Control

Control is a demanding Action Adventure title that stresses both the CPU and GPU, and the measured results for the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 paired with the Intel Arc B390 reveal a system that is heavily constrained by its graphics solution. The data shows a combination that can handle the game at lower resolutions and settings, but quickly falls behind as visual demands increase, placing it near the bottom of the database for this specific title.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, clearly indicating that the Intel Arc B390 is the primary limiting factor in this pairing. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 65 FPS at 1920x1080 to 50 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 23%, and then further down to 33 FPS at 3840x2160, which is a 49% drop from the 1440p figure. This scaling pattern is typical of a GPU that is running out of pixel-pushing capability, as the workload on the graphics card increases exponentially with resolution.

The trend is even more pronounced at higher visual presets. With High settings, the average frame rate drops from 41 FPS at 1080p to 31 FPS at 1440p (a 24% decrease) and then to 21 FPS at 4K (a 32% decrease from 1440p). At Ultra settings, the system manages 36 FPS at 1080p but only 27 FPS at 1440p and a mere 18 FPS at 4K. The consistency of these drops suggests that the game is not becoming CPU-bound at any point; rather, the Arc B390’s rendering capabilities are being saturated. The gap between Low and Ultra settings also widens with resolution, with a 29 FPS difference at 1080p growing to a 15 FPS difference at 4K, showing that the GPU struggles more with the extra shader and texture work at higher resolutions.

Benchmark results indicate that this is not a configuration for high-resolution gaming. The 4K numbers, ranging from 18 to 33 FPS, are all below the threshold for smooth gameplay. Even at 1440p, only the Low preset achieves a playable 50 FPS, while Medium and High sit in the low 30s. The data suggests that for a consistent experience, users would need to stay at 1080p, where the GPU can maintain a more reasonable frame rate, though still with significant compromises at higher quality settings.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, and its performance in Control is directly tied to its modest specifications. With a boost clock of 2500 MHz and 1536 shading units, the GPU delivers a measured FP32 performance of 7.680 TFLOPS. This compute throughput is simply insufficient for the demands of Control at higher resolutions, as evidenced by the benchmark scores. In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the Arc B390 scores 1482 points, placing it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals, such as the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX and GT 710, have average scores of 1463 and 1443, respectively, with deltaPct values of 1.3% and 2.7% ahead of the Arc B390. This places the Intel GPU in the company of very old, low-end discrete parts, which explains its difficulty with a 2019 title like Control.

The GPU’s memory configuration is "System Shared," meaning it relies on the system's DDR5 memory rather than dedicated VRAM. The bandwidth is listed as "System Dependent," which introduces a potential bottleneck when the GPU needs to access textures and frame buffers. This shared memory setup is common for integrated graphics, but it means that performance can be heavily influenced by the CPU's memory subsystem. In this case, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 supports DDR5 with a dual-channel bus and a memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, which is decent for an iGPU, but the shared nature of the memory pool still limits the Arc B390 compared to a dedicated solution with its own high-speed VRAM.

The GPU’s low pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s further corroborate the bottleneck. At 4K, the GPU must fill over 8 million pixels per frame, and with a pixel rate of 60 GPixel/s, it can theoretically only manage around 7 frames per second under ideal fill-rate-bound conditions. The actual average of 21 FPS at High settings shows that the workload is a mix of pixel and texture work, but the fundamental throughput is the limiting factor. The 12 RT cores are present, but their impact is not visible in these non-ray-traced measurements.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a clear hierarchy for settings, but the playability ceiling is low. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 65 FPS, which is the only setting that provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. The Medium preset offers 46 FPS, which is playable but with noticeable dips, as the min FPS is recorded at 40 FPS. High and Ultra presets drop to 41 FPS and 36 FPS, respectively, which are borderline playable for a slower-paced action adventure but not ideal for a smooth experience.

For 2560x1440, the options are more limited. The Low preset is the only one that maintains a playable average of 50 FPS. Medium drops to 35 FPS, and High to 31 FPS, both of which are below the 40 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for a playable action game. Ultra is the worst at 27 FPS. At 3840x2160, no preset is playable; the best is Low at 33 FPS, with Medium at 24 FPS, High at 21 FPS, and Ultra at 18 FPS.

Given this data, the recommended configuration for this combo is the 1080p Low preset for a smooth experience, or 1080p Medium if the user is willing to tolerate some frame rate dips in exchange for better visuals. At 1440p, users should stick to Low. The data strongly suggests that using Ultra or High settings at any resolution is a poor trade-off, as the visual fidelity gains do not justify the significant frame rate cost. The measured min FPS of 40 at 1080p Medium indicates that the game can stutter, so users prioritizing consistency should choose Low.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for Control, this pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2551 out of 2888 total combos. This places it in the bottom 12% of all tested systems, a position that reflects the GPU’s limitations rather than the CPU’s capabilities. The combo’s rank is consistent with the GPU’s 9th percentile standing among all GPUs, confirming that the graphics card is the defining weakness of this build.

The high combo rank number means that the vast majority of other tested configurations, even those with older or mid-range components, are capable of delivering higher frame rates in Control. This is a significant finding for potential users, as it indicates that this system is not suitable for this game beyond the most basic settings. The data shows that while the CPU is a strong performer (in the 90th percentile of all CPUs), it is effectively wasted in this game due to the GPU bottleneck. The combo’s rank is a direct consequence of the Arc B390’s low average benchmark score of 1482, which is one of the lowest in the database.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. In synthetic benchmarks, it performs exceptionally well, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32924 and a single-core score of 4648. Its Passmark multithread score of 38706 and single-thread score of 4394 place it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G and the AMD Ryzen 9 7900, with average scores of 49196 and 49228, respectively, showing deltaPct values of -0.4% and -0.5% (meaning the Intel chip is slightly behind). It is also close to the Intel Core i5-14600K, which scores 48618, a deltaPct of 0.8%.

However, in the context of Control, this CPU power is largely irrelevant. The measured FPS data shows that the system is never CPU-bound; even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would be most likely to become a limiting factor, the average FPS is 65, which is well below what the Core Ultra 5 245 could theoretically push. The CPU’s 14 cores and 24 MB of shared L3 cache are more than sufficient for the game’s physics and AI calculations. The game’s performance is instead dictated entirely by the GPU’s ability to render frames.

The CPU’s high single-thread performance (4394 in Passmark) and boost clock of 5.10 GHz are also not being fully utilized, as the frame rates are too low to require such high clock speeds for frame pacing. The data indicates that the CPU is sitting idle, waiting for the GPU to complete its work. This is a classic bottleneck scenario, where upgrading the GPU would yield massive performance gains, while upgrading the CPU would yield almost none in this specific game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and Intel Arc B390 combo delivers its best results. With Low settings, the average frame rate is 65 FPS, which is the only result above 60 FPS in the entire dataset. Medium settings produce an average of 46 FPS, with a minimum of 40 FPS and a maximum of 53 FPS, indicating some frame time variance. High settings drop to 41 FPS, and Ultra settings to 36 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a clear 29 FPS penalty for the highest quality settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance degrades notably. Low settings average 50 FPS, which is still playable but a 23% drop from 1080p Low. Medium settings average 35 FPS, with a minimum of 30 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS, showing that the system is struggling to maintain a consistent frame rate. High settings average 31 FPS, and Ultra settings average 27 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 23 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the system is not viable for gameplay. Low settings average 33 FPS, which is below the 40 FPS playability threshold. Medium settings average 24 FPS, with a minimum of 20 FPS and a maximum of 27 FPS. High settings average 21 FPS, and Ultra settings average 18 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 15 FPS, which is the smallest delta across all resolutions, further confirming that the GPU is hitting a hard performance ceiling. The data across all resolutions shows a consistent pattern: the combo is only suitable for 1080p gaming, and even then, only at Low or Medium settings for a stable experience.