Control

Control is a 2019 action-adventure title that stresses both the CPU and GPU depending on the resolution and preset selected. The data for the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT shows a system that is capable of high refresh rates at 1080p, but one that requires careful settings management to maintain smooth performance at 4K. The measured frames per second (FPS) across all settings and resolutions reveal a clear hierarchy of performance, with the combination ranking in the 899th position out of 2888 tested configurations, placing it comfortably in the upper third of all systems.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the "High" preset offers the best balance between visual fidelity and performance across all three tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers an average of 110 FPS, which is only 14 FPS below the Low preset’s 174 FPS but provides substantially better image quality. Moving up to 2560x1440, the High preset maintains a solid 83 FPS average, which is still well within the range of smooth gameplay for most displays. The story changes at 3840x2160, where the High preset drops to 56 FPS on average, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action sequences.

The Medium preset serves as a viable middle ground, particularly for users with higher refresh rate monitors at 1440p. At 2560x1440, Medium produces 94 FPS with a minimum of 80 FPS and a maximum of 108 FPS, offering a more stable frame time experience than the High preset. However, the Ultra preset consistently shows the largest performance cost, with average frame rates dropping to 96 FPS at 1080p, 72 FPS at 1440p, and 49 FPS at 4K. The data implies that Ultra settings are not worth the performance penalty for this combination, especially when High provides nearly identical visual enhancements in most scenes.

For 4K users, the Low preset becomes the most practical recommendation, as it is the only setting that pushes the average above 60 FPS, achieving 89 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium at 4K costs 26 FPS on average, which is a significant drop for what is typically a modest visual improvement in Control. The data indicates that 4K gaming with this combo requires either accepting the Low preset or utilizing upscaling technologies, as neither High nor Ultra can maintain a consistent 60 FPS. The measured results suggest that the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, while the CPU has more headroom to work with.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Control with this hardware combination?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 provides the most comfortable experience, with all presets exceeding 96 FPS on average. At 2560x1440, the High and Medium presets remain playable at 83 and 94 FPS respectively, but the 3840x2160 resolution only achieves acceptable frame rates on the Low preset, which averages 89 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from the Low to Ultra preset?

A: The performance penalty scales with resolution. At 1080p, Ultra is 78 FPS slower than Low, dropping from 174 to 96 FPS. At 1440p, the difference is 60 FPS (132 to 72), and at 4K, the gap narrows to 40 FPS (89 to 49). The percentage loss increases with resolution, indicating that the GPU struggles more with Ultra settings at higher pixel counts.

Q: Does the system maintain a minimum of 60 FPS at any resolution and preset?

A: Yes, but only at 1080p and 1440p with certain presets. The Medium preset at 1080p has a minimum of 105 FPS, and at 1440p it has a minimum of 80 FPS. The 4K Medium preset has a minimum of 54 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold, and no other 4K preset reports minimum FPS data.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems for Control?

A: The combination ranks 899th out of 2888 total configurations, placing it in the 68.8th percentile of all tested systems. This suggests that the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT provide a strong, above-average experience for this game.

Q: Is the frame rate more stable at lower resolutions?

A: The data indicates that lower resolutions offer tighter frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the spread between minimum and maximum is 37 FPS (105 to 142), while at 1440p Medium, the spread is 28 FPS (80 to 108). The 4K Medium preset shows a spread of 19 FPS (54 to 73), suggesting that higher resolutions actually produce more consistent frame pacing, albeit at lower averages.

Q: Can this system handle Control at 4K with high visual quality?

A: The measured results show that 4K High averages 56 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay. The Ultra preset averages 49 FPS. Only the Low preset at 4K exceeds 60 FPS, with an average of 89 FPS. Users seeking high visual quality at 4K would need to rely on upscaling or accept the performance trade-off.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals that the GPU is the dominant limiting component at higher resolutions. At the High preset, the average FPS drops from 110 at 1080p to 83 at 1440p, a 24.5% reduction, and then to 56 at 4K, a further 32.5% reduction from 1440p. This steep decline indicates that the RX 7800 XT’s rasterization capabilities are being fully taxed as pixel count increases, with the 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 256-bit bus width struggling to keep up with the demands of 4K rendering.

The Low preset shows a similar pattern but with less dramatic drops: from 174 FPS at 1080p to 132 FPS at 1440p (24.1% decrease), and then to 89 FPS at 4K (32.6% decrease from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across presets suggests that the scaling behavior is resolution-bound rather than settings-bound. When looking at the Medium preset, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 24.2% (124 to 94 FPS), and from 1440p to 4K is 33.0% (94 to 63 FPS). These numbers confirm that the GPU is the primary bottleneck, as the CPU’s performance headroom is not being fully utilized at higher resolutions.

The 4K to 1080p ratio for the High preset is 0.51 (56/110 FPS), meaning the system loses nearly half its performance when moving from 1080p to 4K. This is a typical pattern for a mid-range GPU like the RX 7800 XT, which has enough raw compute for 1440p gaming but cannot sustain high frame rates at 4K without significant settings reductions. The data implies that players should target 1440p as the optimal resolution for this combo, as it offers a good balance between image clarity and frame rate, with the High preset achieving 83 FPS and Medium reaching 94 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS values show a clear gradient across presets. The Low preset produces an average of 174 FPS, which is the highest recorded for this resolution. Medium drops to 124 FPS with a minimum of 105 and a maximum of 142, while High achieves 110 FPS on average. Ultra is the slowest at 1080p, with an average of 96 FPS. These numbers indicate that the CPU, with its 14 cores and 14 threads, has sufficient headroom to feed the GPU at this resolution, as even the highest settings remain well above 60 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down proportionally. Low averages 132 FPS, Medium averages 94 FPS with a range of 80 to 108, High averages 83 FPS, and Ultra drops to 72 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 80 FPS is notable because it remains above the 60 FPS threshold, providing a consistent experience for users with standard 60 Hz monitors or those with adaptive sync displays. The gap between Low and Ultra is 60 FPS, which is a substantial difference that highlights the cost of enabling the highest visual settings.

At 3840x2160, the data reveals the GPU’s limitations. Low averages 89 FPS, which is the only preset to break the 60 FPS barrier. Medium averages 63 FPS with a minimum of 54 and a maximum of 73, placing it right on the edge of playability. High drops to 56 FPS, and Ultra falls to 49 FPS. The 4K Medium preset’s minimum of 54 FPS suggests that there will be noticeable stutters during intense combat or physics-heavy scenes, making it less reliable than the 1440p Medium preset. The overall pattern shows that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K requiring significant compromises in settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame places this configuration at 899 out of 2888 tested combos, which positions it in the upper 31% of all systems tested for Control. This ranking reflects the balanced nature of the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT pairing, where neither component is severely underpowered for the game’s demands. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 46062 places it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU’s average benchmark score of 11627 places it in the 51st percentile of all GPUs, suggesting that the CPU is relatively stronger than the GPU in this pairing.

The CPU’s nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (0.1% higher average score), the Intel Core i9-13900HX (0.1% lower), the AMD EPYC 4364P (0.2% higher), and the AMD EPYC 7303 (0.2% higher). These small deltaPct values indicate that the Core Ultra 5 235 is well-matched against its direct competitors in synthetic benchmarks, but the game’s specific requirements may shift the relative performance. The GPU’s nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (0.5% lower), the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M (0.9% higher), the NVIDIA Tesla K20c (1.3% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (1.8% lower). The RX 7800 XT’s position in the 51st percentile suggests that it is a mid-range performer in the overall GPU landscape, but its 16 GB of VRAM and 624.1 GB/s bandwidth provide advantages in memory-heavy scenarios.

The rank of 899 out of 2888 implies that there are 1989 combos that perform worse and 898 that perform better. This places the system in a strong position for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but the ranking also reflects the GPU’s limitations at 4K, where higher-tier graphics cards would significantly outperform it. The data suggests that this combo is a solid choice for mainstream gamers who prioritize high frame rates at 1440p over maximum visual fidelity at 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 features 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. This configuration is unusual in that it has no hyper-threading, meaning each core handles a single thread, which can be beneficial for games that scale well with physical cores. The CPU’s L3 cache is 24 MB shared, with 3 MB of L2 cache per core and 192 KB of L1 cache per core. These cache sizes are substantial for a desktop processor and help reduce memory latency in gaming workloads.

The CPU’s boost clock of 5.00 GHz is critical for Control, which is known to have CPU-intensive physics and AI systems. At 1080p, the high clock speed allows the CPU to feed the GPU efficiently, as evidenced by the 174 FPS average on the Low preset. However, as resolution increases, the CPU’s role diminishes relative to the GPU. The data shows that at 4K, the frame rate is primarily determined by the GPU’s rendering capabilities, and the CPU’s 5.00 GHz boost clock provides sufficient headroom to avoid becoming a bottleneck.

The CPU’s memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, paired with dual-channel DDR5 support, ensures that data can be transferred quickly between the CPU and memory. This is particularly important in Control’s destructible environments, where the CPU must process physics calculations and send updated geometry data to the GPU. The 14 cores provide ample parallel processing power for these tasks, though the lack of hyper-threading means that heavily threaded workloads may not scale as well as they would on a CPU with 14 cores and 28 threads. The CPU’s TDP of 65 W indicates that it runs efficiently, which is beneficial for system thermals, but the 3 nm process node from TSMC (with 17,800 million transistors) suggests that power delivery is not a limiting factor in gaming scenarios.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 32 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It features 3840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, with 60 ray tracing cores. The GPU’s boost clock is 2430 MHz, with a game clock of 2124 MHz and a base clock of 1295 MHz. These clock speeds, combined with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, provide a memory bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s, which is generous for a mid-range graphics card.

The GPU’s FP32 performance of 37.32 TFLOPS and texture rate of 583.2 GTexel/s are key indicators of its rasterization capabilities. In Control, the 4K results show that the GPU struggles to maintain 60 FPS on High settings, averaging 56 FPS. The 16 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor at 4K, as Control typically uses less than 8 GB, but the GPU’s raw compute power is insufficient for the game’s demanding visual effects at that resolution. The ray tracing cores, while present, do not appear to provide a significant advantage in the measured results, as the Ultra preset only achieves 49 FPS at 4K.

The GPU’s 51st percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 11627, positions it as a solid 1440p performer. The nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, is only 0.5% lower in average score, which is surprising given the generational difference, but it highlights that benchmark scores do not always translate directly to gaming performance. The RX 7800 XT’s 16 GB of VRAM and 624.1 GB/s bandwidth provide future-proofing for upcoming titles, but in Control, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor at 4K. The data suggests that players should use the High preset at 1440p for the best experience, as the Ultra preset costs 11 FPS on average (83 to 72) for marginal visual gains.