Lockdown Protocol

The pairing of AMD's Ryzen 7 9700F with Intel's Arc B570 is an interesting cross-vendor combination: a 94th-percentile desktop CPU sitting alongside a GPU in the 65th percentile of all tested graphics hardware. For Lockdown Protocol, a competitive FPS released in March 2024, that imbalance matters less than you might think. Measured benchmark data shows this combo clears the 60 FPS threshold at every resolution tested, provided settings are chosen sensibly. At 1080p, it manages that bar even on the Ultra preset.

How This Combo Ranks

Across the full database of tested hardware combinations for Lockdown Protocol, the Ryzen 7 9700F plus Arc B570 ranks 2987th out of 3714 combos. That places it in the back half of the field, and the reason is not difficult to identify. The CPU component of this pairing is elite: a PassMark average score of 69996 puts it in the 94th percentile of all processors, with a single-thread score of 4691 and a multithread score of 36470. The Arc B570, by contrast, posts an average benchmark score of 20556 and sits in the 65th percentile of all GPUs.

In other words, the ranking reflects the GPU, not the CPU. Games in this database are ranked by delivered frame rates, and a 65th-percentile Battlemage card with 2304 shading units, 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput, and 380.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth over a 160-bit bus simply cannot push pixels at the rate of flagship hardware. The rank of 2987 out of 3714 should therefore be read as a mid-tier result delivered with headroom to spare on the processor side — an important nuance when considering upgrades or comparisons.

It is also notably this is measured data, not modeled or extrapolated performance. The frame rates cited throughout this page come from actual runs of the game on this exact hardware configuration.

CPU and GPU Roles

Lockdown Protocol is GPU-limited on this combo at every resolution tested. The evidence is in the scaling. Moving from 1080p Medium to 1440p Medium drops the average from 96 FPS to 71 FPS, and stepping up to 4K Medium cuts it further to 46 FPS. If the Ryzen 7 9700F were the bottleneck, frame rates would not fall this steeply as pixel count rises — the CPU's workload is largely resolution-independent, so a CPU-bound configuration would show nearly flat FPS across resolutions.

The CPU's contribution, meanwhile, is that it never becomes the constraint. With 8 cores and 16 threads on the Zen 5 architecture, a 5.50 GHz boost clock, and a single-thread PassMark score of 4691, the 9700F is more than capable of feeding the game's simulation, physics, and draw calls while the Arc B570 does the rendering. Its PassMark physics score of 2122 and integer math score of 120788 underline a processor that is comfortably overqualified for a 2024-release FPS.

The preset scaling tells the same story from the settings side. At 1440p, dropping from High (62 FPS) to Low (100 FPS) recovers 38 FPS — a huge swing that only a GPU-bound system exhibits. At 4K, the gap between Ultra (30 FPS) and Low (64 FPS) more than doubles the frame rate. CPU-bound systems show compressed, stubborn frame rates when settings change; this one does not.

There is a second-order consideration: the Arc B570 connects over PCIe 4.0 x8, a narrower interface than full x16 designs, and its 10 GB of GDDR6 is generous but not excessive for 4K texture loads. None of this changes the verdict — the data shows the combo is playable — but it explains why 4K performance falls off as sharply as it does.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 1920x1080, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, delivering an average of 63 FPS. That is a clean result: full visual detail at the most common competitive resolution, with 3 FPS of margin over the threshold. Below Ultra, performance opens up considerably — High averages 84 FPS, Medium 96 FPS (with a minimum of 82 and a maximum of 111), and Low reaches 136 FPS. For a competitive FPS where responsiveness matters more than eye candy, the Low preset's 136 FPS is arguably the smarter competitive choice even though Ultra clears the bar.

At 2560x1440, the ceiling drops to High, which averages 62 FPS. Medium is more comfortable at 71 FPS (minimum 60, maximum 81), and Low is emphatically smooth at 100 FPS. Ultra at 1440p falls short at 46 FPS, which is 14 FPS under the playable threshold.

At 3840x2160, only Low clears 60 FPS, at an average of 64 FPS. Medium lands at 46 FPS (minimum 39, maximum 52), High at 40 FPS, and Ultra at 30 FPS. Native 4K on this hardware is a compromise: playable, but only at the bottom of the settings ladder. Players wanting higher detail at 4K would need stronger GPU hardware.

Similar Performance Alternatives

On the CPU side, the database identifies four near-neighbors of the Ryzen 7 9700F, all within a fraction of a percent of its average benchmark score. The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX averages 69875, just 0.2 percent behind. The Intel Core i7-14700KF averages 70163, 0.2 percent ahead. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X averages 69515, 0.7 percent behind, and the Intel Core i7-14700K averages 69355, 0.9 percent behind. Any of these processors would deliver effectively identical Lockdown Protocol performance when paired with the Arc B570, because the GPU is the limiting factor — swapping between CPUs this closely matched changes nothing in a GPU-bound scenario.

On the GPU side, the alternatives are more consequential, since the B570 is the component setting the frame-rate ceiling. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile averages 20534, a mere 0.1 percent behind the B570's 20556. The Intel Arc A750 sits at 20582, 0.1 percent ahead — notable as the B570's own predecessor-architecture sibling. The NVIDIA Quadro M4000M averages 20480, 0.4 percent behind, and the AMD Radeon R9 M390X averages 20662, 0.5 percent ahead. All four would produce Lockdown Protocol results within rounding error of the numbers on this page: roughly 60 FPS at 4K Low, roughly 62 FPS at 1440p High, and roughly 63 FPS at 1080p Ultra.

The practical takeaway: to change this combo's Lockdown Protocol performance, you must change the GPU class. Changing the CPU to any of its nearest rivals — including the higher-core-count Ryzen 9 7950X — would leave frame rates statistically unchanged.

FAQ

Q: Can the Ryzen 7 9700F and Arc B570 run Lockdown Protocol at 60 FPS?

A: Yes, at every tested resolution with appropriate settings. The verdict data confirms 60 FPS or better at 1080p (all four presets, up to Ultra at 63 FPS), 1440p (Low, Medium, and High, with High at 62 FPS), and 4K (Low, at 64 FPS).

Q: What is the best-looking configuration that stays playable?

A: 1080p at the Ultra preset, averaging 63 FPS. At 1440p, the best playable preset is High at 62 FPS. At 4K, only Low is playable, at 64 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The GPU. Frame rates fall sharply as resolution increases — from 96 FPS at 1080p Medium to 71 FPS at 1440p Medium to 46 FPS at 4K Medium — which is the signature of a GPU-limited system. The 94th-percentile Ryzen 7 9700F has ample headroom.

Q: What frame rate can I expect in competitive play at 1080p?

A: 136 FPS on the Low preset at 1920x1080, the highest average recorded for this combo in the dataset.

Q: Would upgrading the CPU improve Lockdown Protocol performance?

A: No. The 9700F's nearest rivals — the Ryzen 9 7940HX (0.2 percent), Core i7-14700KF (−0.2 percent), Ryzen 9 7950X (0.7 percent), and Core i7-14700K (0.9 percent) — are within one percent of its average benchmark score, and the game is GPU-bound on this pairing regardless.

Q: Is the performance data on this page measured or estimated?

A: Measured. Every frame rate cited comes from actual benchmark runs of Lockdown Protocol on this exact hardware configuration, with min/max figures recorded for the Medium preset at each resolution.

The Verdict

Yes — this PC runs Lockdown Protocol, and does so at every resolution tested, with the caveat that settings must scale with pixel count.

At 1920x1080, the verdict is unambiguous: all four presets are playable, including Ultra at 63 FPS. This is the sweet spot for the combo — full visual detail with the threshold cleared, plus the option of 136 FPS on Low for competitive play.

At 2560x1440, three of four presets clear 60 FPS: Low at 100 FPS, Medium at 71 FPS, and High at 62 FPS. Only Ultra (46 FPS) falls short, and by a wide enough margin that no reasonable expectation of driver maturity closes the gap.

At 3840x2160, the picture narrows to a single playable preset: Low, at 64 FPS. Medium's 46 FPS average and 39 FPS minimum fall well below the threshold. Native 4K is achievable but only at minimum detail — players who want 4K with better visuals need a stronger GPU than the Arc B570.

The overall ranking of 2987 out of 3714 combos tells the honest story: this is a mid-tier gaming configuration for this title, held back by a 65th-percentile graphics card while carrying a 94th-percentile processor. For a fast-paced FPS like Lockdown Protocol, the data shows the practical optimum is 1080p at High or Ultra, or 1440p at High — all comfortably playable, all measured, all above 60 FPS.