Lockdown Protocol

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D paired with Intel's Arc B390 is one of the strangest hardware combinations in the database: a flagship 16-core Zen 5 processor sitting alongside an integrated graphics solution that lands in just the 9th percentile of all GPUs measured. Lockdown Protocol, a first-person shooter released in 2024, exposes that imbalance immediately. The recorded data shows a pairing ranked 3302nd out of 3714 combinations for this specific title, which tells most of the story before a single frame rate is examined.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the numbers are the strongest of the three resolutions tested but still limited. Low settings deliver an average of 88 FPS, comfortably above the 60 FPS playability threshold. Medium settings average 63 FPS, with a recorded minimum of 53 and a maximum of 72, meaning frame dips below the threshold do occur even though the average holds. High settings drop to an average of 55 FPS, and Ultra falls further to 41 FPS, both below the bar.

At 2560x1440, only one preset clears the threshold. Low settings average 65 FPS, a pass by a narrow margin. Medium averages 46 FPS with a minimum of 39 and maximum of 53, High averages 40 FPS, and Ultra manages just 30 FPS. The gap between the Low and Medium presets at this resolution is 19 FPS, the largest single-step drop measured across the entire dataset.

At 3840x2160, nothing is playable. Low averages 42 FPS, Medium averages 30 FPS with a minimum of 25 and a maximum of 34, High averages 26 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 19 FPS. Even the most forgiving preset falls well short of 60 FPS, and Ultra sits at less than half the frame rate of Low at the same resolution.

The scaling pattern is consistent: moving from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly a quarter of the frame rate at every preset, and moving to 4K nearly halves it again. Medium settings go from 63 to 46 to 30 FPS across the three resolutions.

Similar Performance Alternatives

On the processor side, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D sits in the 95th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals confirm how tightly packed the top of the database is. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 averages a score within 0.1 percent, as does the Ryzen 7 PRO 9755X3D. The AMD EPYC 8224P trails by 0.3 percent and the Intel Core Ultra 9 285 by 0.4 percent. Any of these processors would deliver effectively identical CPU-side performance in Lockdown Protocol, since none of them is remotely the limiting factor here.

The graphics side is a different picture. The Arc B390's sole recorded benchmark, 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12), produces a score of 1482, placing it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all aging NVIDIA entries: the GeForce GT 520MX scores within 1.3 percent, the GeForce 800M within 1.5 percent, the GT 625 OEM within 2.5 percent, and the GT 710 within 2.7 percent. Systems built around any of those GPUs would behave very similarly in this game, which is to say poorly at anything beyond modest settings and resolutions.

The practical takeaway: a PC pairing any of the CPUs listed above with any of those rival GPUs would reproduce these results almost exactly, because the GPU is doing all the deciding.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data makes the division of labor unusually easy to diagnose. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42018, a single-core score of 2259, a Geekbench single-core score of 3064, and a 3DMark single-thread score of 1292. It is a 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 part on Socket AM5 with a 128 MB L3 cache, a 5.70 GHz boost clock, and DDR5 support over a dual-channel bus with 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth. In a competitive FPS like Lockdown Protocol, that is far more processor than the game can use.

The Arc B390, by contrast, is an integrated Xe3-LPG solution built on Intel's 3 nm Panther Lake silicon. It offers 1536 shading units, 48 TMUs, 24 ROPs, and 12 RT cores, with 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and system-shared memory. Its 80 W TDP and IGP form factor frame it as an efficiency part, not a gaming engine.

The resolution and preset scaling proves where the bottleneck sits. Frame rates fall steeply as pixel count rises at every preset, from 88 FPS at 1080p Low to 42 FPS at 4K Low. If the CPU were the constraint, raising the resolution would flatten the curve, since the processor workload stays roughly constant while the GPU workload grows. Instead, the GPU-side load dominates completely. Preset changes bite equally hard: at 1080p, stepping from Low to Ultra cuts the average from 88 to 41 FPS, less than half. That is pure graphics throughput limitation. The processor's role in this configuration is essentially to stay out of the way, and the 9950X3D does that effortlessly.

The Verdict

Can this PC run Lockdown Protocol? Yes, but only at specific settings, and only at two of the three resolutions measured.

At 1920x1080, both Low (88 FPS average) and Medium (63 FPS average) clear the 60 FPS threshold. Medium is the better choice since it holds the average above the bar, though the recorded minimum of 53 FPS means occasional dips below 60 are part of the experience.

At 2560x1440, only Low settings are playable, at an average of 65 FPS. Everything from Medium upward falls short.

At 3840x2160, no preset is playable. The best result is 42 FPS at Low, a full 18 FPS below the threshold, and Ultra at 19 FPS is closer to a slideshow than a shooter.

For an FPS where responsive frame delivery matters, the practical ceiling for this pairing is 1080p Medium or 1440p Low. The combination's rank of 3302 out of 3714 for this game reflects that reality, even though the processor alone ranks in the 95th percentile of all CPUs in the database.

Best Settings per Resolution

Based on the recorded data, the most demanding preset that holds at or above 60 FPS at each resolution:

• 3840x2160: None. No preset reaches 60 FPS; the best available is Low at 42 FPS average.
• 2560x1440: Low, at 65 FPS average. Medium falls to 46 FPS and is not viable.
• 1920x1080: Medium, at 63 FPS average. High drops to 55 FPS, so Medium is the ceiling for a 60 FPS experience.

The pattern is a strict tier drop per step up in resolution: 1080p supports Medium, 1440p supports only Low, and 4K supports nothing.

FAQ

Q: Can the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Arc B390 run Lockdown Protocol at 4K?

A: No. No preset at 3840x2160 reaches 60 FPS. Low averages 42 FPS, Medium 30, High 26, and Ultra just 19.

Q: What is the best way to play Lockdown Protocol on this PC?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, which averages 63 FPS (minimum 53, maximum 72). That is the most demanding combination that holds a 60 FPS average.

Q: Is the CPU holding this system back?

A: No. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 processor in the 95th percentile of all CPUs. Frame rates scale down sharply with resolution and preset, which points entirely at the Arc B390 integrated graphics as the limiting component.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to other GPUs?

A: It sits in the 9th percentile of all GPUs in the database, with a Steel Nomad score of 1482. Its nearest rivals, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, GeForce 800M, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710, all score within roughly 3 percent of it.

Q: Does 1440p work on this setup?

A: Barely. Low settings average 65 FPS at 2560x1440, the only preset above the threshold at that resolution. Medium falls to 46 FPS.

Q: How much does raising settings hurt frame rates at 1080p?

A: Significantly. Going from Low to Ultra cuts the average from 88 FPS to 41 FPS, less than half, while Medium sits between them at 63 FPS.