Control

Control is an action-adventure title from 2019 that stresses both CPU and GPU depending on resolution, and the data for the Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the Intel Arc B580 reveals a system that is heavily balanced toward the graphics card at higher settings. The measured frames per second across three resolutions and four quality presets show a clear pattern: as pixel count rises, the framerate collapses, indicating that the Arc B580 is the limiting component in most scenarios. This combination ranks 1287 out of 1636 tested combos in this game, placing it in the lower-middle tier, which is surprising given the strong synthetic scores of both parts but consistent with the measured results.

Resolution Scaling

The framerate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, which tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lives. At Low settings, the system produces 115 FPS at 1920x1080, but that falls to 84.8 FPS at 2560x1440 — a 26% reduction — and then to 55.3 FPS at 3840x2160, which is a 52% drop from the 1080p figure. This pattern is not subtle; it is the signature of a GPU-bound workload, as the CPU is capable of far higher frame rates at lower resolutions.

Moving to High settings, the scaling is similar but with lower absolute numbers: 72.2 FPS at 1080p, 55.4 FPS at 1440p, and 33.4 FPS at 4K. The 4K result is barely playable, and the gap between 1080p and 4K at High settings is 53.7%, which is nearly identical to the Low setting drop. This consistency suggests that the Arc B580’s rendering pipeline is the limiting factor, not the CPU or memory bandwidth. At Medium settings, the 1080p score is 78.8 FPS, dropping to 62.2 FPS at 1440p and 43.6 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset shows the same trend: 61.6 FPS at 1080p, 50 FPS at 1440p, and a low 30.9 FPS at 4K.

What the data implies is that the i7-14700K, with its 20 cores and 28 threads, has ample headroom even at 1080p, where the CPU typically has the most influence. The fact that 1080p Low produces 115 FPS while 4K Ultra produces 30.9 FPS indicates that the GPU is saturated long before the CPU becomes a limiting factor. The 4K numbers are uniformly below 60 FPS at every preset, which strongly suggests that this combination is not designed for 4K gaming in Control, regardless of quality settings.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the system consistently exceeds 60 FPS across all settings, with scores ranging from 61.6 FPS at Ultra to 115 FPS at Low. At 2560x1440, only the Low preset reaches 84.8 FPS, while High and Ultra fall to 55.4 and 50 FPS respectively.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU bottleneck this game at 4K?

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is the limiting component at 4K. The framerate drops from 55.3 FPS at Low to 30.9 FPS at Ultra, which is a 44% reduction driven entirely by GPU workload, while the CPU’s 20 cores and 28 threads remain underutilized.

Q: How does the Arc B580 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Arc B580’s average benchmark score is 23021, which places it 0.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon 760M, 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA P106-100, and 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. The GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile is 1.3% behind the Arc B580.

Q: What is the playable framerate at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the system achieves an average of 62.2 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold but not by a large margin. High settings at the same resolution drop to 55.4 FPS, so Medium is the safest choice for smooth gameplay.

Q: Is the i7-14700K a high-performing CPU relative to other processors?

A: Yes, the i7-14700K ranks in the 96th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 70074. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-14700KF, scores 70104, which is a 0% delta, while the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X scores 70420, putting the i7-14700K 0.5% behind.

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

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 115 FPS, while Ultra achieves 61.6 FPS. This represents a 53.4 FPS difference, or a 46.4% reduction in performance when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its synthetic benchmarks are impressive, including a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44534 and a single-core score of 6287, which places it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. However, in Control, the data shows that this CPU is not the bottleneck, as evidenced by the framerate scaling patterns.

At 1080p Low, the system reaches 115 FPS, which is a strong indicator that the CPU can feed the GPU effectively at lower resolutions. The fact that 1440p Low only drops to 84.8 FPS and 4K Low to 55.3 FPS suggests that the CPU has significant headroom, and the performance ceiling is set by the GPU. The i7-14700K’s 33 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel memory support (DDR4 and DDR5) provide adequate bandwidth for this game, but the benchmarks do not show any CPU-related stutters or frame drops.

The nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Core i7-14700KF, which scores 70104 (a 0% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, which scores 70420 (a -0.5% delta). This indicates that the i7-14700K is competitive with top-tier processors, yet the combo’s rank of 1287 out of 1636 in Control suggests that the GPU is holding back the overall experience. For players using this CPU with a faster GPU, the headroom would likely translate to higher framerates, but with the Arc B580, the CPU’s role is to maintain consistent frame pacing rather than push higher FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700K and Intel Arc B580 ranks 1287 out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 21st percentile from the bottom. This is a low ranking for a system with a 96th percentile CPU and a 66th percentile GPU, which suggests that the pairing is not optimized for this particular game. The GPU’s percentile of 66 is notably lower than the CPU’s 96, and the measured results reflect this imbalance.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Arc B580 scores 23021 on average, which is close to the AMD Radeon 760M (22999, a 0.1% delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (23181, a -0.7% delta). This means the GPU is competitive with mid-range cards, but in Control, the 4K Ultra result of 30.9 FPS indicates that it cannot sustain high frame rates at demanding settings. The combo’s rank is likely dragged down by the 4K results, which are all below 60 FPS, and by the 1440p Ultra result of 50 FPS.

Compared to other combos, this system sits in the lower half, which is unexpected given the hardware’s synthetic scores. The data implies that Control is a GPU-intensive title that does not favor the Arc B580’s architecture, even though it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4. For context, the CPU’s nearest rivals (like the i7-14700KF) would likely pair better with a stronger GPU to achieve higher ranks, but with the current setup, the 1287th position is a realistic reflection of the measured performance.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal experience depends on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 72.2 FPS, which is above 60 FPS and visually superior to Medium (78.8 FPS) and Low (115 FPS). Ultra at 1080p drops to 61.6 FPS, which is just above the playable threshold, so High is the best balance of quality and smoothness. For players who prioritize framerate, Low at 115 FPS is the fastest option, but the visual degradation may not be worth it.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset achieves 62.2 FPS, which is the only setting above 60 FPS at this resolution. High drops to 55.4 FPS, and Ultra to 50 FPS, so Medium is the recommended choice for 1440p gaming. Low at 84.8 FPS is also viable for competitive play, but Medium offers a better visual experience without sacrificing much framerate. At 3840x2160, the best result is Low at 55.3 FPS, which is still below 60 FPS. Medium at 43.6 FPS and High at 33.4 FPS are not recommended for smooth gameplay, and Ultra at 30.9 FPS is barely playable. For 4K, the data suggests dropping to Low is the only way to approach playability, but the experience will still be suboptimal.

The Ultra preset at 1080p (61.6 FPS) is the highest quality setting that remains above 60 FPS, making it a viable option for players with 1080p monitors who want maximum fidelity. However, the 72.2 FPS at High is safer for maintaining consistent frame times. Overall, the data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p High or 1440p Medium, with 4K being impractical for mainstream use.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces 115 FPS at Low, 78.8 FPS at Medium, 72.2 FPS at High, and 61.6 FPS at Ultra. These numbers show a steady decline as quality increases, with the largest drop occurring between Low and Medium (36.2 FPS). At 2560x1440, the results are 84.8 FPS at Low, 62.2 FPS at Medium, 55.4 FPS at High, and 50 FPS at Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium is 22.6 FPS, which is smaller than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor. At 3840x2160, the results are 55.3 FPS at Low, 43.6 FPS at Medium, 33.4 FPS at High, and 30.9 FPS at Ultra. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 24.4 FPS, and all settings are below 60 FPS.

The data shows that the impact of settings varies by resolution. At 1080p, moving from Low to Ultra costs 53.4 FPS, while at 4K, the same move costs only 24.4 FPS. This is because at higher resolutions, the GPU is already saturated, so the relative performance hit of higher settings is smaller. The 1440p results are the most balanced, with a 34.8 FPS difference between Low and Ultra, and the Medium setting at 62.2 FPS is the only one that comfortably exceeds 60 FPS. The 4K results are uniformly poor, with the highest score being 55.3 FPS at Low, which is still below the standard refresh rate.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 is a 5 nm GPU with a boost clock of 2670 MHz, 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, and a bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s. It has 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 213.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 427.2 GTexel/s. Its FP32 performance is 13.67 TFLOPS, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6. The GPU’s average benchmark score is 23021, placing it in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, with its nearest rival being the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (23181, a -0.7% delta).

In Control, the GPU’s role is clearly dominant, as evidenced by the framerate scaling. The 4K results show that the Arc B580 cannot handle the pixel workload, with even Low settings producing only 55.3 FPS. The 12 GB VRAM is sufficient for this game, but the bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s appears to be a limiting factor at higher resolutions. The GPU’s 20 ray tracing cores and 13.67 TFLOPS of FP32 performance do not translate into high frame rates in this title, likely due to the game’s rendering demands.

The comparison to the RTX 4060 is telling: the Arc B580 is only 0.7% behind in synthetic scores, yet the measured results suggest it struggles more in real-world gaming scenarios. The GPU’s 66th percentile rank is modest, and the combo’s 1287th rank in Control indicates that the Arc B580 is the primary reason for the low position. For players considering this GPU, the data suggests that 1080p and 1440p are the practical resolutions, with 4K requiring significant compromises on settings.