Best GPUs for Control Resonant (2026): 5 Ray Tracing Picks

Control Resonant arrives on September 24 with path-traced effects, RTX Mega Geometry, and a DLSS 4.5 stack Remedy has been building toward since the first Control. It also arrives with three separate PC requirement ladders instead of one.

That is the whole buying problem. The rasterized recommended tier and the path-tracing tier are two generations apart, and which one you read decides which graphics card you need. These five picks are ranked against the ladder Remedy published, tier by tier.

Our top pick: ASUS TUF RTX 5070 Ti OC

One card covers the widest slice of this game's audience: 1440p, path tracing on, upscaling a choice rather than a requirement. The ASUS TUF RTX 5070 Ti OC is it, with 16 GB behind it and the full DLSS 4.5 stack.

ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB GDDR7 OC Edition Graphics Card

Buy the ASUS TUF RTX 5070 Ti OC on Amazon

Quick picks

Specs at a glance

What Remedy actually asks for

Remedy published three ladders, not one. The rasterized ladder starts at a GTX 1070 for 1080p at 30 fps on Low and tops out at an RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT for 4K at 60 fps on High with Performance upscaling. Its recommended rung, the line most pages reprint, is an RTX 3060 Ti, an RX 6700 XT, or an Arc B580 at 1440p60 on Medium with Balanced upscaling.

The ray-tracing ladder is a separate list with its own rungs. Its recommended entry is an RTX 4070 Ti or an RX 9070 for that same 1440p60 target on Medium RT. A full generation of hardware separates the two recommendations for identical resolution and frame rate, and that gap is the part the reprints skip.

Path tracing is a single line. Remedy names one graphics card, the RTX 5080, for 4K at 60 fps, and notes that DLSS Performance mode is required to reach it. No AMD card appears in that tier. Radeon is in this game's ray-tracing conversation and absent from its path-tracing one, and that is a published position rather than an inference.

Every tier shares the same floor: 16 GB of system memory, Windows 10 or 11, and 120 GB of SSD space. The feature list is confirmed as well, with DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation on the Nvidia side, and FSR 4.1 upscaling and frame generation on the AMD side. Our upscaling and frame generation explainer covers which cards get which modes.

How we picked

Every pick here carries 16 GB of VRAM. Remedy's rasterized recommended tier lists 8 GB, and that number was written for the raster path. Path-traced effects and Mega Geometry both raise memory pressure, so treat 8 GB as the floor the game boots on rather than the target you buy for.

We ranked against the ladder rather than a single line on a specification sheet. A card can clear the raster recommendation and still sit two rungs short of the ray-tracing one, so each pick below names the tier it clears and the tier it does not. If you want the wider view of the category, the GPU buying pillar walks through the same framework without a specific game attached.

Frame generation counts as smoothness here, not performance. Dynamic Multi Frame Generation turns a strong native frame rate into a smoother one. It does not turn a weak one into a strong one, and below roughly 60 fps native the added latency and the interpolation artifacts both show up in the moments you would least want them. Multi-frame modes are a 50-series feature; 40-series cards get single frame generation.

Nothing on this page is measured. Control Resonant has not shipped, so no independent benchmarks exist, and every performance claim here traces back to Remedy or Nvidia. We ran the same approach on Black Myth: Wukong at launch and revised it against real numbers afterwards. This page gets the same treatment once reviewers publish.

Best Overall: ASUS TUF RTX 5070 Ti OC

ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB GDDR7 OC Edition Graphics Card

Buy the ASUS TUF RTX 5070 Ti OC on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

Remedy's ray-tracing recommendation for 1440p at 60 fps is an RTX 4070 Ti. This card sits a full tier above that line, which changes what upscaling is for. Balanced mode becomes a choice you make for extra headroom rather than the price of entry, and that margin is worth more than usual on a game nobody has benchmarked yet.

The 16 GB GDDR7 pool is the other half of the argument. Path-traced effects and RTX Mega Geometry both lean on memory in ways the rasterized requirement sheet never had to account for, and the 12 GB card one rung down is the standing complaint of this generation. Our 1440p GPU guide has treated the 5070 Ti as the sensible ceiling for the resolution for most of the year, and Control Resonant does not change that read.

The full DLSS 4.5 stack ships here too: Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation. Ray Reconstruction matters most. It is the denoiser Remedy's path-traced lighting was tuned against, and it is the one feature on the list with no AMD equivalent in this title.

What you give up

This is not the 4K path-tracing card. Remedy named the RTX 5080 for that job and noted DLSS Performance is needed even on it, which tells you how little slack exists a tier down. Pushing a 5070 Ti to 4K with path tracing means Performance upscaling and a frame rate you will spend the evening negotiating with.

It also costs meaningfully more than the Sapphire Pulse RX 9070 XT further down this page, and for a buyer who never turns path tracing on that premium buys nothing. If your library is mostly raster and Control Resonant is a one-off, the money belongs in the monitor or the storage instead.

Who it's for

A 1440p builder on a 144Hz or 165Hz panel who wants the sequel's path-traced lighting running as a normal way to play the game, not as a screenshot mode.

Best Value: ASUS Prime RTX 5060 Ti OC (16 GB)

ASUS Prime GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GDDR7 OC Edition Gaming Graphics Card

$829.99

Buy the ASUS Prime RTX 5060 Ti OC (16 GB) on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

Sixteen gigabytes on a card this cheap is the entire pitch. It clears Remedy's rasterized recommendation for 1440p60 with headroom to spend on settings, and at 1080p it has enough left over to turn ray tracing on and keep it there.

Buying into the DLSS 4.5 stack at this price is the other reason it lands. Ray Reconstruction and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation are both available, and in a path-traced game the denoiser does more visible work than raw raster throughput. Readers weighing the same tier across titles should check our mid-range ray tracing picks for how it stacks up outside this launch.

What you give up

It sits just under Remedy's ray-tracing recommendation. The stated card for 1440p60 on Medium RT is an RTX 4070 Ti, and this one is a rung short, so expect DLSS Performance rather than Balanced if you push ray tracing to 1440p. Path tracing at that resolution is not this card's job and pretending otherwise would set you up for a bad launch night.

The 128-bit memory bus is the structural limit underneath all of that. Sixteen gigabytes of capacity does not buy bandwidth, and bandwidth is what caps the card once the resolution climbs. An 8 GB version of the same card also exists at a small discount. Buyers have flagged it as the wrong variant across the board, and on a path-traced title it is wrong for a specific, obvious reason.

Who it's for

A 1080p builder on a high-refresh panel who wants ray tracing on, or a 1440p builder whose library is mostly raster and who wants the DLSS feature set anyway.

Best Premium: ASUS TUF RTX 5080 OC

ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX™ 5080 16GB GDDR7 OC Edition Graphics Card

$1,779.99$1,899.99

Buy the ASUS TUF RTX 5080 OC on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

Remedy's path-tracing tier lists one graphics card. This is that card. On a pre-launch purchase with no independent numbers to check against, buying the exact hardware the developer specified removes the part of the decision that is otherwise guesswork.

The supporting features are all present: 16 GB of GDDR7, Ray Reconstruction for the path-traced denoise, and a native frame rate high enough that Dynamic Multi Frame Generation has something real to multiply. That last point is the difference between frame generation as a feature and frame generation as an excuse. If 4K is the target across your whole library, our 4K GPU guide covers where this card sits outside this one game.

What you give up

Remedy's own note is that DLSS Performance mode is required to hold 60 fps at 4K with path tracing. Even the named card is leaning on upscaling, which is a useful reality check on what path tracing costs in 2026.

The memory pool is also the same 16 GB the 5070 Ti carries for a great deal less, so you are paying for the shader and RT throughput rather than capacity. Physically it is a 3.6-slot card that needs real clearance, and the listing sits next to a Renewed version and a BTF version, the latter of which requires a back-connect motherboard.

Who it's for

A 4K builder who wants path tracing on from launch day and does not want to revisit the decision when reviews arrive.

Best Budget: ASRock RX 9060 XT Challenger 16GB

ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Challenger 16GB OC, RDNA 4, 3290MHz Boost, 16GB GDDR6 128-bit, PCIe 5.0, Dual Fans, 0dB Silent, LED Indicator, DisplayPort 2.1a, HDMI 2.1b

$519.99

Buy the ASRock RX 9060 XT Challenger 16GB on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

Remedy asks for 8 GB at the rasterized recommended tier. This card doubles it at the bottom of the ladder, which is the single most useful thing a budget GPU can do in 2026. It clears the 1440p60 Medium target the requirement sheet describes and leaves room to raise settings rather than lower them.

Control Resonant supports FSR 4.1 upscaling and frame generation, so the AMD path is not a dead end here. At this tier the 9060 XT 16 GB has been the mainstream answer all year, and nothing Nvidia ships at the same price matches its memory. If you are still deciding how much you need, our VRAM explainer makes the case in more detail.

What you give up

Path tracing. Remedy names no AMD card in that tier, and this one sits two rungs below the card it does name. Ray tracing is possible, but the stated Radeon for 1440p60 Medium RT is the RX 9070, so 1080p is the honest ray-tracing target here.

No DLSS is the second cost, and in this title it is a specific one: Ray Reconstruction is the denoiser Remedy's path-traced lighting was built around, and FSR has no equivalent. There is also an 8 GB version of this card sitting right beside the 16 GB one on Amazon at a small discount. It is the same trap as Nvidia's 8 GB parts.

Who it's for

A 1080p builder on a tight budget who wants the game running well in raster and is not buying a graphics card for its lighting.

Editor's Pick: Sapphire Pulse RX 9070 XT (16 GB)

Sapphire 11348-03-20G Pulse AMD Radeon™ RX 9070 XT Gaming Graphics Card with 16GB GDDR6, AMD RDNA 4

$789.00

Buy the Sapphire Pulse RX 9070 XT (16 GB) on Amazon

Specs

What it does well

Remedy lists the RX 9070 for 1440p at 60 fps on Medium ray tracing. This is the step above it. Sitting one rung clear of a developer-stated requirement is the most reassuring place to be on a game that has not shipped, and it is the reason this card earns the slot over the cheaper Radeon below it.

Sixteen gigabytes of GDDR6, FSR 4.1 upscaling and frame generation both supported in-game, and the strongest raster return per dollar of the current generation. The listing also carries a real manufacturer SKU, which matters more with Radeon than people expect: variant confusion is how these purchases go wrong.

What you give up

Path tracing is the line AMD does not cross in this title. Remedy lists Radeon for ray tracing and stops there, and the Path Tracing Enthusiast tier is a single Nvidia card. That is the published position, not an extrapolation from other games.

You also lose DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction and Nvidia's multi-frame-generation modes. FSR 4.1 has closed a lot of ground and its Quality mode holds up at 1440p, but the denoising story in a path-traced game is the one place the gap is still structural.

Who it's for

A 1440p high-refresh builder who wants maximum raster plus standard ray tracing, keeps a mostly non-RT library, and has no interest in paying the path-tracing premium for one launch.

Bottom line

If you play at 1440p and want the path-traced lighting on, buy the ASUS TUF RTX 5070 Ti OC. If you play at 4K and want the same thing, buy the RTX 5080 Remedy named. If the budget is tight and raster is the goal, the ASRock RX 9060 XT Challenger 16GB clears the recommended tier with double the stated memory. If you want maximum raster and standard ray tracing without the path-tracing premium, take the Sapphire Pulse RX 9070 XT. And if 1080p with ray tracing is the target, the ASUS Prime RTX 5060 Ti OC is the cheapest way into the full DLSS 4.5 stack.

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