Control

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Control across three resolutions reveal a steep scaling curve that firmly places this combo in GPU-bound territory at 4K, with the CPU taking a more prominent role as resolution drops. At 1080p High, the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H paired with the RTX 5090 Mobile delivers 128 FPS average. Moving to 1440p High drops that to 97 FPS, a 24% reduction. Pushing further to 4K High yields 65 FPS, another 33% decline from the 1440p figure. The total drop from 1080p High to 4K High is 63 FPS, or roughly half the original frame rate — a classic sign that the rendering load is scaling heavily with pixel count.

The Low preset tells a sharper story. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 203 FPS average, which is a massive headroom indicator. At 1440p Low, that falls to 153 FPS, a 25% reduction. At 4K Low, the average sits at 103 FPS, another 33% drop. The consistency of these percentage deltas across presets suggests the GPU is the primary limiter at every resolution, but the gap between Low and High at each resolution reveals how much headroom the settings themselves consume. At 1080p, Low to High costs 75 FPS (203 to 128). At 1440p, that same settings jump costs 56 FPS. At 4K, it costs 38 FPS. The diminishing absolute cost of higher settings as resolution rises points to pixel throughput becoming the bottleneck before shading complexity does.

Medium and Ultra presets fill in the picture. At 4K Medium, the average is 73 FPS with a minimum of 62 and maximum of 85. At 4K Ultra, the average drops to 57 FPS. The gap between Medium and Ultra at 4K is 16 FPS, which is larger than the 12 FPS gap between High and Medium at that resolution. At 1440p, Medium averages 109 FPS, Ultra 84 FPS — a 25 FPS spread. At 1080p, Medium averages 144 FPS, Ultra 111 FPS, a 33 FPS spread. The pattern is clear: settings complexity matters more at lower resolutions where the GPU has spare pixel throughput, while at 4K the raw resolution load dominates and settings have less relative impact.

The minimum frame rate data, available only for Medium presets, shows 62 FPS at 4K, 93 FPS at 1440p, and 122 FPS at 1080p. These minimums are remarkably close to the averages, indicating stable frame pacing without severe hitches. The 4K Medium minimum of 62 FPS sits just 11 FPS below average, and the 1080p Medium minimum of 122 FPS is 22 FPS below its average. This stability suggests the hardware combination handles Control's physics and particle effects without sudden CPU stalls, even when the GPU is heavily loaded.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile is the dominant component in this pairing, and the benchmark data confirms it. With 24 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, the GPU has a bandwidth of 896.0 GB/s, which is substantial for a game like Control that features heavy texture streaming and destructible environments. The memory capacity alone — 24 GB — is far beyond what Control requires at any resolution, meaning VRAM pressure is unlikely to ever be the limiting factor in these measurements. The GPU's 10496 shading units and 112 ROPs provide the raw pixel pushing power that drives the frame rates seen across all presets.

Clock speeds tell a nuanced story. The base clock is 990 MHz with a boost of 1515 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). These are relatively conservative clocks for a flagship mobile GPU, yet the measured performance shows this combo ranking in the 84th percentile of all GPUs. The modest boost clock suggests the GPU is thermally or power-limited in this mobile implementation, but the sheer width of the architecture — 328 TMUs, 82 RT cores, 328 tensor cores — compensates. The FP32 throughput of 31.80 TFLOPS, matched by FP16 at 31.80 TFLOPS (1:1), indicates the GPU can handle both traditional rasterization and compute-heavy effects without compromise.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database show it trading blows with desktop-class parts. It sits just 0.8% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti in average benchmark score, and 0.5% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT. The Intel Arc A730M trails by 1%, and the NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation is 1.8% ahead. These deltas are tiny — all within a 2.6% band — which means the RTX 5090 Mobile's performance class is extremely competitive with established desktop GPUs. For Control specifically, the 4K Ultra average of 57 FPS is respectable for a mobile part, but the 4K High average of 65 FPS shows there is headroom to tune settings for smoother play.

The GPU's 95 W TDP is low relative to its transistor count of 45,600 million on a 378 mm² die, fabricated on TSMC's 5 nm process. The pixel rate of 169.7 GPixel/s and texture rate of 496.9 GTexel/s are the theoretical ceilings, and the measured frame rates suggest Control is not saturating either. At 4K Ultra, the GPU is likely bound by shading and RT effects rather than raw pixel fill, given that the 4K Low preset achieves 103 FPS — nearly double the Ultra figure — on the same pixel count.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra X9 388H is a 16-core, 16-thread processor based on the Panther Lake architecture, built on Intel's 3 nm process. Its base clock of 2.10 GHz and boost of 5.10 GHz provide a wide frequency range, and the 18 MB shared L3 cache (with 192 KB L1 and 3 MB L2 per core) is adequate for feeding a high-end GPU in a game like Control. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s via dual-channel LPDDR5X is not exceptional, but Control's physics and AI workloads are not memory-bandwidth intensive at the measured frame rates.

Benchmark scores place this CPU in the 88th percentile of all tested processors. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 18911 and single-core of 2200.5 are strong numbers for a mobile chip. The nearest rivals are tightly clustered: the AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D is just 0.2% ahead in average score, the Intel Core i9-13950HX is 0.3% behind, the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 is 0.4% behind, and the Intel Core i5-13600 is 0.5% behind. This is an extremely competitive field, and the Core Ultra X9 388H holds its own within a 0.7% band.

In Control, the CPU's role becomes more visible at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 203 FPS average — a frame rate where CPU throughput starts to matter. The fact that the CPU can sustain such high frame rates without bottlenecking is notable for a 16-thread part. The 16 threads (no hyperthreading) are a deliberate design choice; Control's engine scales well up to 8-12 threads, and the 5.10 GHz boost clock on single-threaded workloads handles the game's main simulation thread. At 4K, the CPU is essentially idle relative to the GPU's load — the 65 FPS average at 4K High is far below the CPU's capability ceiling.

The PassMark multi-thread score of 36811 and single-thread score of 4280 reinforce the CPU's balance. Integer math (90882), floating point (112550), and extended instructions (29943) all indicate a well-rounded compute profile. The data compression score of 361763 is particularly high, suggesting strong memory subsystem performance. In practice, this means Control's loading and streaming operations, which involve decompression, are handled swiftly — though the measured FPS numbers do not directly capture load times.

FAQ

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

A: Yes, but only on High settings. The 4K High preset averages 65 FPS, while 4K Medium averages 73 FPS. Ultra drops to 57 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: What is the best resolution for maximum smoothness?

A: 1080p Low delivers 203 FPS average, the highest measured. For a 144Hz display, 1440p Medium (109 FPS) or 1080p Ultra (111 FPS) both comfortably exceed 100 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 Mobile compare to desktop GPUs in this game?

A: The GPU's nearest rival, the RTX 4070 Ti, is 0.8% behind in average benchmark score. The Radeon Pro 5500 XT is 0.5% ahead, and the RTX 5880 Ada Generation is 1.8% ahead. These deltas suggest near-desktop-class performance.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at any resolution?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary limiter at all resolutions. At 1080p Low (203 FPS), the CPU sustains very high frame rates, but the gap between Low and Ultra (92 FPS) shows the GPU is still the constraint.

Q: What is the minimum frame rate stability?

A: Medium presets have measured minimums: 62 FPS at 4K, 93 FPS at 1440p, and 122 FPS at 1080p. These are close to averages, indicating stable pacing without major hitches.

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

A: It ranks 812th out of 3720 combos for Control, placing it in the top 22% of all tested systems for this game.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 812 out of 3720 tested configurations places this system in the 78th percentile for Control performance. This is a strong showing, but not a top-tier one — the CPU's 88th percentile and GPU's 84th percentile individually are slightly higher than the combined gaming rank, suggesting that Control's specific workload does not fully leverage either component's strengths. The rank indicates that roughly 2,900 tested combos deliver higher average FPS in this game, which is expected given that Control is not a flagship benchmark title.

What is notable is the consistency across the component benchmarks. The CPU's average benchmark score of 44466 places it within 0.5% of four nearest rivals, spanning AMD and Intel desktop and mobile parts. The GPU's average score of 45152 is similarly clustered. This means the combo's rank is not due to any single weak component, but rather the inherent ceiling of the mobile form factor. The 95 W GPU TDP and 25 W CPU TDP are constrained by thermal and power budgets that desktop parts do not face.

The practical implication for Control is that this combo delivers excellent 1080p and 1440p performance, with 4K requiring settings tuning. The 812th rank reflects the fact that many desktop configurations with higher power envelopes will outperform it at 4K Ultra, but the measured 57 FPS at that setting is still playable. The data suggests that for competitive play at high refresh rates, this combo is well above average, while for maxed-out 4K it is merely adequate.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data supports a clear hierarchy of settings for this combo. For maximum frame rate, 1080p Low at 203 FPS average is the top choice, though the visual quality tradeoff is significant for a game like Control with its atmospheric lighting and particle effects. A more balanced option at 1080p is Medium, which averages 144 FPS with a minimum of 122 FPS — this is smooth on any high-refresh display and retains much of the visual fidelity. 1080p High at 128 FPS is also viable, but the 16 FPS gain from dropping to Medium is marginal compared to the visual difference.

At 1440p, the sweet spot is Medium at 109 FPS average with a 93 FPS minimum. This is the highest resolution that stays above 90 FPS at all times, making it ideal for 144Hz monitors with adaptive sync. 1440p High at 97 FPS is playable but dips closer to the 90 FPS threshold, while 1440p Ultra at 84 FPS is smooth but leaves less headroom for frame-time spikes. For 1440p, the data suggests Medium is the best balance of resolution and fluidity.

At 4K, the recommendation is High at 65 FPS average. This stays above the 60 FPS target with some margin, while Medium at 73 FPS offers extra headroom but with reduced visual quality. 4K Ultra at 57 FPS is below the 60 FPS threshold and should be avoided for consistent smoothness. The 4K Low preset at 103 FPS is technically smooth, but the visual downgrade from High is substantial in a game that relies on lighting and shadows for atmosphere. For the best 4K experience, High settings provide the optimal combination of visual quality and playable frame rates, with Medium as a fallback if frame pacing becomes an issue.