Control

Control, the 2019 action-adventure title, presents an interesting case study for the Intel Core i7-14700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 pairing. The measured frame rates reveal a combination that is heavily influenced by resolution and graphical settings, with the data indicating a shift in bottleneck from the CPU at lower resolutions to the GPU at 4K. This analysis breaks down the measured performance across the tested configurations, providing a detailed look at how this hardware duo handles the game's demanding physics and visual effects.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate trajectory from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates the changing workload dynamics. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 207.3 FPS. This high frame rate suggests that the CPU, with its 20 cores and 28 threads, is capable of feeding the GPU efficiently at this level. Moving to 2560x1440 at Low settings, the average drops to 158.5 FPS, a significant but expected decline. At 3840x2160 with Low settings, the average falls further to 105.3 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a 23.5% reduction in frame rate, while the jump to 4K from 1440p shows a 33.6% reduction, indicating the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor as pixel count increases.

The pattern holds across other settings, but the margins change. For High settings, the average frame rates are 134.3 FPS at 1080p, 102 FPS at 1440p, and 69.6 FPS at 4K. The difference between 1080p and 1440p is 24%, while the difference between 1440p and 4K is 31.8%. This consistent trend suggests that while the CPU is strong enough to maintain high performance at lower resolutions, the RTX 5070’s rendering capabilities are what ultimately cap the frame rate at higher resolutions. The data indicates that at 1080p, the i7-14700K is likely the limiting component, preventing the GPU from reaching even higher frame rates. However, by 4K, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as the frame rates are more dependent on resolution than on the CPU's processing power. The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steepest at Low settings (49.2% decrease), which further emphasizes that the GPU's workload scales dramatically with resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested hardware combinations for Control, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 achieves a combo rank of 294 out of 1636 combinations. This places it in the top 18% of all tested systems for this game, indicating a strong overall performance level. The rank is a composite measure that considers the system's ability to handle the game across all tested resolutions and settings. While the combo does not reach the top tier, its position in the upper quintile demonstrates that it is a highly capable setup for Control. The i7-14700K itself holds a strong 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs, and the RTX 5070 sits in the 83rd percentile among all GPUs, suggesting that neither component is a weak link. The combined rank of 294 reflects the synergy of a high-end CPU with a solid upper-midrange GPU, delivering a balanced experience that can handle the game's demands without major compromises. The data shows this is not a pairing that struggles, but one that performs well above the median tested configuration.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this combo in Control?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 207.3 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Does this combo maintain a playable frame rate at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo achieves an average of 55.8 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold but with a smaller margin.

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

A: The average frame rate drops from 134.3 FPS at 1920x1080 High to 69.6 FPS at 3840x2160 High, representing a 48.2% reduction in performance.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the average frame rate is 207.3 FPS, which is exceptionally high. This suggests that the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU is likely not being fully utilized at this resolution.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the average frame rate with Low settings is 158.5 FPS, while with Ultra settings it is 88.9 FPS. This is a difference of 69.6 FPS, showing a significant performance impact from the game's visual settings.

Q: How does the combo rank in the database compared to all other tested combinations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 294th out of 1636 tested combinations, placing it in the top 18% of all systems tested for Control.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following data provides a complete breakdown of the measured average frame rates for the Intel Core i7-14700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combination in Control.

At 1920x1080, the settings have a clear impact on performance. With Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 207.3 FPS. Increasing to Medium settings reduces the average to 149.2 FPS. High settings yield an average of 134.3 FPS, and Ultra settings bring the average down to 116.8 FPS. The difference between the lowest and highest settings is 90.5 FPS, showing the substantial graphical load of the Ultra preset.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern is observed but with lower overall frame rates. Low settings produce an average of 158.5 FPS. Medium settings result in an average of 113 FPS. High settings follow with 102 FPS, and Ultra settings cap the performance at 88.9 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra here is a 43.9% reduction in average frame rate.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is heavily stressed. Low settings yield an average of 105.3 FPS. Medium settings reduce this to 74.8 FPS. High settings achieve an average of 69.6 FPS, and Ultra settings bring the average down to 55.8 FPS. The data shows that at 4K, even the Low preset cannot maintain a frame rate above 110 FPS, indicating the intense demand on the GPU. The difference between 1080p Low and 4K Low is 102 FPS, a 49.2% decrease in performance, which is a substantial drop.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is a central component in this combo's performance, and its specifications provide context for the measured results. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2325 MHz and a boost clock of 2512 MHz. It is equipped with 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is sufficient for the texture and asset loads in Control at the tested resolutions. The GPU's memory clock runs at 1750 MHz, with an effective speed of 28 Gbps.

The RTX 5070’s 6144 shading units and 80 ROPs are responsible for the pixel and texture processing. Its pixel rate is 201.0 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 482.3 GTexel/s. These figures help explain the frame rates seen at various settings. At 4K Ultra, the game demands a high pixel throughput, and the GPU's rendering capabilities become the limiting factor, resulting in an average of 55.8 FPS. The GPU’s FP32 performance of 30.87 TFLOPS indicates its raw compute power, which is heavily utilized in a game like Control with its complex physics and particle effects. The GPU holds an 83rd percentile ranking among all GPUs, which is slightly lower than the CPU's 96th percentile. This suggests that in this pairing, the GPU is the more likely component to be the performance ceiling, especially at higher resolutions. The benchmark data shows that the RTX 5070 is a capable card, but its performance in Control is ultimately what determines the frame rate at 1440p and 4K, while the i7-14700K has ample headroom at 1080p.