Control

Control is an action-adventure title that stresses both the CPU and GPU in unusual ways, and the pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT produces a dataset that rewards close reading. The measured frames per second across three resolutions and four quality presets reveal a system that is rarely the bottleneck at 1080p, but which becomes increasingly GPU-bound as resolution climbs. The numbers also expose a curious quirk: the gap between Low and Medium settings is much larger than the gap between Medium and High, hinting at specific rendering features that toggle at those tiers.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is a 14-core, 14-thread desktop processor built on the Arrow Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. It draws a 65 W TDP and supports DDR5 memory over a dual-channel interface with 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache are substantial, but the thread count — equal to the core count, with no hyperthreading — is a notable design choice for a game like Control, which can scale across multiple threads for physics and particle effects.

In synthetic workloads, the chip posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32,924 and a single-core score of 4,648. Those numbers place it in the 90th percentile against all CPUs in the benchmark database, meaning it outperforms the vast majority of desktop processors in general compute. Its nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (0.4% slower), the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (0.5% slower), and the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (0.6% faster). The Core i5-14600K is 0.8% faster on average, which puts the Ultra 5 245 in very tight company — a spread of just over one percentage point across four rival chips.

For Control specifically, the CPU’s job is to feed the GPU with draw calls and manage the game’s physics simulation. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 193 FPS on average, which strongly suggests the CPU is capable of pushing far beyond what the GPU can render at higher settings. The fact that 1080p Ultra still delivers 106 FPS indicates the processor is not a limiting factor even when the GPU is more heavily loaded. The data implies that Control’s CPU demands are modest relative to this chip’s capabilities — the 14 cores and 5.10 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom for the game’s threaded workloads, and the single-thread performance is sufficient to avoid stutter in crowded scenes.

Interestingly, the CPU’s percentile ranking (90th) is far higher than the GPU’s (55th), which suggests this pairing is intentionally asymmetric: the processor is overqualified for the graphics card it is paired with. That becomes relevant when examining how frame rates scale with resolution, because the CPU’s headroom means the GPU is almost always the first component to hit its ceiling.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 48 chip, fabricated on a 4 nm process. It carries 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 4,096 shading units, 256 texture mapping units, and 128 render output units, with 64 ray tracing cores. Its boost clock reaches 2970 MHz, while the game clock is rated at 2400 MHz and the base clock at 1660 MHz. Memory runs at 2518 MHz, which translates to 20.1 Gbps effective.

In synthetic benchmarks, the GPU scores 26,795 in Passmark G3D, which places it in the 55th percentile against all GPUs — a surprisingly modest ranking given the hardware specifications. Its nearest rivals in average score are the AMD Radeon HD 7770M (0.1% slower), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (0.2% slower), the NVIDIA P106-090 (0.5% slower), and the AMD Radeon Pro 555 (1% slower). Those are all much older, lower-tier cards, which suggests the Passmark G3D score may not fully capture the RX 9070 XT’s capabilities in modern titles like Control. The GPU’s DirectX 12 score of 78 and Vulkan score of 65,879 in Geekbench further illustrate the disparity: the card is clearly designed for modern APIs, and its older-DirectX performance is not representative of its real-world behavior.

In Control, the GPU’s 16 GB of VRAM is more than sufficient for all tested settings, even at 4K Ultra. The measured frame rates show a smooth progression from 4K Ultra (54 FPS) to 4K Low (98 FPS), with the GPU clearly being the limiting factor at 4K. At 1080p, the GPU is still the primary constraint at higher settings — 122 FPS on High and 106 FPS on Ultra — but at Low settings, the frame rate jumps to 193 FPS, which approaches the CPU’s ceiling. This pattern is consistent with a GPU that has strong raw throughput but faces diminishing returns as resolution drops below 1440p.

The ray tracing cores (64 of them) are worth noting, as Control is one of the early games to feature ray-traced reflections and indirect lighting. While the FACT PACK does not provide ray tracing-specific frame rates, the presence of dedicated RT hardware on a 4 nm process suggests the GPU can handle those effects at playable frame rates, though likely with a performance hit compared to rasterized rendering.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured data offers four presets at each resolution: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. At 1080p, the jump from Low (193 FPS) to Medium (137 FPS) is a 56 FPS drop — a 29% reduction that is far larger than the step from Medium to High (137 to 122 FPS, an 11% drop) or from High to Ultra (122 to 106 FPS, a 13% drop). This suggests that Medium enables a significant visual feature — likely volumetric lighting or enhanced particle effects — that costs substantially more GPU resources than the incremental upgrades from Medium to High or High to Ultra.

At 1440p, the same pattern holds: Low (146 FPS) to Medium (103 FPS) is a 43 FPS drop (29%), while Medium to High (92 FPS) is an 11 FPS drop (11%), and High to Ultra (80 FPS) is a 12 FPS drop (13%). The consistency of these percentage drops across resolutions indicates that the cost of each preset tier is resolution-independent, which is a sign that the settings scale uniformly.

At 4K, the pattern shifts slightly. Low (98 FPS) to Medium (70 FPS) is a 28 FPS drop (29%), but Medium to High (62 FPS) is only an 8 FPS drop (11%), and High to Ultra (54 FPS) is also an 8 FPS drop (13%). The 4K numbers are lower across the board, but the relative cost of each tier remains nearly identical.

For the best experience, the data suggests that High is the sweet spot. At 1080p, High delivers 122 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold and only 16 FPS shy of Medium’s 137 FPS. At 1440p, High delivers 92 FPS, which is still smooth on most displays. At 4K, High delivers 62 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS target. Ultra adds only 13% more performance cost at each resolution but delivers diminishing visual returns, while Low sacrifices too much visual quality for a frame rate boost that most monitors cannot display (193 FPS at 1080p exceeds the refresh rate of all but the most specialized displays).

The Medium preset is the least appealing option: it costs 29% of frame rate over Low but only delivers a fraction of the visual improvement that Ultra offers over High. For players with high-refresh monitors at 1080p, High is the clear choice; for 4K displays, High is also the best balance, as it is the only preset that stays above 60 FPS on average.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT ranks 670th out of 2,888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 23% of all pairings in the database. This is a strong result, but not an elite one — the top 669 combos are presumably dominated by higher-end GPUs and CPUs, such as the Radeon RX 9070 XT’s larger siblings or NVIDIA’s flagship cards paired with top-tier processors.

Given that the CPU is in the 90th percentile and the GPU is in the 55th percentile, the combo’s rank of 670/2888 is more reflective of the GPU’s relative standing than the CPU’s. The GPU’s Passmark G3D score places it near much older cards, which drags down its percentile, but in Control the measured frame rates are far higher than those older cards could achieve. This discrepancy suggests that the combo’s rank is likely limited by the GPU’s synthetic benchmark standing, not its real-world performance in this specific game.

The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the combo delivers 54 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target but playable. At 4K High, it delivers 62 FPS, which is above the threshold. This means the combo is capable of 4K gaming with minor settings adjustments. At 1440p and 1080p, the combo is comfortably above 60 FPS at all settings except 4K Ultra, making it a versatile pairing for high-refresh displays.

The rank of 670 out of 2,888 also suggests that many cheaper or older combos outperform this pairing in Control, likely because the game is more GPU-bound than CPU-bound, and the RX 9070 XT’s relatively low percentile means it is not the most efficient choice for this title. However, the measured FPS numbers tell a more favorable story: the combo achieves 106 FPS at 1080p Ultra, which is a strong result for a demanding action-adventure game.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured data allows for a clear analysis of resolution scaling. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 122 at 1080p to 92 at 1440p (a 25% reduction) and then to 62 at 4K (a 33% reduction from 1440p). At Low settings, the drop is from 193 at 1080p to 146 at 1440p (24%) and then to 98 at 4K (33%). At Medium, the drop is from 137 to 103 (25%) and then to 70 (32%). At Ultra, the drop is from 106 to 80 (25%) and then to 54 (33%).

The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings is striking. Whether the preset is Low or Ultra, moving from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 25% of frame rate, and moving from 1440p to 4K costs roughly 33%. This uniform scaling indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at all resolutions and settings. If the CPU were the bottleneck at lower resolutions, we would expect the frame rate to be more flat between 1080p and 1440p, but the data shows a proportional drop that matches the increase in pixel count.

The 4K to 1080p ratio is also telling. At High settings, 4K delivers 62 FPS while 1080p delivers 122 FPS — exactly half. At Low settings, 4K delivers 98 FPS while 1080p delivers 193 FPS — again, almost exactly half. This 2x relationship is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario, where the frame rate is inversely proportional to the number of pixels rendered. The GPU’s pixel rate of 380.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 760.3 GTexel/s are consistent with this behavior.

The only exception to this perfect scaling is at 4K Ultra, where the combo drops to 54 FPS, which is 51% of the 1080p Ultra score of 106 FPS. This slightly larger drop may indicate that at 4K Ultra, the game is pushing beyond the GPU’s comfortable range, possibly due to memory bandwidth limitations or ray tracing demands. The GPU’s 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth is substantial, but 4K Ultra with ray tracing could be saturating it.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows that 1440p High delivers 92 FPS on average, which is a strong balance. At 4K High, the combo still delivers 62 FPS, above the 60 FPS target. 1080p High gives 122 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh monitors.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in Control?

A: The resolution scaling data indicates the GPU is the limiting component. Frame rates drop by roughly 25% from 1080p to 1440p and 33% from 1440p to 4K at every settings preset, which is consistent with pixel-count scaling rather than CPU limitation.

Q: How does the combo rank against other tested systems?

A: It ranks 670th out of 2,888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 23% of all pairings in the database.

Q: What is the difference between Low and Medium settings?

A: The jump from Low to Medium costs 29% of frame rate at every resolution (e.g., 193 to 137 FPS at 1080p), while the jump from Medium to High costs only 11%. This suggests Medium enables a major visual feature that is disproportionately expensive.

Q: Can this combo run Control at 4K 60 FPS?

A: Yes, but only at High settings, which delivers 62 FPS on average. At Ultra, the frame rate drops to 54 FPS, which is below 60 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU’s synthetic benchmark compare to its rivals?

A: The Core Ultra 5 245 scores 32,924 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, which is within 0.8% of the Core i5-14600K and 0.5% of the Ryzen 9 7900. Its single-core score of 4,648 places it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured frame rates for the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT in Control are as follows:

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 193 FPS average
• Medium: 137 FPS average, with a minimum of 116 FPS and a maximum of 157 FPS
• High: 122 FPS average
• Ultra: 106 FPS average

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 146 FPS average
• Medium: 103 FPS average, with a minimum of 88 FPS and a maximum of 119 FPS
• High: 92 FPS average
• Ultra: 80 FPS average

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 98 FPS average
• Medium: 70 FPS average, with a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS
• High: 62 FPS average
• Ultra: 54 FPS average

The minimum and maximum values are only provided for the Medium preset at each resolution. At 1080p Medium, the frame rate ranges from 116 to 157 FPS, which is a 41 FPS spread. At 1440p Medium, the range is 88 to 119 FPS, a 31 FPS spread. At 4K Medium, the range is 59 to 80 FPS, a 21 FPS spread. The narrowing range at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU becomes more consistently loaded, reducing frame time variance.

Across all resolutions, the Low preset provides the highest frame rates, with 193 FPS at 1080p being the maximum measured value in the entire dataset. The Ultra preset provides the lowest frame rates, with 54 FPS at 4K being the minimum average. The data shows a clear and consistent hierarchy: Low > Medium > High > Ultra, with the relative gaps between presets remaining stable across all three resolutions. This consistency is a hallmark of a well-behaved, GPU-bound workload where settings scale uniformly with pixel count.