Control

Control is a demanding action-adventure title, and the measured data for this specific configuration—an Intel Core Ultra 5 235 paired with the integrated Intel Arc B390—reveals a system that is strictly limited by its graphics solution. The benchmark results show a consistent pattern across all resolutions and settings where the frame rate scales predictably with the graphics load, but absolute performance remains in the low range. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS data to explain what the experience looks like, how the hardware components contribute, and what settings are most viable.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data for this configuration points to the Low preset as the only viable option for achieving a playable frame rate in most scenarios, and even then, resolution plays a critical role. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 65 FPS, which is the only measured scenario that breaks the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset at the same resolution drops to an average of 46 FPS, a significant 19 FPS reduction that pushes the experience into a less fluid territory. For users prioritizing smoothness, Low at 1080p is the clear choice.

If the user cannot tolerate the visual compromises of the Low preset, the data suggests that Medium at 1920x1080, with an average of 46 FPS and a minimum of 40 FPS, is the only other setting that maintains a relatively stable frame time. The High preset at 1080p averages 41 FPS, which is only 5 FPS below Medium, but the jump from Low to Medium is a larger 19 FPS loss, indicating that the cost of moving off the lowest settings is steep. The Ultra preset at 1080p is the least attractive option from this group, yielding an average of just 36 FPS, which is below the Medium preset's minimum frame rate.

At higher resolutions, the situation becomes more constrained. At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 50 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. Medium at this resolution averages 35 FPS with a minimum of 30 FPS, placing it on the edge of playability. The High and Ultra presets at 1440p, with averages of 31 FPS and 27 FPS respectively, are not recommended for a smooth experience. The data consistently shows that as settings increase, the average frame rate drops in a nearly linear fashion, but the Low preset provides a disproportionate performance headroom compared to the next step up. Therefore, the best experience per the measured rows is definitively the Low preset at 1920x1080, with the Medium preset at 1080p serving as a secondary option for those who prefer higher visual quality over the highest frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The overall ranking for this combination in Control is 2551 out of 2888 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 12% of all systems. This is a low position that reflects the severe GPU bottleneck identified in the data. The Intel Arc B390, being an integrated graphics processor (IGP), pulls the entire system's gaming performance down to a level comparable to much older, entry-level discrete graphics cards.

The GPU's own benchmark percentile reinforces this. The Arc B390 sits at the 9th percentile of all GPUs, meaning it performs better than only 9% of the graphics processors in the database. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, which is only 1.3% faster, and the NVIDIA GeForce 800M, which is 1.5% faster. This places the integrated solution in the same performance tier as mobile GPUs from over a decade ago. The CPU, in contrast, is a much stronger component. The Core Ultra 5 235 ranks in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 46062 is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (only 0.1% difference) and the Intel Core i9-13900HX (0.1% difference). This massive discrepancy between the CPU's high percentile and the GPU's low percentile is the defining characteristic of this system. The data indicates that the processor is capable of far more, but the integrated graphics hardware is the limiting factor, causing the entire combo to rank poorly in a graphics-intensive game like Control.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on a 3 nm process node. Its performance profile is the primary reason for the low frame rates observed. With a boost clock of 2500 MHz and a base clock of 300 MHz, the GPU has a theoretical FP32 performance of 7.680 TFLOPS. However, the most critical specification here is its memory configuration: it uses System Shared memory. This means the GPU has no dedicated video memory and must share the system's main DDR5 memory, with bandwidth being "System Dependent." This is a severe disadvantage in a game like Control, which requires fast, consistent memory access for textures and scene data.

The GPU's shading resources are also limited, with 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 ROPs. The measured 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 places it in the 9th percentile, with its closest rival being the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX at 1.3% faster. This puts the Arc B390 in a performance class that is fundamentally unsuited for high-fidelity gaming. The data shows that even at the lowest settings at 1080p, the system can only manage 65 FPS, which is likely due to the memory bandwidth and raw compute limits of the IGP. There is no indication that the GPU's clock speeds are boost-limited; rather, the architectural constraints and shared memory are the primary bottlenecks. The GPU is the definitive limiting component, as evidenced by the fact that reducing settings from High to Low at 1080p yields a massive 24 FPS increase (from 41 to 65 FPS), demonstrating that the frame rate is highly sensitive to the GPU's workload.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of performance scaling across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the system achieves its best results. With the Low preset, the average FPS is 65. Moving to Medium drops the average to 46 FPS, with a minimum of 40 FPS and a maximum of 53 FPS. The High preset yields an average of 41 FPS, and the Ultra preset brings up the rear with an average of 36 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a consistent decline, but the most significant single drop is between Low and Medium, a 19 FPS hit, indicating that the step up from the lowest settings is particularly taxing on the IGP.

At 2560x1440, all frame rates decrease. The Low preset averages 50 FPS. The Medium preset averages 35 FPS, with a minimum of 30 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS. High and Ultra settings average 31 FPS and 27 FPS, respectively. The gap between Low and Medium at this resolution is 15 FPS, still substantial but slightly less pronounced than at 1080p. This suggests that the resolution increase is also adding pressure, but the settings change remains the dominant factor in performance variation.

At 3840x2160, the system is heavily overburdened. The Low preset averages 33 FPS. The Medium preset averages 24 FPS, with a minimum of 20 FPS and a maximum of 27 FPS. High and Ultra presets plummet to averages of 21 FPS and 18 FPS, respectively. The 4K resolution simply presents too much data for the integrated GPU to process in real-time, resulting in a slideshow-like experience across all settings. The data shows that the system is not capable of delivering a consistently smooth frame rate at 4K under any preset, and even the Low preset's 33 FPS average is likely to feel stuttery in a game with intense action sequences.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to use with this hardware in Control?

A: The measured data shows that 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the system can achieve a 60+ FPS average, which occurs with the Low preset at 65 FPS. At 2560x1440, the best average is 50 FPS on Low, and at 3840x2160, the best average is only 33 FPS on Low.

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 CPU a bottleneck for the Intel Arc B390 GPU in this game?

A: No. The CPU ranks in the 89th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 46062, while the GPU ranks in the 9th percentile. The data indicates the GPU is the limiting component, as performance scales significantly with graphics settings and resolution changes, which are GPU-bound tasks.

Q: How does this GPU compare to its nearest rivals in terms of raw performance?

A: The Arc B390's 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1482 is only 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX and 1.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce 800M. This puts it in a performance class with entry-level mobile GPUs from a much older generation.

Q: Can this system handle the Ultra preset at any resolution?

A: According to the measured data, the Ultra preset is not playable at any resolution. The highest average FPS with Ultra settings is 36 FPS at 1920x1080. At 2560x1440, it drops to 27 FPS, and at 4K, it is only 18 FPS.

Q: What is the impact of lowering settings from High to Low at 1080p?

A: The frame rate increases by 24 FPS, from an average of 41 FPS on High to 65 FPS on Low. This is a 58% improvement in average FPS, showing that the integrated GPU is highly sensitive to the graphics workload.

Q: How does the system's overall ranking compare to its CPU's individual performance?

A: The system ranks 2551 out of 2888 combos in Control, placing it in the bottom 12%. However, the CPU itself is in the 89th percentile of all CPUs. This stark contrast highlights that the integrated graphics are the primary reason for the low overall ranking.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor from the Arrow Lake-S architecture, built on a 3 nm process node. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 24 MB shared L3 cache. Its synthetic performance is strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14769 and a single-core score of 2085. In the broader database, it sits at the 89th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 46062, placing it within 0.2% of the AMD EPYC 7303 and 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375.

However, in this specific game benchmark, the CPU's role is almost entirely passive. The frame rates are so low that the processor is never the limiting factor. For example, at 1080p Low, the system achieves 65 FPS, but this is a GPU-bound scenario. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar frame rates regardless of graphics settings. Instead, we see a massive 24 FPS difference between Low and High settings at 1080p, which proves that the GPU is working at its maximum capacity and the CPU has plenty of headroom. The Core Ultra 5 235 is a high-performance desktop processor, but its capabilities are wasted in this configuration. The data suggests that pairing this CPU with a discrete graphics card would yield dramatically better results, as the processor's strong single-threaded and multi-threaded performance (evidenced by its 2085 and 14769 Cinebench R23 scores, respectively) would not be a limiting factor in Control.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is stark and clearly illustrates the GPU bottleneck. At the Low preset, the average FPS moves from 65 at 1920x1080 to 50 at 2560x1440 and finally to 33 at 3840x2160. This represents a 49% reduction in average FPS from 1080p to 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K is a 34% decrease (from 50 to 33 FPS). This scaling pattern is characteristic of a graphics-limited system, where the workload increases quadratically with resolution.

At the Medium preset, the trend is similar: 46 FPS at 1080p, 35 FPS at 1440p, and 24 FPS at 4K. The reduction from 1080p to 4K is a 48% drop. The consistency of this percentage across different presets is telling. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the frame rate to remain relatively flat as resolution increases, since the CPU's workload does not scale with resolution. Instead, the frame rate drops in direct proportion to the increase in pixel count, confirming that the Intel Arc B390 is the sole limiting component. The data shows that the system is incapable of maintaining a playable frame rate at 4K under any circumstances, and even at 1440p, only the Low preset approaches a smooth experience. For this configuration, 1080p is the only resolution where the graphics hardware can provide a satisfactory gaming experience, and even then, only at lower settings.