Control

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 combination delivers a playable but constrained experience in Control, with frame rates that scale predictably across resolutions and presets. This pairing sits near the lower end of the benchmark database, ranking 3083rd out of 3720 tested combos for this game, placing it in the bottom percentile of tested systems. The GTX 1070, a Pascal-generation card with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, carries the primary workload, while the Core Ultra 5 225 provides strong single-thread and multi-thread compute headroom that prevents CPU-side bottlenecks in most scenarios. The measured data reveals a clear pattern: 1080p delivers smooth performance on Medium and High presets, 1440p requires tuning, and 4K demands Low settings or acceptance of sub-30 FPS averages.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the combo consistently exceeds 60 FPS, with a 97 FPS average on Low, 69 FPS on Medium, and 61 FPS on High. At 2560x1440, averages range from 40 FPS on Ultra to 73 FPS on Low, while 3840x2160 peaks at 49 FPS on Low and drops to 27 FPS on Ultra.

Q: How does the GTX 1070's VRAM capacity affect 4K performance?

A: With 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus delivering 256.3 GB/s bandwidth, the card has sufficient capacity for Control's textures, but the 4K results indicate the GPU's compute limits dominate. At 3840x2160, High preset yields 31 FPS average, Medium drops to 35 FPS, and Ultra falls to 27 FPS, showing that resolution scaling stresses the GPU's 6.463 TFLOPS FP32 throughput rather than memory capacity.

Q: Is the Core Ultra 5 225 a bottleneck for the GTX 1070 in this game?

A: Benchmark data indicates no CPU bottleneck. The Core Ultra 5 225 scores 4412 in Passmark single-thread tests and 25891 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, placing it in the 85th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, including the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F with a 0% delta and AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D at -0.2%, show comparable compute performance, meaning the GPU limits frame rates in all measured scenarios.

Q: What settings preset provides the most balanced experience at 1080p?

A: The Medium preset at 1920x1080 delivers a 69 FPS average with a minimum of 58 FPS and maximum of 79 FPS, offering a solid balance between visual quality and smoothness. High preset drops to 61 FPS average, while Low reaches 97 FPS but sacrifices visual fidelity.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: This combo ranks 3083rd out of 3720 tested combinations for Control, placing it in the lower 17% of the database. This reflects the GTX 1070's age, as its average benchmark score of 9780 places it in the 47th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU is comparatively stronger.

Q: Can this combo handle Ultra settings at any resolution?

A: Ultra settings produce an average of 53 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 27 FPS at 4K. Only the 1080p result approaches playability, but the lack of a recorded minimum FPS for that preset suggests potential frame dips below the displayed average.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 occupies the 3083rd position out of 3720 tested combos for Control, a placement that reflects the GPU's age more than the CPU's capability. This rank places the system in the bottom 17% of all tested configurations, meaning a majority of other hardware pairings deliver higher average frame rates in this game. The CPU, however, is far from a weak link; its 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs and an average benchmark score of 36938 indicate substantial processing power that far exceeds what this GPU can utilize in gaming workloads.

The GTX 1070's average benchmark score of 9780 places it in the 47th percentile among all GPUs, with its nearest rivals being professional and workstation cards like the AMD FirePro W5000 at -0.2% delta and NVIDIA Quadro M2000M at -0.5% delta. This positioning explains the combo's overall rank: the CPU contributes high compute headroom, but the GPU's 2016-era architecture and 6.463 TFLOPS FP32 throughput cap gaming performance. The gap between CPU and GPU capability is stark — the Core Ultra 5 225's multi-thread Passmark score of 30459 dwarfs the GPU's compute score of 6102, confirming that frame rates in Control are entirely GPU-limited.

When examining the combo rank relative to the measured FPS data, a clear hierarchy emerges. At 1080p, the system achieves playable frame rates across all presets, with Low hitting 97 FPS and Ultra maintaining 53 FPS. At 1440p, performance drops into the 40-73 FPS range depending on settings, while 4K falls below 50 FPS even on Low. These results align with the combo's low rank — it can handle 1080p gaming adequately but struggles at higher resolutions where the GPU's memory bandwidth and shading capacity become limiting factors.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 serves as the primary performance limiter in this combo, and its specifications explain the measured FPS patterns across resolutions and settings. The card features 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs operating on the Pascal architecture built on a 16 nm process. Its base clock of 1506 MHz boosts to 1683 MHz, while the 8 GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 2002 MHz with an 8 Gbps effective rate across a 256-bit bus, yielding 256.3 GB/s of memory bandwidth. These figures translate to a pixel rate of 107.7 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 compute rated at 6.463 TFLOPS.

The GTX 1070's 47th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 9780, places it in the middle of the performance distribution. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD FirePro W5000 at -0.2% delta and NVIDIA Quadro M2000M at -0.5% delta, both of which are older or workstation-oriented cards. This positioning underscores that the GTX 1070, while once a high-end consumer card, now sits near the median of tested GPUs. In Control, the GPU's 8 GB memory capacity proves sufficient even at 4K, but the card's compute throughput cannot maintain high frame rates at that resolution.

Memory bandwidth plays a critical role in Control's performance scaling. The 256.3 GB/s bandwidth supports the game's texture streaming demands, but the measured FPS drops from 97 at 1080p Low to 49 at 4K Low — a 49% reduction — indicate that the GPU's shading and rasterization capabilities, rather than memory, are the binding constraint at higher resolutions. The Medium preset at 4K shows a minimum of 30 FPS and average of 35 FPS, suggesting occasional dips below playable thresholds even at moderate settings. The GTX 1070's 150 W TDP and PCIe 3.0 x16 interface are adequate for this workload, but the card's end-of-life production status reflects its limited headroom for demanding titles like Control.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend heavily on the target resolution, but the 1920x1080 Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. At this setting, the system achieves a 69 FPS average with a measured minimum of 58 FPS and maximum of 79 FPS, providing consistent frame delivery that stays above the 60 FPS threshold most of the time. The High preset at 1080p drops to 61 FPS average, which is still playable but leaves less margin for demanding scenes, while Low reaches 97 FPS but sacrifices the game's atmospheric lighting and effects.

For users prioritizing smoothness over visual fidelity, the 1080p Low preset delivers the highest frame rate in the entire dataset at 97 FPS, with no recorded minimum or maximum values. The Ultra preset at 1080p maintains a 53 FPS average, which is technically playable but below the 60 FPS target, and the absence of minimum FPS data for this setting suggests potential variability. At 1440p, the Medium preset provides a 52 FPS average with a minimum of 44 FPS and maximum of 60 FPS, making it the only 1440p option that offers reasonably consistent performance, though it falls short of the 60 FPS ideal.

The 4K resolution presents significant challenges for this combo, and the data recommends avoiding anything above Low settings. At 3840x2160, Low yields 49 FPS average, Medium drops to 35 FPS with a 30 FPS minimum, High falls to 31 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 27 FPS. None of these 4K results provide a consistently smooth experience, so users should either accept 1080p gaming or significantly reduce settings at higher resolutions. The GTX 1070's 6.463 TFLOPS FP32 throughput simply cannot sustain 60 FPS at 4K in Control, regardless of preset selection.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo demonstrates its strongest performance across all settings. The Low preset achieves an average of 97 FPS, the highest recorded figure in the entire dataset. Medium delivers 69 FPS average with a minimum of 58 FPS and maximum of 79 FPS, providing the most complete performance profile at this resolution. High maintains a 61 FPS average, while Ultra drops to 53 FPS. All 1080p settings produce averages above 50 FPS, confirming that this resolution is the sweet spot for the GTX 1070.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance degrades noticeably but remains playable on lower presets. Low settings yield 73 FPS average, representing a 24 FPS drop compared to 1080p Low. Medium produces 52 FPS average with a minimum of 44 FPS and maximum of 60 FPS, showing that frame pacing becomes less consistent at higher resolution. High averages 46 FPS, and Ultra falls to 40 FPS. The 1440p results indicate that users should stick to Medium or Low presets to maintain acceptable performance, as High and Ultra dip below the 50 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles to maintain playable frame rates on any setting. Low yields 49 FPS average, the only 4K preset to exceed 40 FPS. Medium averages 35 FPS with a minimum of 30 FPS and maximum of 40 FPS, representing the most complete data at this resolution. High drops to 31 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 27 FPS. The 4K results show a clear pattern: even the lowest preset cannot consistently hold 50 FPS, and Ultra settings produce a slideshow-like experience. The minimum FPS values recorded only for Medium presets across resolutions — 58 FPS at 1080p, 44 FPS at 1440p, and 30 FPS at 4K — suggest that Medium provides the most predictable performance envelope for this hardware.

The scaling patterns across resolutions reveal the GPU's bandwidth and compute limits. From 1080p Low to 4K Low, the average FPS drops from 97 to 49, a 49% reduction. From 1080p Medium to 1440p Medium, the drop is from 69 to 52 FPS, a 25% reduction, and further to 35 FPS at 4K, another 33% reduction. These scaling factors align with the pixel count increases (1.78x from 1080p to 1440p, 4x from 1080p to 4K), indicating that the GTX 1070's fill rate and shading capacity are the limiting factors.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 provides substantial compute resources that far exceed the demands of Control at the settings tested, ensuring that the GPU remains the performance bottleneck in all measured scenarios. This processor features 10 cores and 10 threads based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on TSMC's 3 nm process node. Its base clock of 3.30 GHz boosts to 4.90 GHz, with 192 KB of L1 cache per core, 3 MB of L2 cache per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, providing 102.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth, and connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 20 CPU lanes.

The Core Ultra 5 225's benchmark results demonstrate its capability relative to other CPUs in the database. Its single-thread Passmark score of 4412 and multi-thread score of 30459 place it in the 85th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938. In Cinebench R23, the CPU scores 3655 single-core and 25891 multi-core, while Cinebench R20 shows 891 single-core and 6317 multi-core. The nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F at a 0% delta, AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D at -0.2%, and AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 at -0.4%, all of which deliver nearly identical average scores.

This CPU performance has direct implications for Control's frame rates. The game's physics and AI systems benefit from the processor's strong single-thread performance, evidenced by the 4412 Passmark single-thread score and 3655 Cinebench R23 single-core result. The multi-thread capabilities, while not heavily utilized in this title, ensure that background tasks and streaming do not interfere with frame delivery. The measured FPS data shows consistent scaling with GPU load rather than CPU fluctuations, confirming that the Core Ultra 5 225 provides ample headroom for the GTX 1070's output.

The CPU's memory controller and bandwidth also contribute to system performance. With 102.4 GB/s of dual-channel DDR5 bandwidth, the CPU can feed the GPU's texture requests without creating a system-level bottleneck. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache helps maintain data locality for game assets, while the 3 MB per-core L2 cache supports high-frequency operation. The 65 W TDP and Intel Socket 1851 platform place this CPU in the mainstream desktop segment, and its 2025 release date means it represents current-generation technology that will not become a limiting factor in older titles like Control. The CPU's 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die achieve a density that supports both high clocks and efficient operation, further reducing the likelihood of CPU-induced frame drops.