Control

# Control with Intel Core Ultra 7 165H + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile

The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile delivers a performance envelope in Control that is defined by stark resolution-dependent behavior. At 1080p, the combination produces frame rates exceeding 200 FPS on Low settings, while 4K Ultra drops to 57 FPS, creating a spread of 146 FPS across the measured spectrum. This places the combo at rank 812 out of 3,720 tested combinations, putting it in the top 22% of all tested systems for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that transitions from CPU-bound to GPU-bound behavior as pixel count increases. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 203 FPS at 1920x1080 to 103 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of 100 FPS or roughly 49%. This near-halving of performance when pixel count quadruples suggests that at lower resolutions, the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H's 16 cores and 22 threads are the primary limiter, since the RTX 5090 Mobile has ample headroom to render far beyond what the CPU can feed.

The Medium settings row provides the clearest scaling picture. At 1920x1080 Medium, the combo averages 144 FPS with a minimum of 122 FPS and maximum of 165 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 Medium drops the average to 109 FPS, a decline of 35 FPS or 24.3%. At 3840x2160 Medium, the average falls to 73 FPS, with a measured minimum of 62 FPS and maximum of 85 FPS. The gap between 1440p and 4K at Medium settings is 36 FPS, nearly identical to the 1080p-to-1440p gap of 35 FPS, indicating that the scaling penalty is roughly linear as resolution increases at this quality level.

High settings show a similar pattern. The 1080p High average is 128 FPS, 1440p High is 97 FPS, and 4K High is 65 FPS. The resolution step from 1080p to 1440p costs 31 FPS, while the step from 1440p to 4K costs 32 FPS. This consistent ~24-25% reduction per resolution tier suggests the RTX 5090 Mobile maintains a stable rendering efficiency across these resolutions, with no single tier causing a disproportionate collapse.

Ultra settings exhibit the most dramatic scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the combo achieves 111 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 84 FPS, a 27 FPS reduction. At 4K Ultra, the average falls to 57 FPS, another 27 FPS reduction. This consistent 27 FPS penalty per resolution step at Ultra quality demonstrates that the GPU's shading units, TMUs, and ROPs scale linearly with the workload increase, but the 4K Ultra result of 57 FPS sits close to the edge of comfortable playability for a title like Control, which demands fast reaction times in combat sequences.

The measured data indicates that the limiting component shifts based on resolution and settings combination. At 1080p Low, the 203 FPS result is far beyond what most displays can show, and the CPU's single-thread performance becomes the bottleneck. At 4K Ultra, the 57 FPS result is driven by the GPU's raw throughput, with the RTX 5090 Mobile's 31.80 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 896.0 GB/s memory bandwidth being the decisive factors.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 812 out of 3,720 tested combinations places this system in the 78th percentile of all tested hardware pairings for Control. This is a strong result, though not a top-tier one, which is notable given the RTX 5090 Mobile's position as a flagship mobile GPU. The ranking reflects the fact that Control is a demanding title that stresses both CPU and GPU, and the Core Ultra 7 165H's position in the CPU hierarchy limits the overall system performance.

The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H sits at the 84th percentile among all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 34,083. Its nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark hierarchy are the Intel Core Ultra 5 338H with an average score of 33,989 (a 0.3% advantage for the Ultra 7), the AMD EPYC 4244P at 34,220 (0.4% ahead), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 at 34,222 (0.4% ahead), and the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X at 34,260 (0.5% ahead). This tight cluster of scores, all within 0.5% of each other, indicates that the Ultra 7 165H is competitively positioned in synthetic CPU benchmarks, but the differences are negligible in real-world gaming scenarios.

The RTX 5090 Mobile also ranks at the 84th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 45,152. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT at 45,384 (0.5% ahead), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti at 44,795 (0.8% behind), the Intel Arc A730M at 45,592 (1.0% ahead), and the NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation at 45,972 (1.8% ahead). Despite being a mobile part with a 95 W TDP, the RTX 5090 Mobile's average benchmark score is within 1.8% of the desktop RTX 4070 Ti, which is a substantial achievement for a laptop GPU.

The combination of two 84th-percentile components produces a combo rank of 812 out of 3,720, which is higher than the 78th percentile might suggest if the two components were perfectly independent. This indicates that Control benefits from the specific balance of CPU and GPU performance in this pairing, with neither component being a significant drag on the other at most settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, featuring the GB203 chip with 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die. The GPU operates with a base clock of 990 MHz and a boost clock of 1515 MHz, which are modest clock speeds for a flagship part, but the massive shader array of 10,496 shading units compensates with raw parallel throughput. The 328 texture mapping units and 112 raster output pipelines deliver a texture rate of 496.9 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 169.7 GPixel/s.

Memory configuration plays a critical role in Control's performance at high resolutions. The 24 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is essential for the game's dense particle effects and physics-based destruction at 4K resolution. The 73 FPS average at 4K Medium, compared to 65 FPS at 4K High, demonstrates that memory bandwidth is not the primary constraint at these settings; rather, the GPU's compute throughput is the limiting factor.

The GPU's FP32 performance of 31.80 TFLOPS and FP16 performance of 31.80 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio) indicate that Control, which uses FP32 for most rendering calculations, can fully utilize the GPU's compute resources. The RTX 5090 Mobile's 82 RT cores support hardware-accelerated ray tracing, though the measured FPS data in this FACT PACK does not include ray tracing-specific results, so the impact of RT cores on Control's performance cannot be quantified from this dataset.

At 1080p, the GPU is rarely the bottleneck. The 203 FPS Low result and 128 FPS High result suggest that the RTX 5090 Mobile could push even higher frame rates if the CPU could feed it faster. The Core Ultra 7 165H's single-thread performance, as measured by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1,759 and PassMark single-thread score of 3,509, becomes the ceiling for frame generation at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimal settings at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the High preset at 128 FPS average offers an excellent balance of visual quality and performance, with the Ultra preset at 111 FPS still providing smooth gameplay for most users. The Medium preset at 144 FPS is the highest frame rate option that maintains reasonable visual fidelity, while the Low preset at 203 FPS is only useful for competitive play where maximum frame rate trumps visual quality.

At 2560x1440, the High preset at 97 FPS is the recommended starting point, as it remains above the 90 FPS threshold that most players consider necessary for smooth action gameplay. The Ultra preset at 84 FPS is still playable but may exhibit noticeable frame pacing issues on high refresh rate displays. The Medium preset at 109 FPS provides a comfortable margin above 100 FPS for players who prioritize frame rate consistency, with minimum FPS of 93 and maximum of 125 indicating good frame time stability.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset at 73 FPS is the only setting that maintains an average above 70 FPS, with a minimum of 62 FPS that could dip below the refresh rate of standard 60 Hz displays during intense combat. The High preset at 65 FPS is playable on 60 Hz displays but leaves little headroom for frame drops. The Ultra preset at 57 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold and is not recommended for players who are sensitive to frame rate fluctuations. The Low preset at 103 FPS is the best option for 4K gaming if visual quality can be sacrificed, providing a comfortable margin above 60 FPS.

The measured minimum and maximum values at Medium settings provide insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the 122-165 FPS range represents a 35.3% spread between minimum and maximum, while at 1440p Medium, the 93-125 FPS range is a 34.4% spread, and at 4K Medium, the 62-85 FPS range is a 37.1% spread. This consistent ~35% variance across resolutions suggests that the frame pacing is stable and the performance fluctuations are inherent to the game's engine rather than a system bottleneck.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 203 FPS average, the Medium preset achieves 144 FPS average with a minimum of 122 FPS and maximum of 165 FPS, the High preset achieves 128 FPS average, and the Ultra preset achieves 111 FPS average. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 92 FPS drop, with the largest single-step decrease being 59 FPS from Low to Medium.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 153 FPS average, the Medium preset delivers 109 FPS average with a minimum of 93 FPS and maximum of 125 FPS, the High preset delivers 97 FPS average, and the Ultra preset delivers 84 FPS average. The Low-to-Ultra spread at 1440p is 69 FPS, which is narrower than the 1080p spread, indicating that the GPU is beginning to exert more influence on performance as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset produces 103 FPS average, the Medium preset produces 73 FPS average with a minimum of 62 FPS and maximum of 85 FPS, the High preset produces 65 FPS average, and the Ultra preset produces 57 FPS average. The Low-to-Ultra spread at 4K is 46 FPS, the narrowest of all three resolutions, confirming that the GPU is the dominant bottleneck at 4K.

The frame rate ratios between resolutions provide additional insight. At Low settings, the 1080p-to-1440p ratio is 203/153 = 1.33, and the 1440p-to-4K ratio is 153/103 = 1.49. At High settings, the 1080p-to-1440p ratio is 128/97 = 1.32, and the 1440p-to-4K ratio is 97/65 = 1.49. At Ultra settings, the 1080p-to-1440p ratio is 111/84 = 1.32, and the 1440p-to-4K ratio is 84/57 = 1.47. The consistent 1.32 ratio for the first resolution step across all settings suggests that the performance drop from 1080p to 1440p is primarily a function of pixel count, while the higher 1.49 ratio for the second step indicates that 4K introduces additional memory bandwidth and cache pressure that disproportionately impacts performance.

FAQ

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

A: The 2560x1440 High preset at 97 FPS average provides the best balance of visual quality and frame rate. At 1080p, the High preset achieves 128 FPS, while at 4K, even the Medium preset only manages 73 FPS with a 62 FPS minimum, making 1440p the sweet spot for this hardware combination.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 Mobile compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5090 Mobile has an average benchmark score of 45,152. It trails the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT by 0.5%, the Intel Arc A730M by 1.0%, and the NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation by 1.8%, while leading the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti by 0.8%.

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

A: At 4K Medium, the combo averages 73 FPS with a minimum of 62 FPS, which stays above 60 FPS. The 4K High preset averages 65 FPS but may dip below 60 during intense scenes. The 4K Ultra preset averages 57 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: What CPU benchmark scores does the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H achieve?

A: The Core Ultra 7 165H scores 14,551 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1,759 in single-core, 9,233 in Cinebench R20 multi-core and 1,303 in single-core, and 2,641 in Cinebench R15 multi-core and 257 in single-core. Its PassMark multi-thread score is 25,933 and single-thread score is 3,509.

Q: How does the Ultra 7 165H's CPU performance rank against its nearest rivals?

A: The Ultra 7 165H has an average benchmark score of 34,083, placing it at the 84th percentile. It is 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 338H, 0.4% behind the AMD EPYC 4244P, 0.4% behind the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350, and 0.5% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X.

Q: What is the memory configuration of the RTX 5090 Mobile?

A: The GPU features 24 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus with 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock is 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective data rate.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H is a Meteor Lake architecture processor built on Intel's 7 nm process, featuring 16 cores and 22 threads. The base clock of 3.80 GHz can boost up to 5.00 GHz, and the processor has a 28 W TDP, making it a power-efficient mobile part that still delivers substantial multi-threaded performance. The cache hierarchy includes 112 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache.

The CPU's benchmark results demonstrate a strong multi-threaded capability. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14,551 and PassMark multi-thread score of 25,933 indicate that the 16-core configuration handles parallel workloads effectively. The PassMark data compression score of 291,161 and integer math score of 89,415 are particularly strong, which can benefit games that use CPU-based physics or AI calculations.

In Control, the CPU's role is most apparent at lower resolutions and settings where the GPU is not the bottleneck. The 203 FPS result at 1080p Low is likely limited by the CPU's single-thread performance, as the game's render thread and main game thread cannot be fully parallelized across all 22 threads. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1,759 and PassMark single-thread score of 3,509 place the Ultra 7 165H at the 84th percentile among all CPUs, which is respectable but not exceptional for a high-refresh-rate gaming scenario.

The CPU's position in the benchmark hierarchy is notable for its tight clustering with competitors. The 0.3% lead over the Intel Core Ultra 5 338H and 0.4-0.5% deficit against the AMD EPYC 4244P, AMD Ryzen AI 7 350, and AMD Ryzen 7 3700X means that in real-world gaming, these CPUs would produce virtually identical frame rates. This suggests that the Core Ultra 7 165H's 16 cores and 22 threads, combined with its 24 MB of L3 cache, provide sufficient computational headroom for Control at all but the most CPU-intensive scenarios.

The integrated Arc Xe-LPG 128EU graphics are present on the CPU, but the discrete RTX 5090 Mobile handles all rendering duties in this configuration. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s and dual-channel DDR5 support are adequate for feeding the GPU's 896.0 GB/s memory interface, ensuring that the system memory bandwidth does not become a bottleneck for game data streaming.

At 4K Ultra, the CPU's influence diminishes significantly, as the 57 FPS average is clearly GPU-limited. The transition point where the CPU ceases to be the primary bottleneck occurs somewhere between 1440p and 4K at High settings, where the frame rate drops from 97 to 65 FPS. At 1440p and below, the Core Ultra 7 165H's performance is sufficient to keep the RTX 5090 Mobile well-fed, but the 203 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low suggests that a faster CPU could extract even more performance from this GPU at lower resolutions.