Control

Control is a demanding Action Adventure title that stresses both GPU and CPU depending on resolution and settings. The measured data for the Intel Core Ultra X7 368H paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 shows a combination that is consistently capable of delivering smooth gameplay, though the experience varies significantly across presets. The system ranks in the 52nd percentile of all tested combos for this game, placing it in the upper half of the database, with performance that scales predictably as settings and resolution change.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark rows reveal that the "High" preset offers the most balanced experience across all tested resolutions, providing a substantial visual upgrade over Medium while maintaining playable frame rates. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 88 FPS, which is only 11 FPS lower than Medium but represents a meaningful increase in graphical fidelity. Moving to 2560x1440, High produces 67 FPS, still comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth action gameplay, while Ultra drops to 58 FPS at the same resolution, making High the better trade-off between visuals and responsiveness.

For players prioritizing maximum frame rates, the Low preset at 1080p yields 140 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate displays, but the visual compromise is steep given that Medium maintains 99 FPS at the same resolution. The Medium preset at 1080p shows a minimum FPS of 84 and a maximum of 114, indicating stable frame pacing that suits fast-paced combat sequences. At 1440p, Medium achieves 75 FPS with a minimum of 64 FPS, which remains playable, though High at 67 FPS is close enough that the visual upgrade justifies the slight performance cost.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained. High produces 45 FPS, which is marginal for a game like Control that relies on precise timing and environmental awareness. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 39 FPS, which falls below acceptable thresholds for this genre. The Low preset at 4K, however, reaches 71 FPS, making it the only 4K option that delivers smooth gameplay without significant compromise. The data suggests that High at 1440p or Medium at 1080p provides the best overall experience, with the former offering higher resolution and the latter delivering higher frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD104 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1920 MHz and boosts to 2475 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz or 21 Gbps effective. These specifications contribute to a pixel rate of 158.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 455.4 GTexel/s, with FP32 compute reaching 29.15 TFLOPS.

The GPU's role in Control is evident from the performance scaling across resolutions. At 1080p, the RTX 4070 delivers 88 FPS on High settings, but this drops to 67 FPS at 1440p and 45 FPS at 4K, representing a 49 percent reduction from 1080p to 4K on the High preset. This scaling indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the frame rate drops proportionally with pixel count. The 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Control's textures at all tested settings, as the data shows no anomalies that would suggest memory limitations.

The RTX 4070's benchmark scores place it in the 81st percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37648. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA Tesla P4, scores 37628, a delta of just 0.1 percent, indicating that the RTX 4070 performs nearly identically to that professional-grade card in synthetic tests. The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 trails by 0.4 percent, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile leads by 1.3 percent. In real-world Control performance, the GPU's 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores contribute to the game's visual effects, though the measured data does not isolate ray tracing performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra X7 368H is a 16-core, 16-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 3, based on the Panther Lake architecture and manufactured on Intel's 3 nm process. It runs at a base clock of 2.00 GHz and boosts to 5.00 GHz, with a TDP of 25 W. The processor features 192 KB of L1 cache per core, 2.5 MB of L2 cache per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support includes LPDDR5X on a dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s.

The CPU's impact on Control's performance is most noticeable at lower resolutions where the GPU is less stressed. At 1080p, the frame rates range from 77 FPS on Ultra to 140 FPS on Low, with the CPU providing enough headroom to feed the GPU at these levels. The single-core performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 at 3984 points, is crucial for Control's game logic and physics calculations. The multi-core score of 28221 in Cinebench R23 indicates strong parallel processing capability, which helps with background tasks and streaming.

The processor's benchmark scores place it in the 87th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40518. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core 7 253PE, scores 40557, a delta of -0.1 percent, meaning the X7 368H performs essentially identically to that chip. The AMD Ryzen 9 7940H trails by 0.2 percent, while the Intel Xeon 6507P also trails by 0.2 percent. In Control, the CPU's 16 threads are sufficient for the game's multi-threaded workloads, as evidenced by the consistent frame rates across all settings at 1080p. The boost clock of 5.00 GHz ensures that single-threaded tasks, such as the game's main loop, are handled efficiently.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra X7 368H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks 1515 out of 2888 tested combos in Control, placing it in the 52nd percentile of all systems in the database. This mid-pack ranking reflects the balance between the CPU and GPU, where neither component is significantly stronger than the other. The rank indicates that while this combo delivers solid performance, there are many systems that achieve higher frame rates in this game, likely due to more powerful GPUs or CPUs.

The ranking position is consistent with the measured frame rates, which show that the combo is capable of running Control at playable frame rates across most settings and resolutions, but it does not excel to the point of being in the top quartile. The 2888 tested combos include a wide range of hardware configurations, and this combo's position at 1515 suggests it sits comfortably in the middle of the pack. For context, the combo's performance in Control is influenced by both the CPU's 87th percentile ranking and the GPU's 81st percentile ranking, with the combination producing results that are slightly below what each component's individual percentile might suggest.

The data indicates that the combo is more CPU-limited than GPU-limited at lower resolutions, as the CPU's relative strength (87th percentile) is higher than the GPU's (81st percentile). This means that at 1080p, the GPU is the limiting factor, while at 4K, the GPU remains the bottleneck but the CPU's headroom becomes less relevant. The ranking reflects this dynamic, with the combo performing best at 1440p where the balance between CPU and GPU load is most optimal.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear pattern of GPU limitation. On the High preset, the combo delivers 88 FPS at 1080p, 67 FPS at 1440p, and 45 FPS at 4K. This represents a 24 percent drop from 1080p to 1440p, followed by a 33 percent drop from 1440p to 4K. The total reduction from 1080p to 4K is 49 percent, which is close to the expected scaling for a GPU-bound scenario where pixel count increases by a factor of four.

The Low preset shows similar scaling characteristics, with 140 FPS at 1080p, 106 FPS at 1440p, and 71 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 24 percent, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 33 percent. The Ultra preset follows the same pattern, with 77 FPS at 1080p, 58 FPS at 1440p, and 39 FPS at 4K. The consistency of these percentage drops across all presets confirms that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the CPU's performance does not degrade with increasing resolution.

The scaling behavior indicates that the combo is well-balanced for 1440p gaming, as the frame rates at that resolution remain playable across all presets. At 4K, however, the GPU's limitations become apparent, with only the Low preset achieving frame rates above 60 FPS. The data suggests that players targeting 4K should either lower settings to Low or consider a more powerful GPU, while those at 1080p can enjoy high frame rates on High or Medium settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. The Low preset achieves 140 FPS on average, providing the smoothest experience for competitive play. Medium produces 99 FPS with a minimum of 84 FPS and a maximum of 114 FPS, offering a good balance between visuals and performance. High reaches 88 FPS, while Ultra drops to 77 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 63 FPS, indicating that the GPU has significant headroom at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, performance remains strong but shows the expected reduction. Low achieves 106 FPS, Medium produces 75 FPS with a minimum of 64 FPS and a maximum of 86 FPS, High reaches 67 FPS, and Ultra drops to 58 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 48 FPS, slightly narrower than at 1080p. The Medium preset's minimum of 64 FPS ensures that gameplay remains fluid even during intense scenes.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles to maintain high frame rates. Low achieves 71 FPS, which is the only preset above 60 FPS at this resolution. Medium produces 51 FPS with a minimum of 43 FPS and a maximum of 58 FPS, while High drops to 45 FPS and Ultra falls to 39 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 32 FPS, showing that the GPU's performance ceiling is reached at this resolution. The Medium preset's minimum of 43 FPS indicates that frame pacing can become inconsistent at 4K, which may affect gameplay smoothness. Overall, the measured data provides a clear picture of the combo's capabilities, with 1440p High or Medium being the recommended sweet spot for a balanced experience.