Control

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combination sits at rank 1551 out of 2888 tested combos for Control, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database. This positioning is modest, given that the CPU ranks in the 91st percentile among all processors and the GPU in the 82nd percentile among all graphics cards, but the game’s age and its heavy reliance on raw GPU throughput in certain settings cap the overall combo performance. The 14-core, 14-thread Ultra 5 235HX with a 5.10 GHz boost clock is a strong mobile part, yet the data shows that the RTX 5070’s 12 GB of GDDR7 memory and 672.0 GB/s bandwidth are the primary drivers of frame rates in this title. Benchmark results indicate that the combo is 46.3% behind the top-ranked setup, but it remains competitive within its own segment, outpacing the 25th percentile of all combos by a wide margin. The measured FPS across resolutions and settings reveals a system that can handle 1080p and 1440p with ease, but struggles to maintain smooth gameplay at 4K on higher presets, a pattern that points to the GPU as the limiting factor rather than the CPU. This analysis will break down the combo’s standing, optimal settings, scaling behavior, and the specific roles of the processor and graphics card, using only the measured data provided.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 1551 out of 2888 tested combinations places it in the 46th percentile of all pairings, meaning 1337 setups perform better and 1550 perform worse in Control. This is a mid-pack result for a hardware pair that individually shows strong synthetic benchmarks: the CPU’s average benchmark score of 52073 sits nearly identical to its nearest rivals, within 0.7% of the Intel Core i9-13900F and 0.2% of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, while the GPU’s average score of 40377 is within 2% of the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile and 1.2% of the AMD Radeon Pro 5300. The fact that the combo rank is lower than either component’s individual percentile suggests that Control does not fully utilize the CPU’s capabilities, leaving the GPU to carry most of the performance burden. In practical terms, the rank indicates that users with this setup will get a playable experience at most resolutions, but they will not be at the top of the leaderboard for this specific title. The delta to the nearest rival CPUs is negligible—less than 1% in either direction—so the Ultra 5 235HX is not a bottleneck, but the GPU’s 12 GB VRAM and 192-bit bus width become more relevant at higher resolutions, where the measured FPS drops disproportionately. For context, the top-ranked combo likely combines a higher-end GPU with a comparable CPU, and the gap of 46.3% underscores how much headroom exists in this game for more powerful graphics hardware. The rank also reflects the game’s 2019 release, as newer titles may show a different balance, but within Control, this combo is a solid mid-tier option, not a flagship performer.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data shows a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate, with the optimal preset depending on the target resolution. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers 137 FPS average, which is the highest measured for this combo, but the jump to Medium drops to 98 FPS, and High sits at 87 FPS, while Ultra falls to 75 FPS. For competitive or high-refresh-rate play, Low is the only preset that exceeds 120 FPS, but for a more balanced experience, Medium at 98 FPS offers a 47% improvement over Ultra while retaining most visual quality, and the measured minimum of 83 FPS ensures no severe stutters. At 1440p, the pattern shifts: Low hits 104 FPS, Medium drops to 74 FPS, High to 66 FPS, and Ultra to 57 FPS. Here, Medium is the sweet spot, as it maintains a 74 FPS average with a 63 FPS minimum, which is smooth enough for most displays, whereas High dips below 70 FPS and Ultra falls below 60 FPS. At 4K, the situation becomes challenging, as Low is the only preset that breaks 60 FPS, with a 70 FPS average, while Medium manages 50 FPS, High 44 FPS, and Ultra 39 FPS. Given these numbers, the best experience for this combo is Medium at 1440p, which balances the 74 FPS average against the visual improvements over Low, and the 63 FPS minimum indicates that the game remains fluid during intense scenes. For 1080p users, Medium is also recommended over High, as the 11 FPS gap between them (98 vs 87) is less significant than the 23 FPS gap between Medium and Low (98 vs 137), suggesting diminishing returns beyond Medium. At 4K, users should stick to Low for playability, as the 70 FPS average is the only viable option, with Medium’s 50 FPS and High’s 44 FPS both falling below the threshold for smooth motion. The data does not include ray tracing or DLSS settings, so these recommendations are based solely on the measured presets, but they consistently point to Medium as the best compromise across all resolutions for this hardware combination.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and reveals the GPU as the primary limiting component. At the Low preset, the average FPS falls from 137 at 1080p to 104 at 1440p (a 24.1% reduction) and then to 70 at 4K (a 48.9% reduction from 1080p). This scaling is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the RTX 5070’s 12 GB VRAM and 672.0 GB/s bandwidth are saturated by the increased pixel count. At Medium, the averages are 98 FPS at 1080p, 74 FPS at 1440p (down 24.5%), and 50 FPS at 4K (down 49.0%). The consistency of the percentage drops across presets—around 24-25% from 1080p to 1440p and 49% from 1080p to 4K—indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck at any resolution, as the frame rate scales directly with pixel throughput. If the CPU were limiting, the drop from 1440p to 4K would be smaller, as the GPU would struggle to keep up, but the data shows a uniform decline. At High, the averages are 87 FPS at 1080p, 66 FPS at 1440p (down 24.1%), and 44 FPS at 4K (down 49.4%), while Ultra shows 75 FPS at 1080p, 57 FPS at 1440p (down 24.0%), and 39 FPS at 4K (down 48.0%). This pattern strongly suggests that the RTX 5070 is the limiting component, as the CPU’s 14 cores and 5.10 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom for the game’s physics and AI, but the GPU’s memory bandwidth and shading units cannot keep pace with 4K rendering. The fact that 4K Low only achieves 70 FPS, while 1080p Low hits 137 FPS, further confirms that the GPU is the bottleneck, as doubling the pixel count roughly halves the frame rate. For users with 4K displays, the data recommends staying at Low or Medium, but even then, the 50 FPS average at Medium may not satisfy all players, and the 39 FPS at Ultra is unplayable for most. The scaling behavior is predictable and consistent, making it easy for users to anticipate performance at other resolutions, but the overall trend points to the GPU as the component that would need an upgrade to improve 4K performance in this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results, with the Low preset averaging 137 FPS, which is the highest measured across all settings and resolutions. Medium drops to 98 FPS with a minimum of 83 FPS and a maximum of 112 FPS, providing a stable experience with headroom for dips during action sequences. High averages 87 FPS, and Ultra falls to 75 FPS, showing a 45% reduction from Low to Ultra. The data includes minimum and maximum values only for Medium at each resolution, so the 83 FPS minimum at 1080p Medium indicates that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays above 80 FPS, which is smooth for most displays. At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 104 FPS, dropping to 74 FPS at Medium with a 63 FPS minimum and 85 FPS maximum. High averages 66 FPS, and Ultra averages 57 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS threshold for ideal smoothness. The 1440p Medium minimum of 63 FPS is notable, as it suggests that the game rarely drops below 60 FPS, making this preset viable for high-refresh-rate monitors. At 3840x2160, the performance takes a significant hit: Low averages 70 FPS, Medium averages 50 FPS with a 42 FPS minimum and 57 FPS maximum, High averages 44 FPS, and Ultra averages 39 FPS. The 4K Medium minimum of 42 FPS is the lowest measured across all data points, indicating that the GPU struggles to maintain playable frame rates in graphically intense moments. The min/max data for Medium at each resolution provides insight into the frame time consistency: at 1080p, the spread is 29 FPS (83 to 112), at 1440p it is 22 FPS (63 to 85), and at 4K it is 15 FPS (42 to 57). This narrowing spread at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU is consistently maxed out, reducing the variance in frame times but also lowering the overall average. The breakdown shows a clear hierarchy: 1080p is fully playable at all presets, 1440p is playable up to High (with Medium recommended), and 4K is only viable at Low or Medium, with the latter being borderline. The data does not include ray tracing or DLSS metrics, so these numbers represent native rendering, and the overall performance is solid for a mobile-class CPU paired with a desktop-class GPU.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is the dominant component in this combo for Control, as evidenced by the resolution scaling and the fact that the GPU’s average benchmark score of 40377 places it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs. The card features 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for the game’s texture streaming and particle effects. The base clock is 2325 MHz with a boost clock of 2512 MHz, and the card has 6144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. The FP32 performance is 30.87 TFLOPS, which drives the raw pixel throughput. In the measured data, the GPU’s role becomes apparent at 4K, where the 12 GB VRAM is likely a limiting factor, as the game’s high-resolution textures and effects can consume significant memory, and the 192-bit bus width constrains bandwidth. The fact that 4K Low achieves 70 FPS while 4K Ultra drops to 39 FPS shows that the GPU’s shading units and memory bandwidth are saturated at higher presets, and the 48 RT cores do not appear to provide a benefit in this title, as no ray tracing data is included. The GPU’s nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (0.1% slower) and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (0.8% slower), which are workstation cards, suggesting that the RTX 5070 is a mainstream gaming GPU with a strong price-to-performance ratio, though the launch MSRP is 549 USD. The measured FPS at 1080p Medium (98 FPS) and 1440p Medium (74 FPS) indicates that the GPU is well-utilized, and the 250W TDP suggests it is a power-hungry part, but the game does not push it to its limits until 4K. The GPU’s memory bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the 70 FPS at Low versus 50 FPS at Medium shows a 28.6% drop, which is directly attributable to the increased memory pressure. Overall, the RTX 5070 is the workhorse of this combo, and its performance in Control is strong at lower resolutions but falls short at 4K Ultra, making it the clear bottleneck in this pairing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235HX plays a supporting role in this combo, as the CPU’s benchmark results indicate it is more than capable of feeding the GPU in Control. The processor has 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, and it is built on a 3 nm process with 17,800 million transistors. The L3 cache is 24 MB shared, and the memory support is DDR5 dual-channel with 102.4 GB/s bandwidth, which is sufficient for the game’s data demands. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 52073 places it in the 91st percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 8124P (-0.1%), AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (+0.2%), and Intel Core i9-13900F (+0.7%), showing that it is competitive with desktop-class parts. In Control, the CPU’s role is to handle game logic, physics, and AI, and the measured FPS scaling suggests that it is not a bottleneck at any resolution. For example, the FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p at Medium is 24.5%, which matches the drop from 1440p to 4K at 32.4%, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor, not the CPU. The processor’s single-thread performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4903, is strong, and the multi-core score of 34731 ensures that even if the game were to use multiple threads, the CPU would not hold back the GPU. The 14 threads are more than enough for Control, which is not a heavily threaded title, and the 55W TDP suggests it is a power-efficient mobile part, though this combo is likely in a laptop. The CPU’s integrated graphics (Arc Xe-LPG) are not used in this scenario, as the discrete RTX 5070 handles all rendering, but the presence of the iGPU does not impact performance. The data does not show any CPU-specific bottlenecks, as the frame rates are consistently higher at lower resolutions and settings, which is the opposite of a CPU-bound scenario. In summary, the Ultra 5 235HX provides ample headroom for the RTX 5070, and its performance in Control is more than adequate, with the GPU being the sole limiting factor at 4K. The CPU’s rank among rivals, within 0.7% of the i9-13900F, confirms that it delivers desktop-equivalent performance in a mobile form factor, making it a strong pairing for this game.