Control

Control’s benchmark data for the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT shows a GPU-bound experience across most settings, with the CPU’s considerable headroom only becoming apparent at lower resolutions and reduced graphical loads. The measured frames per second (FPS) across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K reveal a predictable scaling pattern where the Radeon RX 7600 XT’s 16 GB frame buffer and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth are the primary determinants of performance. The data suggests that users should prioritize graphical fidelity over raw speed, as the GPU’s capabilities are best utilized at medium to high settings, rather than chasing the modest gains from low settings or the steep penalties of ultra.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal experience for this combination depends entirely on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear sweet spot at High settings, which delivers an average of 80 FPS. This is only 7 FPS below the Medium preset’s 87 FPS, but it provides a substantial visual upgrade without sacrificing smoothness. The Low preset at 1080p reaches 122.5 FPS, but this high frame rate comes at the cost of visual quality that overlooks the game’s atmospheric details. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to 66.7 FPS, a 16.6% reduction from High, which is a significant penalty for marginal graphical gains on this hardware.

Moving to 2560x1440, the High preset remains the best balance, yielding an average of 57.7 FPS. This is just shy of the 60 FPS target, but the Medium preset’s 67.8 FPS offers a more comfortable margin, suggesting Medium is the safer choice for consistent gameplay. The Low preset at 1440p produces 95.6 FPS, showing the GPU’s ability to push high frame rates when unburdened, but the visual compromise is severe. The Ultra preset at 1440p falls to 53.1 FPS, which begins to feel sluggish for an action-adventure title.

At 3840x2160, the data indicates a different story. No preset achieves a smooth 60 FPS, with High at 38.8 FPS, Medium at 42 FPS, and Ultra at 36.2 FPS. The Low preset barely hits 60 FPS exactly, but this is the only playable option at 4K, and it requires sacrificing nearly all visual effects. Given these numbers, the recommended path is to play at 1080p High or 1440p Medium, as these configurations deliver the best balance of frame rate and visual fidelity that the RX 7600 XT can sustain without dropping below playable thresholds.

FAQ

Q: Why does the Ultra preset perform so much worse than High at the same resolution?

A: The data shows a consistent drop when moving from High to Ultra. At 1080p, High averages 80 FPS while Ultra averages 66.7 FPS, a 13.3 FPS difference. At 1440p, the gap is 4.6 FPS (57.7 vs 53.1), and at 4K, it is 2.6 FPS (38.8 vs 36.2). This indicates that the Ultra preset’s additional graphical features, such as higher-quality reflections and particle effects, place a disproportionate load on the GPU’s 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs.

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K bottlenecking the Radeon RX 7600 XT in this game?

A: The benchmark results suggest the opposite. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 122.5 FPS, which is far below the CPU’s potential, given its 20 cores and 20 threads. The CPU’s benchmark percentile of 97 versus all CPUs indicates it is a top-tier processor. The consistent frame rate scaling across resolutions implies the GPU is the limiting factor, not the CPU.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Control?

A: The data shows that 4K is only playable at Low settings, where the average is exactly 60 FPS. At Medium, the frame rate drops to 42 FPS, and at High, it falls to 38.8 FPS. These lower frame rates are likely to cause noticeable stutter in a fast-paced action game, so 4K is not recommended for a smooth experience.

Q: How does the RX 7600 XT’s 16 GB of VRAM affect performance?

A: The 16 GB frame buffer is more than sufficient for Control’s textures, even at 4K Ultra. The performance drops from 1080p to 4K are not due to VRAM exhaustion but rather the GPU’s raw compute throughput. The 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is a more likely constraint, as higher resolutions require more data to be streamed to the 128-bit bus.

Q: What is the best resolution for this hardware to maintain a 60+ FPS average?

A: At 1920x1080, both High (80 FPS) and Medium (87 FPS) comfortably exceed 60 FPS. At 2560x1440, only Low (95.6 FPS) and Medium (67.8 FPS) achieve this, with High falling just short at 57.7 FPS. For a strict 60 FPS target, 1080p High or 1440p Medium are the highest quality options.

Q: Does the combo’s rank in the database indicate good performance?

A: The combo ranks 1061 out of 1636 tested combinations, placing it in the lower-middle tier of all systems. This is expected given the RX 7600 XT’s percentile of 63 versus all GPUs, which is modest compared to high-end cards. The CPU’s high percentile does not compensate for the GPU’s mid-range standing in this GPU-bound title.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is the dominant component in this pairing for Control. Its specifications—16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s—dictate the performance envelope. The GPU’s boost clock of 2755 MHz and game clock of 2470 MHz provide the computational throughput, but the data shows that the memory subsystem is the key differentiator. As resolution increases from 1080p to 1440p to 4K, the average FPS at High settings drops from 80 to 57.7 to 38.8, a 51.5% reduction from 1080p to 4K. This scaling is characteristic of a GPU whose 2048 shading units are sufficient for 1080p but struggle with the pixel count at 4K.

The GPU’s 64 ROPs, responsible for final pixel output, are also a limiting factor at higher resolutions. The pixel rate of 176.3 GPixel/s is adequate for 1080p but becomes a bottleneck at 4K, where the Ultra preset can only muster 36.2 FPS. The 16 GB VRAM is not the issue; even at 4K Ultra, the game’s textures fit comfortably within this capacity. Instead, the FP32 performance of 22.57 TFLOPS is what determines the frame rate, and this mid-range figure is reflected in the GPU’s benchmark scores, such as a Passmark G3D score of 17132, which places it in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs.

The GPU’s nearest rivals in the database—the AMD Radeon RX 7600 (deltaPct -0.6), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER (deltaPct 1.9), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (deltaPct -1.9)—show that the RX 7600 XT is closely matched with these cards. This suggests that the 16 GB frame buffer does not provide a significant advantage over the RX 7600’s smaller memory in Control, as the game does not appear to be VRAM-limited. The GPU’s performance is instead defined by its raw compute and memory bandwidth, which are the primary drivers of the measured FPS across all settings.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT ranks 1061 out of 1636 total combos for Control. This places it in the 35th percentile of all tested systems, indicating that it is a below-average performer for this game. The ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU’s mid-range standing, as the CPU is a top-tier part. The Ultra 7 265K has a percentile of 97 versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79102, placing it just 0.2% behind the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF and the Intel Core i9-14900KF.

The disparity between the CPU’s high percentile and the combo’s low rank underscores the GPU-bound nature of Control. Even with a powerful 20-core processor, the RX 7600 XT’s performance ceiling limits the overall system. The combo’s rank is more comparable to systems with weaker GPUs, as the measured FPS at 1440p High (57.7) and 4K High (38.8) are typical of mid-range graphics cards. The CPU’s potential for higher frame rates is unrealized because the GPU cannot keep up, a conclusion supported by the fact that the 1080p Low preset only reaches 122.5 FPS, far below what the CPU could theoretically support.

This ranking suggests that users with this combo should not expect top-tier performance in Control. The system is better suited for 1080p gaming or 1440p with adjusted settings, as higher resolutions expose the GPU’s limitations. The CPU’s high benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 50009, are irrelevant to this game’s performance, as the GPU is the bottleneck. The combo’s rank of 1061 out of 1636 serves as a caution that the CPU’s strength does not translate to this title’s frame rates.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent decline as resolution increases, which is a hallmark of GPU-bound performance. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 80 at 1080p to 57.7 at 1440p, a 27.9% reduction, and then to 38.8 at 4K, a further 32.8% reduction from 1440p. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 51.5%, meaning that 4K delivers less than half the frame rate of 1080p. This scaling is nearly linear with the increase in pixel count, confirming that the GPU’s fill rate and shading power are the limiting factors.

The scaling pattern is similar across all settings. At Low, the frame rate drops from 122.5 at 1080p to 95.6 at 1440p (a 22% decrease) and then to 60 at 4K (a 37.2% decrease from 1440p). At Ultra, the drop is from 66.7 at 1080p to 53.1 at 1440p (20.4% decrease) and then to 36.2 at 4K (31.8% decrease). The percentage drops are slightly smaller for Low and Ultra settings, but the absolute FPS loss is significant in all cases. This indicates that the CPU is not a limiting factor, as a CPU bottleneck would show a more pronounced drop at lower resolutions where the CPU has to feed more frames.

The data also shows that the scaling from 1080p to 1440p is less severe than from 1440p to 4K, which is expected given the exponential increase in pixel count. The fact that the 4K Low preset exactly hits 60 FPS suggests that the GPU is capable of handling the pixel load at minimal settings, but any increase in graphical complexity causes a rapid decline. This confirms that the RX 7600 XT is a 1080p-class GPU with limited 1440p capability and only marginal 4K support at the lowest settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the benchmark results show a wide range of performance across the four settings. The Low preset achieves an average of 122.5 FPS, which is the highest measured frame rate for this combo. Medium settings deliver 87 FPS, High drops to 80 FPS, and Ultra falls to 66.7 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 55.8 FPS, a 45.6% reduction, indicating that the Ultra preset’s additional graphical effects have a substantial cost. The 1080p data shows that the GPU is most comfortable at this resolution, with even Ultra maintaining a playable frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops noticeably. Low settings average 95.6 FPS, which is still smooth, but the gap between settings widens. Medium produces 67.8 FPS, High 57.7 FPS, and Ultra 53.1 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 42.5 FPS, a 44.4% reduction. The 1440p data shows that the GPU begins to struggle at higher settings, with High and Ultra falling below the 60 FPS threshold. This is the resolution where users must make a trade-off between visual quality and frame rate.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly across all settings. Low settings average exactly 60 FPS, which is the only playable option. Medium falls to 42 FPS, High to 38.8 FPS, and Ultra to 36.2 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 23.8 FPS, a 39.7% reduction, but the absolute numbers are low across the board. The 4K data shows that the GPU is not suited for this resolution, as even Low settings barely maintain a 60 FPS average, and any increase in settings results in sub-40 FPS performance. This breakdown confirms that the RX 7600 XT is best used at 1080p or 1440p Medium, where it can deliver smooth gameplay without compromising too much on visual fidelity.