Control

Control is a 2019 action-adventure title that stresses both GPU throughput and CPU frame pacing, and the data for the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 shows a combination that is consistently capable across all settings, though with notable scaling patterns. The measured results indicate that this pairing hits a sweet spot at 1440p, where it delivers high refresh rates without the steep performance cost seen at 4K, while 1080p performance is strong enough to push well beyond standard 60Hz displays. The benchmark data reveals a system that is clearly GPU-limited at higher resolutions and settings, but the CPU’s 14 cores and 24 MB of shared L3 cache keep frame rates from collapsing at lower settings, where the graphics card has more headroom to flex its muscle.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear hierarchy for playing Control with this hardware. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 106 FPS, which is already above the threshold for smooth gameplay on most monitors. However, stepping down to the High preset yields a significant jump to 122 FPS, a 15% improvement that makes High the superior choice for competitive or fast-paced play at this resolution. The Medium preset pushes further to 137 FPS, but the visual fidelity loss from High to Medium is not justified by the modest 12% frame rate gain, especially since High already clears 120 FPS comfortably. The Low preset at 193 FPS is only relevant for esports-style play with extreme refresh rate panels, as the visual degradation is substantial for a game that relies heavily on atmospheric lighting and particle effects.

At 2560x1440, the High preset becomes the recommended baseline, producing an average of 92 FPS. This is a critical threshold, as it places the experience just above the 90 FPS mark where motion clarity starts to feel fluid on standard 144Hz displays. The Medium preset at 104 FPS offers a 13% improvement over High, but the gap between High and Medium in visual quality is more pronounced at this resolution, where textures and shadows are more visible. The Ultra preset drops to 80 FPS, which is still playable but introduces more noticeable frame pacing issues in a game that features rapid camera movements and physics-heavy combat. For 1440p, High represents the best balance, delivering a crisp experience without sacrificing the game’s signature atmosphere.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained. The High preset averages 62 FPS, which is right at the edge of playability for a title that benefits from smooth motion but is not a twitch shooter. The Medium preset at 70 FPS is the only 4K option that clears the 60 FPS baseline with any margin, making it the recommended preset for 4K displays. The Ultra preset at 54 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold and shows that this combo cannot handle maximum settings at 4K without compromising the experience. The Low preset at 98 FPS is a curious outlier, suggesting that at 4K, the GPU’s 12 GB of VRAM and 504.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth are the primary constraints, and dropping settings to Low alleviates enough pressure to nearly double the frame rate over Ultra.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 plays the dominant role in this pairing, particularly as resolution scales upward. The GPU’s 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus is a defining factor in the 4K results, where the High preset averages 62 FPS but the Ultra preset falls to 54 FPS. This 13% drop from High to Ultra at 4K is steeper than the 10% drop seen at 1440p (from 92 to 80 FPS) and the 13% drop at 1080p (from 122 to 106 FPS), indicating that the memory subsystem is being pushed harder at 4K Ultra. The GPU’s boost clock of 2475 MHz and its 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute are sufficient to drive high frame rates, but the data shows that the 4K Ultra preset is the first point where the RTX 4070’s 158.4 GPixel/s pixel rate becomes a bottleneck.

The GPU’s architecture, built on TSMC’s 5 nm process with 35,800 million transistors, allows it to maintain strong performance even as settings increase. The measured results show a consistent pattern: at 1080p, the GPU is rarely the limiting factor, as evidenced by the 193 FPS Low result, which is nearly double the Ultra result. At 1440p, the GPU’s load becomes more balanced, with the Low preset hitting 146 FPS versus 80 FPS at Ultra. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting component, as the Low preset at 98 FPS is still higher than the Ultra preset at 54 FPS, but the gap narrows compared to lower resolutions, suggesting that the CPU is starting to contribute to frame pacing at 4K Low.

The RTX 4070’s 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores are present in the silicon, but the measured FPS data does not isolate ray tracing or DLSS performance. What the data does show is that the GPU’s raw rasterization performance is strong enough to deliver a playable experience at 4K Medium (70 FPS) with this CPU, which is a notable achievement for a card in the 81st percentile of all GPUs. The GPU’s 200 W TDP and dual-slot design indicate that thermal throttling is unlikely to be a major factor in the measured results, as the card maintains consistent performance across all tested presets.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and RTX 4070 combination ranks 650th out of 2,888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 22.5% of all systems tested for this game. This is a strong showing, but the rank is more indicative of the GPU’s capabilities than the CPU’s, given that the RTX 4070 sits in the 81st percentile of all GPUs while the CPU sits in the 90th percentile of all CPUs. The combination’s rank in the 77th percentile of combos suggests that there are many systems with more powerful GPUs that push higher frame rates, but this pairing is well above the median experience.

Looking at the CPU’s nearest rivals, the Intel Core i5-14600K scores 0.8% higher on average, while the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 scores 0.5% higher. These deltas are within the margin of error for real-world gaming performance, indicating that the Ultra 5 245 is not holding back the RTX 4070 in any meaningful way. The CPU’s 14 cores and 14 threads, running at a base clock of 3.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.10 GHz, provide ample headroom for Control’s physics and AI workloads, which are not heavily multithreaded. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache helps maintain frame pacing in complex scenes, but the data shows that the GPU is the primary driver of the combo’s rank.

The GPU’s nearest rivals provide context for its performance tier. The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 scores 0.4% higher on average, while the NVIDIA Tesla P4 scores 0.1% higher, indicating that the RTX 4070 is positioned in a competitive performance band. However, the RTX 4070’s architectural advantages, including its 12 GB of VRAM versus the Vega 56’s 8 GB, become apparent in the 4K results where the RTX 4070 maintains playable frame rates. The combo’s rank of 650 out of 2,888 is therefore a reflection of the GPU’s mid-to-high-end positioning, not a deficiency in the pairing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 193 FPS, which is the highest result in the entire dataset. The Medium preset drops to 137 FPS, with a minimum of 116 FPS and maximum of 157 FPS, showing a 29% reduction from Low. The High preset averages 122 FPS, a further 11% drop from Medium, while the Ultra preset at 106 FPS is 13% below High. The frame time consistency, as indicated by the Medium preset’s min/max range, shows a 41 FPS spread, which is acceptable for a game with this level of visual complexity.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 146 FPS, which is 24% lower than the 1080p Low result, indicating that the GPU is beginning to feel the resolution increase. The Medium preset at 104 FPS shows a 29% drop from Low, with a min/max range of 88 to 119 FPS, a 31 FPS spread that is tighter than the 1080p Medium range. The High preset at 92 FPS is 12% below Medium, while the Ultra preset at 80 FPS is 13% below High. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a consistent 20-25% performance reduction across all settings, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 98 FPS, marking a 33% drop from the 1440p Low result. The Medium preset at 70 FPS is 29% below Low, with a min/max range of 59 to 80 FPS, which is the tightest range in the dataset but also the closest to the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset at 62 FPS is 11% below Medium, while the Ultra preset at 54 FPS is 13% below High. The 4K data shows that the RTX 4070’s memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s is a limiting factor, as the performance drop from 1440p to 4K is more severe than the drop from 1080p to 1440p.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling analysis reveals a system that is increasingly GPU-limited as pixel count rises. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS across all settings drops by approximately 24%, which is consistent across Low (193 to 146 FPS), Medium (137 to 104 FPS), High (122 to 92 FPS), and Ultra (106 to 80 FPS). This uniform scaling suggests that the CPU is not a bottleneck at these resolutions, as the RTX 4070’s shading units and ROPs are being fed with enough geometry and draw calls to maintain consistent efficiency.

From 1440p to 4K, the average FPS drop is more pronounced at approximately 33%, but the distribution is uneven. The Low preset drops from 146 to 98 FPS, a 33% reduction, while the Ultra preset drops from 80 to 54 FPS, a 32.5% reduction. This uniformity indicates that the GPU is the sole limiting factor at 4K, with the CPU’s 14 threads providing enough headroom to avoid becoming a constraint. The fact that the 4K Low result (98 FPS) is still higher than the 1440p Ultra result (80 FPS) reinforces this conclusion.

The scaling behavior has practical implications. At 1080p and 1440p, users can freely adjust settings between High and Ultra without worrying about CPU limitations, as the GPU is clearly the bottleneck. At 4K, the system becomes so GPU-bound that even dropping to Low settings only recovers performance to a level that is still below the 1440p High result. This suggests that the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is more than sufficient for Control, and any performance gains would come from upgrading the GPU rather than the CPU.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1440p gaming with this combo?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers an average of 92 FPS, which is the recommended choice. The Ultra preset drops to 80 FPS, while Medium reaches 104 FPS, but the visual quality gain from Medium to High is worth the 12 FPS cost.

Q: Can this system handle 4K at 60 FPS?

A: At 3840x2160, the Medium preset averages 70 FPS with a minimum of 59 FPS, which is marginally above the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset averages 62 FPS, but the Ultra preset falls to 54 FPS, so 4K Ultra is not viable.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in terms of average score?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 has an average benchmark score of 48,995, which is 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G and 0.5% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 7900, but 0.6% higher than the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H and 0.8% higher than the Intel Core i5-14600K.

Q: What is the frame time consistency at 1080p Medium?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the average FPS is 137, with a minimum of 116 FPS and a maximum of 157 FPS, resulting in a 41 FPS spread that indicates generally stable frame pacing.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The benchmark data shows the GPU is the limiting factor at all resolutions above 1080p Low. At 4K, the performance drop from 1440p is consistent across all settings, indicating that the RTX 4070’s memory bandwidth and pixel rate are the primary constraints.

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

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks 650th out of 2,888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 22.5% of all systems tested for this game.