Control

# Control with Intel Core i7-14700KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER

The Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers a commanding performance profile in Control, placing this combination at rank 283 out of 3,720 tested combos. That top 8% placement reflects a pairing that is exceptionally well-matched for this action-adventure title, with the benchmark data showing triple-digit frame rates across most settings and resolutions. The combination's strength is evident in how consistently it maintains high performance, though the scaling patterns reveal interesting nuances about where each component's influence dominates.

How This Combo Ranks

At rank 283 of 3,720 combos, this pairing sits in the 92nd percentile of all tested systems for Control. This is a strong showing, but not an absolute top-tier result — the data suggests that while this combo is excellent, there are still 282 configurations that deliver even higher frame rates in this game. The ranking becomes more impressive when considering that the GPU alone sits at the 86th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU ranks in the 94th percentile among all processors. The combination of these two high-percentile components produces a result that is greater than either component's individual standing might suggest.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks provide context for its processing headroom. The Intel Core i7-14700KF scores 70,163 in average benchmark, sitting just 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F, 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, and 0.9% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. Interestingly, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K edges it out by 1%. These margins are remarkably tight, indicating that the i7-14700KF is operating in a highly competitive performance band where small architectural advantages matter more than raw specifications.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4080 SUPER's average benchmark score of 54,209 places it within 0.1% of the standard RTX 4080, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X sits 1.1% higher and the Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB leads by 2.7%. These narrow deltas suggest that the SUPER variant's advantages are incremental rather than transformative, yet in Control specifically, the combination still manages to achieve frame rates that many systems would struggle to reach.

FAQ

Q: Does this combo achieve 60 FPS at 4K Ultra settings in Control?

A: Yes, the data shows an average of 69 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This exceeds the 60 FPS threshold with a modest margin, though the minimum frame rate is not recorded for this configuration, so worst-case dips remain unknown.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from Ultra to High at 1440p?

A: The measured average FPS increases from 102 at Ultra to 117 at High, representing a 15 FPS improvement. This is a meaningful gain for those seeking smoother gameplay without sacrificing too much visual fidelity.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to limit performance at 1080p?

A: The 1080p Low preset achieves 245 FPS average, which is exceptionally high. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings shows a drop from 245 to 185 FPS, suggesting that the GPU begins to take on more load as resolution increases, while the CPU maintains sufficient headroom at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like at 1440p Medium?

A: The 1440p Medium preset shows an average of 132 FPS with a minimum of 112 and maximum of 152 FPS. This 40 FPS spread between minimum and maximum indicates some variance, but the minimum remains well above playable thresholds.

Q: How does the 4K Low preset compare to 1440p Ultra in terms of average FPS?

A: Interestingly, 4K Low delivers 125 FPS average, which is 23 FPS higher than 1440p Ultra's 102 FPS. This highlights how resolution scaling and settings complexity interact differently with the hardware.

Q: Can this combo handle high refresh rate displays at 1440p?

A: At 1440p High, the average is 117 FPS, which falls short of 144 Hz displays but comfortably exceeds 120 Hz requirements. The Medium preset at 132 FPS gets closer, while Low at 185 FPS fully saturates 144 Hz and approaches 165 Hz territory.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF brings 20 cores and 28 threads to this pairing, running with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. This Raptor Lake Refresh architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process, provides substantial multi-threaded capability that Control can leverage during complex physics calculations and AI routines. The CPU's 33 MB of shared L3 cache, alongside 2 MB per core of L2 and 80 KB per core of L1, ensures that frequently accessed game data remains close to the execution units.

The CPU's benchmark results paint a picture of balanced performance. In Cinebench R23, the multi-core score of 44,167 and single-core score of 6,235 indicate strong performance in both heavily threaded and lightly threaded workloads. The Geekbench scores of 21,462 multi-core and 2,578 single-core reinforce this assessment. PassMark results show particular strength in integer math at 183,056 and floating-point math at 134,393, which are relevant to game physics and transform calculations.

In the context of Control specifically, the CPU's role becomes apparent when examining the frame rate progression. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 245 FPS, which is an exceptionally high number that suggests the CPU is capable of feeding frames faster than many displays can show them. The fact that this high frame rate is achieved at the lowest settings indicates that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at lower resolutions — the GPU is still doing the heavy lifting even at 1080p.

The CPU's 125W TDP and unlocked multiplier indicate it is designed for performance-oriented systems where power draw is less of a concern than raw throughput. The 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs means this processor outperforms the vast majority of alternatives, though its nearest rivals show that the performance gap between top-tier CPUs is narrowing. This is particularly relevant for Control, where the game's age means even mid-range CPUs can deliver playable frame rates, making the i7-14700KF's power somewhat excessive for this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The benchmark data for Control across three resolutions and four settings presets reveals a consistent performance hierarchy. At 1920x1080, the system delivers an average of 245 FPS on Low settings, 174 FPS on Medium, 155 FPS on High, and 134 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at 1080p shows a minimum of 148 FPS and maximum of 200 FPS, providing the only full frame time data in the 1080p category.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 185 FPS on Low, 132 FPS on Medium with a 112-152 FPS range, 117 FPS on High, and 102 FPS on Ultra. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1440p shows a 83 FPS spread, which represents a 45% reduction in performance from the lowest to highest settings. This is a substantial penalty for visual quality improvements, suggesting that the game's Ultra preset includes effects that are particularly demanding.

At 3840x2160, the averages drop to 125 FPS on Low, 89 FPS on Medium with a 76-102 FPS range, 79 FPS on High, and 69 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Ultra result of 69 FPS is the only configuration that falls below the 100 FPS threshold, and it remains the sole average below 70 FPS across all tested settings and resolutions. The 4K Medium preset's minimum of 76 FPS ensures that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays comfortably above 60 FPS.

The data reveals that the system's performance headroom is substantial at lower resolutions but becomes more constrained at 4K with higher settings. The 1080p Low result of 245 FPS demonstrates that the hardware has significant untapped potential, while the 4K Ultra result of 69 FPS shows the limits of what this combination can achieve when pushed to maximum visual fidelity.

Resolution Scaling

Examining how frame rates scale from 1080p to 4K reveals the nature of the performance bottleneck in this system. At Low settings, the progression is 245 FPS at 1080p, 185 FPS at 1440p, and 125 FPS at 4K. This represents a 24.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 32.4% drop from 1440p to 4K. The total reduction from 1080p to 4K is 49%, meaning the system loses roughly half its performance when quadrupling the pixel count.

At Medium settings, the frame rates are 174 FPS at 1080p, 132 FPS at 1440p, and 89 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 24.1% from 1080p to 1440p and 32.6% from 1440p to 4K, very similar to the Low preset scaling. This consistency suggests that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor as resolution increases, with the CPU maintaining adequate frame production even at lower resolutions.

The High settings show 155 FPS at 1080p, 117 FPS at 1440p, and 79 FPS at 4K. The drops are 24.5% and 32.5% respectively, again matching the pattern. Finally, Ultra settings produce 134 FPS at 1080p, 102 FPS at 1440p, and 69 FPS at 4K, with drops of 23.9% and 32.4%.

The remarkable consistency in these scaling ratios — all hovering around 24% for the 1080p to 1440p transition and 32% for the 1440p to 4K transition — indicates that the performance bottleneck is primarily the GPU across all settings. If the CPU were limiting performance, we would expect to see smaller frame rate differences at higher resolutions where the CPU has more time to produce frames. Instead, the predictable resolution scaling strongly suggests that the RTX 4080 SUPER's rendering throughput is the determining factor, with the i7-14700KF providing more than enough processing power to avoid becoming a constraint.

Settings Recommendations

For players seeking the optimal balance between visual quality and performance, the benchmark data offers clear guidance. At 1080p, all settings presets deliver well above 60 FPS, with even the most demanding Ultra preset achieving 134 FPS average. The High preset at 155 FPS provides a strong experience with only a 21 FPS penalty compared to Medium, making it the recommended choice for most 1080p users who want good visuals without sacrificing smoothness.

At 1440p, the High preset at 117 FPS represents the sweet spot for quality and performance. The Ultra preset at 102 FPS offers a modest 15 FPS reduction for improved visual fidelity, which may be worthwhile for those with G-Sync or FreeSync displays. The Medium preset at 132 FPS is preferable for competitive play where higher frame rates matter more than graphical detail, though the difference between Medium and High is only 15 FPS.

At 4K, the situation becomes more nuanced. The Ultra preset at 69 FPS is playable and exceeds 60 FPS, but the High preset at 79 FPS provides a more comfortable margin. The Medium preset at 89 FPS offers the best combination of visual quality and performance headroom for 4K displays, with a minimum of 76 FPS ensuring consistent smoothness. The Low preset at 125 FPS is excessive for most 4K displays, which typically run at 60 Hz or 120 Hz, making Medium the optimal choice for 4K gaming.

The data suggests that the High preset provides the most consistent experience across all three resolutions, with average frame rates of 155, 117, and 79 FPS for 1080p, 1440p, and 4K respectively. This preset balances the game's visual effects against the hardware's capabilities, ensuring that no resolution falls below the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining high graphical quality.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the primary driver of Control's performance in this combination, with its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 256-bit memory bus providing 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's 10,240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output pipelines deliver the raw compute power needed for the game's particle effects and physics simulations. The 80 ray tracing cores and 320 tensor cores provide dedicated hardware for advanced rendering techniques, though Control's original release predates some of the most demanding ray tracing implementations.

The GPU's clock speeds of 2295 MHz base and 2550 MHz boost, combined with its 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, explain the strong frame rates observed across the benchmark data. The Ada Lovelace architecture, built on TSMC's 5 nm process, achieves this performance with a 320W TDP, which is reasonable for a GPU in this performance class. The 45,900 million transistors packed into a 379 mm² die demonstrate the density of the design.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 4080 SUPER scores 34,245 in PassMark G3D and 21,9065 in Geekbench OpenCL, with a Vulkan score of 260,075. These results place it in the 86th percentile among all GPUs, with its nearest rivals showing extremely tight competition. The standard RTX 4080 is within 0.1% of the SUPER variant's average score, indicating that the performance difference between these two cards is minimal.

The GPU's role in Control becomes clear when examining the resolution scaling data. The consistent ~24% frame rate drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~32% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings points to the GPU as the dominant performance factor. The RTX 4080 SUPER's 16 GB VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for Control at any resolution, as the game was released in 2019 and does not require the memory capacity of more modern titles. This means the GPU's compute throughput, rather than memory capacity, is the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings.