Control

FAQ

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in Control?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combo ranks 545th out of 2,888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the top 19% of all tested configurations.

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves at 1080p?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 206 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At 1080p Medium settings, it delivers 146 FPS average, while High settings produce 130 FPS and Ultra settings yield 113 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in overall benchmark scores?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has an average benchmark score of 93,785. Its closest rival, the Intel Xeon 6520P, scores 93,786 (0% difference), while the AMD EPYC 4564P scores 95,183 (-1.5% delta), the AMD EPYC 9175F scores 95,615 (-1.9%), and the AMD EPYC 4565P scores 95,764 (-2.1%).

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 sits at the 82nd percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 580, scores 40,318 compared to the RTX 5070's 40,377 average benchmark score, a difference of just 0.1%.

Q: Does the combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 Ultra settings, the combo averages 58 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS threshold often considered ideal, but it remains playable for many users. At 4K High settings, the average rises to 66 FPS.

Q: What memory configuration does this CPU support?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus, providing 115.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth. It also supports ECC memory, which is notable for workstation-oriented builds.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, packing 31,100 million transistors into a 263 mm² die. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2325 MHz and boosts up to 2512 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The 12 GB of GDDR7 memory sits on a 192-bit bus, yielding 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth—a figure that proves substantial in Control's texture-heavy environments.

Benchmark results indicate the RTX 5070 performs at the 82nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40,377. The data shows its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 580, trails by a mere 0.1% at 40,318, making this a tightly contested segment. The GPU's shading units number 6,144, with 192 texture mapping units and 80 raster output pipelines, alongside 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 201.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 482.3 GTexel/s, with FP32 compute reaching 30.87 TFLOPS.

In Control, the GPU's role becomes clear when examining the measured FPS across resolutions. At 1080p Low settings, the combo hits 206 FPS, suggesting the GPU has ample headroom. However, as resolution climbs to 1440p and 4K, the frame rates scale downward—156 FPS at 1440p Low and 105 FPS at 4K Low. The data implies that Control's rendering load at higher resolutions increasingly taxes the GPU's memory bandwidth and shading throughput. The 12 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient for the game's demands, as no settings combination shows signs of memory-related stuttering or frame drops that would indicate capacity exhaustion.

The RTX 5070's boost clock of 2512 MHz provides the raw speed needed for Control's physics-heavy combat sequences, while the 48 RT cores suggest the GPU can handle the game's optional ray tracing effects—though the measured FPS data does not specify whether ray tracing was enabled. The 192-bit memory bus, while narrower than some higher-tier cards, still delivers 672.0 GB/s, which the 4K Medium result of 75 FPS average (with a 63 FPS minimum) suggests is adequate for smooth gameplay at that resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus represents Arrow Lake Refresh architecture on a 3 nm TSMC process, with 17,800 million transistors across a 243 mm² die. This 24-core, 24-thread processor runs at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosts to 5.50 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache—a configuration that provides substantial data locality for game logic and physics calculations.

The CPU's benchmark scores position it at the 96th percentile among all CPUs, with an average score of 93,785. Its nearest rival, the Intel Xeon 6520P, matches this score exactly at 93,786, while the AMD EPYC 4564P trails by 1.5%. The multi-core performance is particularly strong, as shown by Cinebench results: 6,656 in R15 multicore, 24,461 in R20, and 44,253 in R23. Single-core scores of 354 (R15), 3,453 (R20), and 2,439 (R23) indicate strong per-thread performance that benefits games relying on a primary simulation thread.

In Control, the CPU's role is less about raw frame production and more about maintaining consistent frame pacing. The measured FPS data shows the combo achieving 206 FPS at 1080p Low—a scenario where the GPU is under minimal load and the CPU's single-thread performance becomes the limiting factor. The 5.50 GHz boost clock enables quick response to game logic updates, while the 24 cores handle background tasks without interfering with the main game thread. PassMark results reinforce this: single-thread score of 5,068 and physics score of 4,064, with multithread score of 68,574.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s over dual-channel DDR5 provides ample data throughput for Control's level streaming. The 36 MB L3 cache is particularly relevant for the game's object-heavy environments, where repeated access to the same physics and AI data benefits from larger caches. The 3 nm process node and 125 W TDP suggest efficient power delivery, allowing sustained boost clocks during extended gaming sessions without thermal throttling—though the FACT PACK does not include thermal data, the architecture's efficiency is implied by the process node.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 545th out of 2,888 tested configurations in Control, placing it in the top 18.9% of all tested systems. This ranking reflects the combination of the RTX 5070's 82nd percentile GPU performance and the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus's 96th percentile CPU performance. The gap between these percentiles is telling: the GPU is solidly mid-tier among all GPUs, while the CPU is near the top of the heap.

The data suggests that the CPU is not the bottleneck in most scenarios, given its high percentile ranking relative to the GPU. In Control, where the measured FPS scales clearly with resolution and settings, the GPU becomes the primary constraint as load increases. At 1080p Low, the 206 FPS average indicates the CPU can feed the GPU well beyond what the GPU can render—a scenario where the GPU is the limiting factor. At 4K Ultra, the 58 FPS average shows the GPU struggling under maximum load, while the CPU has headroom to spare.

The rank of 545 out of 2,888 means there are 544 combos that outperform this configuration in Control, likely featuring higher-tier GPUs such as the RTX 5080 or RTX 5090, or possibly combos with more optimized CPU-GPU pairings. Conversely, 2,343 combos rank below this system, indicating that this configuration sits comfortably in the upper-midrange of tested hardware. The delta between the CPU's 96th percentile and the GPU's 82nd percentile suggests that upgrading the GPU would yield larger performance gains in Control than upgrading the CPU, as the current CPU has more headroom relative to its peer group.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings levels (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), providing a comprehensive view of performance scaling.

1080p (1920x1080):

• Low: 206 FPS average
• Medium: 146 FPS average (124 min, 168 max)
• High: 130 FPS average
• Ultra: 113 FPS average

1440p (2560x1440):

• Low: 156 FPS average
• Medium: 111 FPS average (94 min, 127 max)
• High: 98 FPS average
• Ultra: 85 FPS average

4K (3840x2160):

• Low: 105 FPS average
• Medium: 75 FPS average (63 min, 86 max)
• High: 66 FPS average
• Ultra: 58 FPS average

The data reveals a consistent pattern: each step up in settings costs roughly 20-30 FPS at 1080p, with the gap narrowing at higher resolutions. From Low to Medium at 1080p, the drop is 60 FPS (from 206 to 146), while from Medium to High it's 16 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 17 FPS. At 4K, the Low to Medium drop is 30 FPS, Medium to High is 9 FPS, and High to Ultra is 8 FPS. This suggests that settings headroom diminishes as resolution increases, likely due to GPU resource saturation.

The only settings tier with min/max data is Medium across all resolutions, showing a consistent 44 FPS range at 1080p (124-168), 33 FPS at 1440p (94-127), and 23 FPS at 4K (63-86). The narrower range at 4K indicates more consistent frame delivery, possibly because the GPU is more uniformly loaded, whereas at 1080p, CPU-side frame time variations create larger swings.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1080p, the Ultra preset delivers 113 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold and suitable for 120 Hz displays. However, the High preset at 130 FPS offers a better balance for 144 Hz monitors, providing a 17 FPS uplift over Ultra while presumably maintaining most visual quality features. The Medium preset at 146 FPS is the choice for 165 Hz displays, though the visual compromise may be noticeable in Control's detailed environments.

For 1440p, the High preset at 98 FPS average is the sweet spot for 100 Hz displays, while Ultra at 85 FPS remains playable but below the 90 FPS comfort zone for many users. The Medium preset at 111 FPS is better suited for 120 Hz displays, offering 26 FPS more than High. At 4K, the High preset at 66 FPS is the recommended choice for 60 Hz displays, as it stays above the 60 FPS threshold with some margin. The Ultra preset at 58 FPS dips below 60, which may result in occasional judder on standard 60 Hz panels. The Medium preset at 75 FPS is a safer bet for 4K, providing 9 FPS more than High and 17 FPS more than Ultra, though it sacrifices visual fidelity.

The data shows that the Medium preset consistently offers the best FPS-to-visual tradeoff across all resolutions, with the highest min FPS in every case where min data is recorded. At 4K Medium, the 63 FPS minimum ensures that even the most demanding scenes stay above the 60 FPS threshold, whereas High and Ultra may dip below—though min FPS data is not provided for those settings to confirm.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the limiting component. At Low settings, the drop from 206 FPS at 1080p to 105 FPS at 4K represents a 49% reduction—nearly half the frame rate lost by quadrupling the pixel count. At Medium settings, the drop is from 146 to 75 FPS, a 48.6% reduction. High settings drop from 130 to 66 FPS (49.2% reduction), and Ultra from 113 to 58 FPS (48.7% reduction). This remarkable consistency—all settings levels lose roughly 49% of their frame rate from 1080p to 4K—indicates that resolution scaling is the dominant factor, independent of settings.

The consistency of the percentage drop (ranging only from 48.6% to 49.2%) suggests that the GPU is the limiting component across all settings. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the percentage drop to be larger at lower settings (where CPU load is relatively higher) and smaller at higher settings (where GPU load dominates). Instead, the uniform drop indicates that the GPU's rendering throughput scales predictably with pixel count, while the CPU has sufficient headroom even at 1080p Low where the 206 FPS result shows the GPU is the constraint.

Looking at the intermediate step from 1080p to 1440p, the drop is 24.3% at Low settings (206 to 156 FPS), 24% at Medium (146 to 111), 24.6% at High (130 to 98), and 24.8% at Ultra (113 to 85). Again, the consistency points to GPU-bound scaling. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 32.7% at Low (156 to 105), 32.4% at Medium (111 to 75), 32.7% at High (98 to 66), and 31.8% at Ultra (85 to 58). The slightly larger percentage drop from 1440p to 4K compared to 1080p to 1440p reflects the non-linear nature of pixel count increases—4K has 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p, while 1440p has 1.78 times the pixels of 1080p.

The data implies that the RTX 5070's 672.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 30.87 TFLOPS compute are the primary constraints at higher resolutions. The CPU's 5.50 GHz boost clock and 36 MB L3 cache are sufficient to feed the GPU at all tested resolutions, as evidenced by the smooth scaling pattern. For users seeking higher frame rates at 4K, the data suggests that reducing settings from Ultra to High yields only an 8 FPS gain (58 to 66), while dropping to Medium gains 17 FPS (58 to 75)—a more substantial improvement that may be worth the visual tradeoff.