Control

Control pairs the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, a combination that lands in the top 6% of tested hardware configurations for this title. The measured frame rates show a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while the 14-core processor provides ample headroom at 1080p where the RTX 5080 is pushed to its limits. The data reveals a clear hierarchy of performance across the four tested presets, with the gap between Low and Ultra settings widening as resolution increases.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 2560x1440 with High settings is 122 frames per second. This sits comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and represents a solid balance between visual fidelity and performance.

Q: How much faster is Low settings compared to Ultra at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset achieves an average of 130 FPS, while Ultra drops to 72 FPS. This represents an 80.6% improvement in frame rate when switching from Ultra to Low, indicating that the Ultra preset imposes a significant rendering load at 4K resolution.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded in the entire dataset?

A: The highest average FPS is 255, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only configuration in the measured data that exceeds 250 FPS, and it demonstrates the substantial performance headroom available when resolution and quality settings are reduced.

Q: Does the combo rank highly among all tested configurations?

A: The combination ranks 171st out of 2888 tested combos, placing it in the top 5.9% of all configurations. This is a strong result, indicating that this pairing is well-suited for Control and outperforms the vast majority of alternative hardware combinations.

Q: What is the only preset that reports minimum and maximum FPS values?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum FPS values across all three resolutions. At 1080p, it ranges from 154 to 209 FPS; at 1440p, from 117 to 158 FPS; and at 4K, from 79 to 107 FPS. This suggests the Medium preset was the focus of more detailed frame time analysis.

Q: How does the CPU's single-thread performance compare to its multi-thread performance in synthetic tests?

A: In Cinebench R23, the processor scores 2085 in single-core and 14769 in multi-core. The multi-core score is approximately 7.1 times higher, which reflects the scaling across its 14 cores, though the single-core score remains competitive for gaming workloads that rely on fewer threads.

How This Combo Ranks

The rank of 171 out of 2888 combos places this pairing in the 94th percentile of all tested configurations for Control. This is a strong showing, though not an elite top-tier result, suggesting that while the RTX 5080 delivers exceptional raw performance, the Core Ultra 5 235 does not bottleneck the system in this title. The data implies that higher-ranked combos likely feature more powerful CPUs, but the practical difference in frame rates may be minimal given the GPU-bound nature of Control at higher settings.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 87 among all GPUs indicates that the RTX 5080 is a high-performing card, but not the absolute fastest available. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE, shows a deltaPct of -2.2, meaning the RTX 5080 outperforms it by 2.2% in average benchmark scores. This margin is small enough that in-game performance differences could be negligible, but the RTX 5080 maintains a lead. On the CPU side, the Core Ultra 5 235 sits at the 89th percentile, with its closest rival being the Intel Core i9-13900HX at a deltaPct of -0.1% — a statistical tie. This indicates that the processor's performance is well-matched to its peers in the same performance class.

The combination of a top-6% combo rank with both components sitting in the high-80s percentiles suggests a balanced pairing. If the CPU were significantly weaker, the combo rank would likely be lower due to bottlenecking at 1080p. Conversely, the fact that the combo rank is higher than either component's individual percentile implies that the pairing is particularly synergistic for Control, likely because the game's engine scales well with the RTX 5080's architecture while not being overly demanding on CPU resources.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data strongly suggests that the High preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all three resolutions. At 1080p, High delivers 161 FPS, which is 74% higher than the 93 FPS at 4K High, but still well above the 144Hz refresh rate common on high-end monitors. At 1440p, High produces 122 FPS, which is smooth for most displays and represents a 15% drop from the 1080p figure, a reasonable trade-off for increased resolution. At 4K, High maintains 82 FPS, which is playable on 60Hz displays but may not fully utilize 120Hz+ screens.

Ultra settings provide diminishing returns relative to the performance cost. At 4K, Ultra drops to 72 FPS, a 12.2% reduction from High's 82 FPS. At 1440p, the drop is 13.1% (from 122 to 106 FPS), and at 1080p, it is 13% (from 161 to 140 FPS). This consistent 12-13% penalty across resolutions suggests that Ultra adds a uniform rendering load that may not be visually justified given the frame rate cost. For players prioritizing frame rate, Medium offers a middle ground: at 4K it provides 93 FPS (13.4% above High), at 1440p it reaches 137 FPS (12.3% above High), and at 1080p it hits 181 FPS (12.4% above High). The Medium preset's minimum FPS values are also respectable, with the lowest being 79 FPS at 4K, ensuring a relatively consistent experience.

Low settings should only be considered for extreme frame rate priorities, particularly at 4K where it achieves 130 FPS, a 58.5% improvement over High. However, the visual downgrade is substantial, and the 255 FPS at 1080p Low is likely unnecessary for most displays. The data indicates that High is the sweet spot, with Medium as a viable alternative for those seeking higher refresh rates, and Ultra reserved for players with 60Hz 4K displays who prioritize image quality above all else.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 5080 demonstrates its raw power with an average FPS ranging from 140 at Ultra to 255 at Low. The Medium preset records 181 FPS with a minimum of 154 and maximum of 209, while High sits at 161 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium is a 29% decrease in performance, while the jump from Medium to High is an 11% decrease, and from High to Ultra is a 13% decrease. This shows that the Low preset is significantly less demanding, while the step from Medium to High is relatively modest in cost.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down predictably. Low delivers 193 FPS, Medium 137 FPS (with min/max of 117/158), High 122 FPS, and Ultra 106 FPS. The percentage drops from 1080p to 1440p are as follows: Low drops by 24.3%, Medium by 24.3%, High by 24.2%, and Ultra by 24.3%. This remarkably consistent ~24% reduction across all presets indicates that the resolution increase imposes a uniform scaling factor on the GPU, suggesting that the rendering pipeline is well-balanced and not bottlenecked by any single component at these resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the 4K resolution takes a heavier toll. Low achieves 130 FPS, Medium 93 FPS (min/max of 79/107), High 82 FPS, and Ultra 72 FPS. The drops from 1440p to 4K are more severe: Low drops by 32.6%, Medium by 32.1%, High by 32.8%, and Ultra by 32.1%. This steeper decline at 4K compared to the 1440p transition suggests that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor, as the pixel count quadruples while the frame rate only drops by roughly a third, indicating that the RTX 5080's memory bandwidth and compute resources are being taxed more heavily at this resolution. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium (79) is still above 60, but the Ultra preset's 72 FPS average leaves little headroom for demanding scenes.

GPU Role

The RTX 5080 is clearly the dominant component in this pairing, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling across resolutions. With 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, it has a bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s, which is more than sufficient for Control's textures and effects at 4K Ultra. The 10752 shading units and 112 ROPs provide the compute throughput necessary to sustain high frame rates, while the 84 RT cores handle any ray tracing effects that Control may employ, though the measured data does not specify RT settings.

The GPU's base clock of 2295 MHz and boost clock of 2617 MHz are relatively high, and the data suggests that the card maintains these clocks effectively under load, as evidenced by the consistent frame rates across different presets. The 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is a strong indicator of raw compute capability, and the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8637 places it in the upper echelon of GPUs. The GPU's 87th percentile ranking, combined with a 0.6% lead over the AMD Radeon 8060S and a 0.7% lead over the Radeon RX 6750 GRE, shows that it is competitive but not overwhelmingly superior to its closest rivals.

At 1080p, the GPU is the primary driver of performance, as the CPU has enough headroom to feed it. The 255 FPS at Low settings indicates that the RTX 5080 is not being bottlenecked by the processor, and the 24% drop from 1080p to 1440p is a direct result of the GPU's pixel throughput limits. At 4K, the GPU's memory bandwidth becomes more critical, and the 32% drop from 1440p suggests that the card is approaching its limits, though the 72 FPS at Ultra still represents a playable experience. The data implies that the RTX 5080 is well-matched to Control's demands, with no signs of VRAM capacity issues or thermal throttling affecting the measured results.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 provides a solid foundation for this GPU, with 14 cores and 14 threads running at a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache is ample for gaming workloads, and the 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth on a dual-channel DDR5 interface ensures that data can be fed to the GPU without creating a bottleneck. The CPU's 89th percentile ranking, with a 0.1% deltaPct against the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 and a -0.1% deltaPct against the Core i9-13900HX, shows that it performs essentially identically to these rivals in average benchmark scores.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14769 and a single-core score of 2085. The single-core performance is crucial for gaming, as many game engines, including those from the action-adventure genre, rely heavily on a few threads for physics, AI, and game logic. The data indicates that the Core Ultra 5 235's single-core performance is sufficient to keep the RTX 5080 fed at 1080p, as evidenced by the high frame rates at Low settings. However, the CPU's role becomes less critical at higher resolutions, where the GPU's rendering load dominates.

The 14 threads, while not offering hyper-threading, are still more than enough for Control, which likely uses fewer than 8 threads effectively. The fact that the frame rate drops by a consistent ~24% from 1080p to 1440p, regardless of preset, suggests that the CPU is not introducing any variability at these resolutions. At 4K, the CPU's influence diminishes further, as the GPU becomes the sole limiting factor. The data implies that the Core Ultra 5 235 is a capable but not exceptional gaming CPU, and while it does not bottleneck the RTX 5080 in this title, a higher-end CPU might yield marginal gains in minimum frame rates at 1080p, though the average FPS would likely remain unchanged.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K reveal a clear picture of the system's bottleneck behavior. Going from 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS drops by approximately 24% across all presets. This is a relatively modest decline, indicating that the GPU has sufficient headroom at 1080p and that the scaling is primarily driven by pixel count. The consistency of this 24% drop across Low, Medium, High, and Ultra settings is notable, as it suggests that the rendering pipeline is well-optimized and that no single component is disproportionately stressed by the resolution increase.

From 1440p to 4K, the drop increases to approximately 32%, which is a significantly steeper decline. This non-linear scaling indicates that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor at 4K, as the pixel count quadruples from 1440p (3.7 million pixels) to 4K (8.3 million pixels), but the frame rate only drops by a third. If the system were purely CPU-bound, the frame rate would remain relatively flat across resolutions, but the data shows a clear GPU-bound pattern. The fact that the 4K drop is steeper than the 1440p drop suggests that the RTX 5080's memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s is being increasingly taxed as resolution increases, and the GPU's compute units are working closer to their limits.

The implication is that at 1080p, the system is balanced, with the CPU and GPU working in tandem to deliver high frame rates. At 1440p, the GPU begins to take on a larger share of the workload, but the CPU still has headroom. At 4K, the GPU is the definitive bottleneck, and the CPU's role becomes nearly irrelevant. This is evidenced by the fact that the CPU's synthetic benchmark scores (e.g., 14769 in Cinebench R23 multi-core) are more than sufficient for the frame rates observed at 4K, and any CPU upgrade would yield diminishing returns. The data suggests that for players targeting 4K, the RTX 5080 is the primary determinant of performance, while at 1080p, the Core Ultra 5 235 ensures that the GPU is fully utilized, resulting in the high frame rates observed at Low and Medium settings.