Control

Control with the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers a fascinating dataset, showing a top-tier pairing that scales predictably across resolutions and settings. The measured frame rates reveal a system where the GPU is the clear protagonist at higher resolutions, while the CPU's substantial headroom becomes evident only at 1080p with lower settings. This combination sits at rank 7 out of 1636 tested combos in this game, placing it in the top fraction of all possible pairings, though the data suggests that even this powerhouse has limits dictated by the game's engine and rendering demands.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows offer a clear hierarchy of performance across the three tested resolutions. At 4K, the Ultra preset delivers 79.3 FPS, which is playable but leaves little overhead for demanding scenes. Stepping down to High at 4K yields 89 FPS, a noticeable improvement of nearly 10% over Ultra, while Medium pushes further to 102.7 FPS. The Low preset at 4K reaches 144 FPS, effectively doubling the Ultra figure, which indicates that the game's visual fidelity settings have a disproportionate impact on frame rate at this resolution.

For the best experience balancing visual quality and smoothness, the High preset at 2560x1440 emerges as the sweet spot. It delivers 135.5 FPS, which is comfortably above the 120Hz refresh rate that many displays target, while maintaining substantially better visuals than Medium or Low. The data shows that at 1440p, the jump from High to Ultra costs 14.5 FPS (135.5 to 121), while the jump from High to Medium gains 16.8 FPS (135.5 to 152.3). This symmetrical scaling suggests High is the equilibrium point where neither visual fidelity nor performance is sacrificed excessively.

At 1920x1080, the story changes entirely. The High preset achieves 181.4 FPS, and even Ultra maintains 156.9 FPS. The Low preset reaches 283.9 FPS, which is likely beyond the refresh rate of most monitors. For competitive play, Low at 1080p offers the maximum frame rate, but for most users, High at 1440p or 4K provides a more balanced experience. The data strongly suggests that High at 1440p is the recommended preset for this combo, as it delivers triple-digit frame rates with only a modest visual compromise from Ultra.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K brings 24 cores and 32 threads to this pairing, with a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz. This processor sits at the 97th percentile among all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7413 (which scores 0.3% lower), the Intel Core i9-14900KF (0.7% higher), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (0.9% higher). The benchmark data shows this CPU excels in multi-threaded workloads, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872 and a Passmark multithread score of 58674.

In Control, the CPU's role becomes most apparent at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the system produces 283.9 FPS, which is 56.6% higher than the 1080p High result of 181.4 FPS. This gap suggests that at Low settings, the GPU is no longer the bottleneck, and the CPU's ability to feed frames becomes the limiting factor. The 24 cores and 32 threads provide ample parallelism for the game's physics and AI systems, though Control is not typically a title that scales perfectly across all cores. The 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache likely help with the game's asset streaming and object management.

The CPU's single-thread performance is equally impressive, with a Geekbench single-core score of 3064 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7040. This matters because Control's render thread and gameplay logic often rely on fewer, faster cores. The 6.00 GHz boost clock ensures that the game's primary threads have access to maximum frequency when needed. The data indicates that the CPU is rarely the bottleneck at 4K, where GPU load dominates, but at 1080p, the CPU's performance headroom is what enables the extraordinarily high frame rates.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to use with this combo for competitive play?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 283.9 FPS, which is the highest measured frame rate across all configurations. This is ideal for competitive scenarios where frame rate trumps visual fidelity.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from High to Ultra settings?

A: At 4K, Ultra delivers 79.3 FPS versus High's 89 FPS, a 9.7 FPS difference. At 1440p, the gap is 14.5 FPS (121 vs 135.5), and at 1080p, the gap is 24.5 FPS (156.9 vs 181.4). The relative cost of Ultra increases as resolution decreases.

Q: Does the CPU limit performance at any resolution?

A: At 1080p with Low settings, the 283.9 FPS result suggests the CPU is providing enough throughput to keep the GPU busy, but the diminishing returns from High to Low (181.4 to 283.9 FPS) indicate the game becomes increasingly CPU-bound at lower settings and resolutions.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 7th out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 0.4% of all pairings. This reflects the strength of both the i9-14900K and the RTX 5090.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the system produces 181.4 FPS at 1080p and 89 FPS at 4K, representing a 50.9% reduction in frame rate when scaling resolution from 1080p to 4K.

Q: Is the RTX 5090's 32 GB of VRAM a factor in this game?

A: Control is not a particularly VRAM-hungry title, so the 32 GB of GDDR7 memory is unlikely to be a constraint at any tested setting. The 1.79 TB/s bandwidth provides ample headroom for texture streaming.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 7 out of 1636 tested combinations places this pairing in an elite category. Being in the top 0.4% of all tested combos indicates that both the CPU and GPU are contributing near-maximum performance for this game. The i9-14900K's 97th percentile ranking among CPUs and the RTX 5090's 94th percentile among GPUs suggest a balanced pairing, though the CPU has a slight edge in relative standing.

The nearest CPU rivals show interesting dynamics. The Intel Core i9-14900KF scores 0.7% higher on average, which could translate to marginal gains in CPU-bound scenarios like 1080p Low. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, which scores 0.9% higher, represents a newer architecture that might handle Control's threading differently. However, these differences are small enough that the GPU becomes the dominant factor in most resolutions. The rank of 7 suggests that only a handful of other combos (likely with even higher-clocked CPUs or more optimized pairings) exceed this configuration's performance in Control.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals clear scaling patterns across resolutions. At High settings, moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 reduces frame rate from 181.4 to 135.5 FPS, a 25.3% decrease. Moving from 1440p to 4K further reduces to 89 FPS, a 34.3% decrease from the 1440p figure and a 50.9% decrease from 1080p. This scaling is more aggressive than the pixel count increase (1080p to 1440p is 1.78x pixels, but FPS drops by only 25.3%), suggesting that the GPU has sufficient headroom at 1080p to handle the extra resolution without proportional performance loss.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more pronounced. From 1080p to 1440p, FPS drops from 283.9 to 215 (24.3% decrease), and from 1440p to 4K, it drops to 144 (33% decrease from 1440p). The fact that Low settings at 4K (144 FPS) nearly matches High settings at 1440p (135.5 FPS) indicates that settings have a comparable impact to resolution on this hardware. The limiting component shifts from GPU at 4K to CPU at 1080p Low, where the 283.9 FPS result likely approaches the CPU's maximum frame production capability for this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS values are: Low at 283.9, Medium at 199.9, High at 181.4, and Ultra at 156.9. The gap between Low and Medium is substantial (84 FPS), while the gap between Medium and High is smaller (18.5 FPS), and High to Ultra is 24.5 FPS. This suggests that Medium settings capture most of the performance potential, with diminishing returns from Medium to High.

At 2560x1440, the values are: Low at 215, Medium at 152.3, High at 135.5, and Ultra at 121. The pattern mirrors 1080p, with Low being significantly faster than Medium (62.7 FPS gap), and the gaps between Medium, High, and Ultra being 16.8 and 14.5 FPS respectively.

At 3840x2160, the values are: Low at 144, Medium at 102.7, High at 89, and Ultra at 79.3. The Low to Medium gap narrows to 41.3 FPS, and the Medium to High gap is 13.7 FPS, with High to Ultra at 9.7 FPS. The compression of frame rates at 4K indicates the GPU is becoming the primary bottleneck, limiting the impact of settings changes. Across all resolutions, the Low preset offers 1.5x to 1.8x the frame rate of Ultra, highlighting the significant performance headroom available when reducing visual fidelity.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a Blackwell architecture GPU with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and it features 21760 shading units. The GPU's benchmark scores are strong, with a Passmark G3D score of 39650 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 379571, placing it in the 94th percentile among all GPUs.

In Control, the GPU's role is dominant at 4K, where the data shows frame rates dropping from 144 FPS at Low to 79.3 FPS at Ultra. This 44.9% reduction demonstrates how the game's rendering features, such as ray tracing and high-resolution textures, stress the GPU's compute and memory subsystems. The 32 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for Control, which is not known for extreme VRAM usage, but the bandwidth becomes relevant at 4K where texture streaming and frame buffer access demand high transfer rates.

The GPU's nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D, scores 0.1% higher on average, which is within noise margins. The RTX 5050 Mobile scores 0.2% higher despite being a mobile part, suggesting that the benchmark averages may not fully capture gaming performance. The RTX 5090's 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 170 RT cores provide ample horsepower for Control's physics and rendering, though the game's age means it may not fully utilize all features. The data shows the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where 79.3 FPS is the lowest measured result, indicating that even this flagship GPU cannot achieve 100+ FPS at maximum settings in this resolution.