Control

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is a severely GPU-bound configuration for Control, producing playable frame rates only at 1080p with reduced settings. The data shows a system that is fundamentally mismatched for this title, where the GPU’s limitations dominate every resolution and preset, while the CPU’s substantial headroom goes largely unused. This analysis breaks down the measured performance, ranking, and the specific roles each component plays.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is drastic and clearly identifies the GPU as the sole bottleneck. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 56 FPS at 1920x1080 to 43 FPS at 2560x1440, a 23% reduction, and then plummets to 29 FPS at 3840x2160, a 48% drop from the 1080p baseline. This steep regression with each resolution increase is the classic signature of a graphics card that has run out of pixel-pushing capacity.

The scaling pattern holds true across all presets. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 36 at 1080p to 27 at 1440p (a 25% decrease) and then to 18 at 4K (a 50% decrease from 1080p). At Ultra, the situation is even more pronounced: 31 FPS at 1080p falls to 23 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 16 FPS at 4K. The consistency of this ~50% loss from 1080p to 4K across all settings indicates that the GTX 1650’s rendering throughput, not CPU draw calls or memory bandwidth, is the limiting factor.

The data suggests that the GTX 1650 is overwhelmed by the pixel count of 4K, regardless of the graphical complexity. Even at Low settings, the card can only muster 29 FPS at 3840x2160, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. At 1440p, the results are marginal; only the Low preset achieves a playable 43 FPS, while Medium (30 FPS) and High (27 FPS) dip into uncomfortable territory. The 1080p results are the only ones where the combo offers a viable experience, with Low (56 FPS) and Medium (40 FPS) providing the most headroom. The frame rate scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly harsh, showing that the card’s 128-bit memory bus and 128.1 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the higher resolution’s demands.

How This Combo Ranks

The benchmark results place this combination near the bottom of the database. The combo is ranked 2789 out of 2888 tested combinations for Control, placing it in the bottom 3.5% of all systems. This is a very low standing, indicating that nearly all other tested hardware pairings deliver better performance in this game.

This poor ranking is directly attributable to the GPU’s weak standing. The GTX 1650 sits in the 40th percentile among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 7472 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals. It is just 0.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 8850M and 0.4% ahead of the Intel UHD Graphics 750, while being 1% behind the Intel Arc A310. This places the GTX 1650 in the company of entry-level and integrated graphics solutions, which is a clear indicator of its limited capability for a demanding title like Control.

In contrast, the CPU is a high performer. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 sits in the 90th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48995. It trades blows with the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (-0.4% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (-0.5% delta), while leading the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H by 0.6% and the Intel Core i5-14600K by 0.8%. This is a top-tier processor that is being held back by a bottom-tier graphics card. The combination of a 90th-percentile CPU and a 40th-percentile GPU creates a massive imbalance, and the 2789th rank out of 2888 combos reflects the fact that the system’s overall gaming performance is constrained by its weakest link.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy for playable settings. The primary goal is to maintain a playable frame rate, which the data suggests is achievable only at 1920x1080.

For the best balance of visual quality and performance at 1080p, the Medium preset is the recommended choice. It delivers an average of 40 FPS with a minimum of 34 FPS and a maximum of 46 FPS. This is a smooth and consistent experience that is a significant step up in visual fidelity from Low. The Low preset at 1080p yields 56 FPS, but the visual sacrifices are substantial. While Low is the only preset that approaches high refresh rates, the Medium preset’s 40 FPS average is a more playable and visually acceptable compromise for a story-driven action-adventure game.

At 1440p, the options are severely limited. The Low preset is the only one that achieves a playable average of 43 FPS. However, the 30 FPS average of the Medium preset is borderline, and the High (27 FPS) and Ultra (23 FPS) presets are not recommended for a responsive experience. The 4K resolution should be avoided entirely; even the Low preset’s 29 FPS average is too low for comfortable gameplay.

Therefore, the data supports a single viable configuration: 1920x1080 with the Medium preset. This is the only combination that offers a stable frame rate above 30 FPS without resorting to the lowest visual settings. Users with a 1440p monitor should be prepared to use Low settings, and 4K is not a realistic option for this hardware.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combo run Control at 4K?*

A: No. The measured data shows that at 3840x2160, the average frame rate is 29 FPS on Low, 20 FPS on Medium, 18 FPS on High, and 16 FPS on Ultra. All of these results are below the threshold for a consistently playable experience.

Q: What is the best resolution for this hardware?

A: The data indicates that 1920x1080 is the only resolution that provides playable frame rates across multiple presets. At 1080p, the combo achieves 56 FPS on Low, 40 FPS on Medium, 36 FPS on High, and 31 FPS on Ultra.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this system?

A: The benchmark results strongly indicate the GPU is the bottleneck. The GPU is in the 40th percentile, while the CPU is in the 90th percentile. The frame rates show a consistent drop with increasing resolution, which is a sign of GPU limitation, not CPU.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to its closest rivals?

A: The GTX 1650’s average score of 7472 is 0.3% higher than the AMD Radeon HD 8850M, 0.4% higher than the Intel UHD Graphics 750, and 1% lower than the Intel Arc A310. This shows it performs at the level of entry-level or integrated graphics.

Q: What is the best settings preset to use?

A: The recommended settings are 1920x1080 with the Medium preset. This yields a 40 FPS average with a 34 FPS minimum, which is the best balance of visual quality and smooth performance according to the data.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems?

A: The combo ranks 2789 out of 2888 total combinations for Control. This places it in the bottom 3.5% of all tested systems, indicating poor overall performance for this game.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is the definitive performance limiter in this configuration. Its specifications paint a clear picture of an entry-level card from the GeForce 16-series, built on the Turing architecture with a 12 nm process. The GPU is equipped with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is a major weakness for Control, a game that demands substantial texture memory and bandwidth, especially at higher resolutions.

The card’s compute capabilities are modest. With 896 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, it delivers a peak FP32 performance of 2.984 TFLOPS. Its pixel rate is 53.28 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 93.24 GTexel/s. These figures are low by modern standards, and the benchmark data confirms their impact. The GPU’s average benchmark score is 7472, placing it in the 40th percentile of all GPUs. Its closest competitor is the Intel Arc A310, which is only 1% faster, and it is virtually tied with the AMD Radeon HD 8850M and Intel UHD Graphics 750.

The measured FPS data directly reflects these hardware limitations. The card’s boost clock of 1665 MHz is insufficient to overcome its architectural and memory constraints. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is likely a contributing factor to the poor 4K performance, as the game may be exceeding the available memory at that resolution, leading to severe frame rate drops. The data shows that even at Low settings, the card cannot maintain 30 FPS at 4K, underscoring that its role is strictly for 1080p gaming at low-to-medium detail. The GPU is the primary reason this combo ranks so low, as its performance is simply not adequate for the demands of Control beyond the most modest settings.

CPU Role

In stark contrast to the GPU, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is a high-performance processor that is vastly underutilized in this pairing. This is a 14-core, 14-thread CPU based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process. It features a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. This processing power is reflected in its benchmark scores, which place it in the 90th percentile among all CPUs. Its average score of 48995 makes it a direct rival to the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 and the Intel Core i5-14600K, showing it is a top-tier desktop part.

The CPU’s capability is evident in its multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32924 and a single-core score of 4648. Its Passmark multithread score of 38706 further confirms its strength in heavily threaded workloads. For a game like Control, which is not known for being particularly CPU-intensive, this processor provides an enormous amount of headroom. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 102.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth are more than sufficient to feed the GPU’s data requests.

The benchmark results show that the CPU is not the limiting factor. If it were, we would expect to see frame rates that are similar across different resolutions, as the CPU would be the bottleneck. Instead, the data shows a steep decline in FPS as resolution increases, which is the opposite of a CPU-bound scenario. The CPU is likely sitting idle waiting for the GTX 1650 to render each frame. This imbalance means that the system’s performance is entirely dictated by the GPU, and the Core Ultra 5 245’s potential is essentially wasted in this specific configuration for this game. The CPU’s role here is to ensure that the GPU is never starved of data, a task it accomplishes with ease, but it cannot compensate for the GPU’s fundamental lack of rendering power.