preset, which averages 122 FPS but with reduced graphical quality.

Q: Can this system run Control at 4K with high settings?

A: The data shows that at 3840x2160 with the High preset, the average frame rate is 52 FPS. While this is technically playable, it falls below the 60 FPS target for smooth action-adventure gameplay. The Low preset at 4K achieves 82 FPS average, making it the only 4K preset that clears the 60 FPS threshold.

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

A: At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate is 88 FPS. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average drops to 45 FPS. This represents a 43 FPS reduction, or approximately a 49% performance loss, when quadrupling the pixel count.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is clearly the limiting factor at higher resolutions, as evidenced by the steep frame rate drops from 1080p to 4K. The CPU, with its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35122 and single-core score of 4958, provides ample processing power that is unlikely to bottleneck the GPU at any tested setting.

Q: What minimum frame rates can users expect at the Medium preset?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with measured minimum frame rates. At 1080p, the minimum is 97 FPS. At 1440p, the minimum is 74 FPS. At 4K, the minimum drops to 50 FPS, which may result in occasional hitches during demanding scenes.

Q: How does the RTX 5060 Ti compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 5060 Ti has an average benchmark score of 4901, placing it in the 29th percentile. Its nearest rivals include the AMD FirePro W5130M (avgScore 4904, deltaPct -0.1) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 (avgScore 4893, deltaPct 0.2), showing that it performs in a similar range to these older parts in synthetic benchmarks, despite being a much newer architecture.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F plays a supporting role in Control's performance, providing the computational foundation for the game's physics and AI systems. The CPU features 20 cores and 28 threads, with a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. This high boost clock is particularly important for gaming, as it ensures strong single-thread performance for game logic and frame pacing. The CPU's benchmark scores reflect its capabilities: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35122 and single-core score of 4958, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 19620 and single-core score of 2429.

The CPU's 33 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample storage for frequently accessed game data, reducing the need to fetch data from system memory. The memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5, with a dual-channel memory bus, ensures that the CPU can feed data to the GPU efficiently. The CPU's 91st percentile ranking versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53620, places it well above the median, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (avgScore 53288, deltaPct 0.6) and the AMD EPYC 7313P (avgScore 53206, deltaPct 0.8).

In the context of the measured frame rates, the CPU's influence is most apparent at lower resolutions and settings where the GPU is less stressed. At 1080p Low, the configuration achieves 161 FPS, a frame rate that requires the CPU to maintain high draw call throughput and game logic updates. The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities also help with the game's asynchronous tasks, such as loading streaming assets and managing the physics simulation for destructible environments. However, as resolution increases, the GPU becomes the dominant factor, and the CPU's role diminishes. The data indicates that the i7-14700F is more than sufficient for this game, and users will not encounter CPU-related bottlenecks at any of the tested settings or resolutions.