Control

Control pairs the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, resulting in a combination that ranks 1188th out of 1636 tested combos in this game. The data indicates a system that is firmly GPU-limited at most settings, with the CPU’s substantial headroom only becoming relevant at lower resolutions and reduced presets.

Resolution Scaling

The benchmark results show a pronounced and predictable drop in frame rates as resolution increases, which is the primary indicator of where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p High, the combo produces 75.7 FPS. Moving to 1440p High drops the average to 57 FPS, a reduction of 18.7 FPS, while 4K High falls to 37.4 FPS, which is roughly half the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern is classic evidence of a GPU-limited scenario; the rendering load on the RX 5700 XT’s 2560 shading units increases faster than the pixel rate can compensate as resolution climbs.

The trend is consistent across all settings. At Medium settings, the frame rate goes from 82.7 FPS at 1080p, down to 64.2 FPS at 1440p, and then to 44.7 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1440p and 4K remains wide, showing that the graphics card’s 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 64 ROPs are saturated when pushing 8.3 million pixels. The only way to mitigate this is to lower the preset, which the data confirms: at Low settings, 4K achieves 61.6 FPS, which is nearly identical to the 1440p High result of 57 FPS. This suggests that the game’s visual fidelity has a massive impact on the GPU workload, more so than the resolution step itself.

The limiting component here is unambiguously the GPU. The Core Ultra 7 265K, with its 20 cores and 20 threads, does not appear to be a constraint in these measurements. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a plateau in FPS at lower resolutions, where the GPU has less work to do. Instead, the 1080p Low score of 114 FPS versus the 1080p High score of 75.7 FPS shows a 38.3 FPS difference, meaning the GPU is still the primary driver of performance even at the lowest resolution tested.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the decisive factor in this pairing. With 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, the card has a theoretical bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. The measured FPS suggests that this bandwidth, combined with the 9.754 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, is sufficient for 1080p gaming but struggles with higher resolutions. The card’s boost clock of 1905 MHz and game clock of 1755 MHz provide the raw speed, yet the data shows a hard ceiling at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS falls to 32.2.

The GPU’s benchmark percentile sits at 68, placing it above most graphics cards, but its nearest rivals in the database show just how tight the competition is. The NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile scores 24763, a delta of -0.1% from the RX 5700 XT’s 24731 average score. This indicates that while the card is capable, it is not a high-end part by modern standards. In Control, this translates to an inability to maintain smooth frame rates at 4K High, where the 37.4 FPS average is below the 40 FPS threshold many consider playable.

The VRAM allocation appears adequate for the tested presets. At 4K Ultra, the game likely requires close to the full 8 GB capacity, and the performance degradation from 44.7 FPS at Medium to 32.2 FPS at Ultra suggests that the card is running out of memory bandwidth or fill rate, rather than capacity alone. The pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 304.8 GTexel/s are the specifications that govern this behavior, and they are clearly insufficient for 4K Ultra. The card’s performance in the PassMark G3D test (16277) supports this, showing solid but not exceptional rasterization power.

FAQ

Q: What is the playable resolution for this combo?

A: The data shows that 1080p is the sweet spot, with all presets except Ultra achieving above 75 FPS. At 1440p, only Low settings (89.3 FPS) and High settings (57 FPS) are playable. 4K is generally not recommended, as only Low settings (61.6 FPS) reach a playable average.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its closest rivals?

A: The RX 5700 XT has an average benchmark score of 24731, which is 0.1% lower than the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile (24763), 0.3% higher than the Intel Arc A350M (24647), and 0.6% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile (24592). These are very close margins, indicating similar performance tiers.

Q: Is the CPU holding back the GPU?

A: No. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K has a benchmark percentile of 97 and scores 50009 in Cinebench R23 multicore. The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K follows a GPU-bound pattern, meaning the CPU has ample headroom and is not the limiting factor in Control.

Q: What is the best preset for 4K gaming?

A: Based on the measured FPS, Low settings at 4K produce 61.6 FPS, which is the only 4K preset that exceeds 60 FPS. Medium settings drop to 44.7 FPS, and High falls to 37.4 FPS, making Low the only viable option for smooth gameplay at this resolution.

Q: How much of a performance drop is there from 1080p to 4K?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 75.7 at 1080p to 37.4 at 4K, a reduction of 38.3 FPS, which is a 50.6% decrease. At Low settings, the drop is from 114 FPS to 61.6 FPS, a 52.4 FPS decrease.

Q: Does the GPU support modern APIs?

A: The RX 5700 XT supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Its benchmark scores in Geekbench Vulkan (73091) and OpenCL (77773) indicate solid driver-level performance for these APIs.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of presets for this combo. At 1080p, High settings (75.7 FPS) offer a substantial improvement over Medium (82.7 FPS) in visual quality while sacrificing only 7 FPS, making it the best balance. Ultra settings at 1080p drop to 66.8 FPS, which is still playable but not worth the marginal graphical gains over High for a 8.9 FPS loss.

For 1440p, the situation changes. High settings deliver 57 FPS, which is borderline for fast-paced action, while Medium drops to 64.2 FPS, providing a better frame rate cushion. Low settings at 1440p (89.3 FPS) are the only way to get close to 90 FPS, but the visual hit is significant. The recommendation is to use Medium at 1440p to maintain a stable 60+ FPS without resorting to the lowest quality.

At 4K, the choice is stark. Low settings (61.6 FPS) are the only preset that achieves a 60 FPS average. Medium (44.7 FPS) and High (37.4 FPS) are too choppy for a game like Control, which relies on precise timing and spatial awareness. Ultra at 4K (32.2 FPS) is not viable. Therefore, the data supports using Low settings for 4K or, preferably, dropping to 1440p Medium for a better visual experience.

The overall best experience across all resolutions is 1080p High. It provides a 75.7 FPS average, which is smooth, while retaining the game’s atmospheric lighting and particle effects. The gap from High to Ultra is not justified by the performance cost, making High the optimal preset for this hardware.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific configuration of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT ranks 1188th out of 1636 tested combos in Control, placing it in the bottom 27% of all systems. This is a low ranking, driven entirely by the GPU’s age and performance ceiling. The CPU is a top-tier part, ranking in the 97th percentile of all CPUs, but the GPU’s 68th percentile ranking pulls the overall combo down.

The delta between the CPU and GPU performance is stark. The Core Ultra 7 265K’s nearest rival, the Core Ultra 7 265KF, is only 0.2% behind, showing that the processor is at the top of its class. In contrast, the RX 5700 XT is competitive with mobile GPUs like the RTX A5000 Mobile and the RTX 5060 Mobile, which are not designed for high-end desktop 4K gaming. This mismatch means the system is poorly balanced for this specific title, where the GPU workload dominates.

In terms of raw scores, the CPU’s average benchmark score is 79102, while the GPU’s is 24731. This 3.2x difference in raw compute power underscores the imbalance. The combo ranking reflects this, as the system is likely to be bottlenecked by the GPU in any graphically intensive scenario. For Control, the rank of 1188 indicates that most other tested combinations, even those with slightly slower CPUs, would outperform this setup due to having more powerful GPUs.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data is comprehensive, covering four resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the averages are: Low 114 FPS, Medium 82.7 FPS, High 75.7 FPS, and Ultra 66.8 FPS. This shows a linear degradation from Low to Ultra, with the largest single drop occurring from Low to Medium (31.3 FPS).

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 89.3 FPS, Medium 64.2 FPS, High 57 FPS, and Ultra 49.8 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 25.1 FPS, which is significant, but the relative performance gap between High and Ultra narrows to 7.2 FPS. This suggests diminishing returns at higher preset levels.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 61.6 FPS, Medium 44.7 FPS, High 37.4 FPS, and Ultra 32.2 FPS. Here, the drop from Low to Medium is 16.9 FPS, and from Medium to High is 7.3 FPS. The Ultra preset falls below 33 FPS, making it the worst-performing combination in the entire dataset.

The scaling efficiency is also telling. At Low settings, moving from 1080p to 1440p reduces FPS by 24.7 (from 114 to 89.3), and from 1440p to 4K reduces it by 27.7 (from 89.3 to 61.6). At Ultra settings, the drops are 17 (from 66.8 to 49.8) and 17.6 (from 49.8 to 32.2), respectively. This indicates that the GPU is more stressed at lower presets because the frame rate is higher, exposing the pixel fill limits.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with 30 MB of shared L3 cache. In Control, this CPU is not a limiting factor. The game’s engine is not heavily multithreaded, but the 265K’s single-core performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7060, is more than sufficient.

The CPU’s high memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s and DDR5 support ensure that data can be fed to the GPU without stalling. However, the benchmark data shows that the CPU’s role is passive in this pairing. At 1080p Low, where the GPU has the least work, the FPS reaches 114, which is likely close to a CPU-imposed limit, but the Core Ultra 7 265K still has headroom, as its PassMark multithread score of 58838 indicates.

The CPU’s 20 threads are underutilized in Control, which is a title that typically scales up to 8-12 threads. The result is that the CPU sits idle while the GPU works at 100% utilization. The nearest rival, the Core Ultra 7 265KF, is 0.2% slower, and the Core i9-14900K is 0.9% faster, but none of these differences would manifest in this game due to the GPU bottleneck. The CPU’s 97th percentile ranking is wasted in this configuration, as the RX 5700 XT cannot leverage the processor’s full potential.