Lockdown Protocol

The Intel Core i5-12400 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 delivers a surprisingly capable 1080p and 1440p experience in Lockdown Protocol, but the data reveals a sharp drop-off at 4K where the combo falls just short of the 60 FPS threshold on High settings. At 2560x1440, this pairing clears every preset including Ultra, while 1920x1080 sees average frame rates ranging from 93 to 200 FPS depending on the quality level. The 4K results show a clear ceiling: Medium settings produce 67 FPS average, but High dips to 59 FPS and Ultra plummets to 44 FPS, indicating that the GPU's rasterization throughput becomes the limiting factor at this resolution.

FAQ

Q: Can this CPU and GPU combination run Lockdown Protocol at 60 FPS on 1080p?

A: Yes, the data shows all four tested presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—exceed 60 FPS at 1920x1080. The lowest average is 93 FPS on Ultra, while Low reaches 200 FPS, Medium hits 142 FPS, and High achieves 124 FPS.

Q: What is the best playable setting at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, Medium is the highest preset that maintains 60 FPS, with an average of 67 FPS and a minimum of 57 FPS. High settings average 59 FPS (just below the threshold), and Ultra drops to 44 FPS.

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

A: The combination ranks 1709th out of 3714 total combos tested in this game, placing it in the upper-middle portion of the performance distribution. This ranking reflects the balanced pairing of a mid-range CPU with a capable GPU.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important at 1440p in this game?

A: The scaling from 1080p to 1440p suggests the GPU is the primary driver. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 93 FPS; at 1440p Ultra, it drops to 68 FPS—a 27% reduction that aligns with the increased pixel count rather than CPU limitations, since the CPU's single-thread score of 3456 in Passmark remains constant across resolutions.

Q: What is the playable settings list for 1440p according to the verdict data?

A: The verdict by resolution lists High, Low, Medium, and Ultra as all playable at 2560x1440, with Ultra being the best setting at 68 FPS average. This means the combo has headroom at this resolution, as even the most demanding preset clears the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the RX 7700's performance compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score of 15852 places it between the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862, 0.1% faster) and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679, 1.1% slower). The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is 1.7% faster with a score of 16129, while the AMD Radeon RX 9060 is 1% faster at 16014.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data reveals a classic resolution-dependent division of labor between the Intel Core i5-12400 and the AMD Radeon RX 7700. At 1920x1080, the CPU's strong single-thread performance—evidenced by its 3456 Passmark single-thread score and 910 3DMark single-thread score—keeps frame rates high across all presets. The jump from Low (200 FPS) to Ultra (93 FPS) at 1080p shows a 107 FPS spread, which indicates that while the GPU is doing most of the heavy lifting, the CPU is not bottlenecking even at the lowest settings where frame rates approach 200. This suggests the i5-12400's 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, are more than sufficient for the game's engine at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the picture changes subtly. The average FPS at Low drops from 200 to 147, a 26.5% reduction that is roughly proportional to the 1.78x increase in pixel count (though not perfectly linear due to other factors). At Ultra, the drop is from 93 to 68 FPS, a 26.9% reduction. The consistency of these percentage drops across the preset range strongly suggests that the GPU's fill rate and shading capacity are the limiting factors at 1440p, not the CPU. The RX 7700's pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s are being taxed more heavily, but the CPU still keeps up—the Medium preset at 1440p shows a minimum of 88 FPS, which is well above any CPU-induced stutter threshold.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's dominance becomes absolute. The average FPS at Low is 95, which is 35% lower than the 1440p Low result of 147 FPS—a much larger drop than the pixel-count ratio would suggest, indicating that the GPU is now severely bandwidth-constrained. The RX 7700's 624.1 GB/s memory bandwidth and 256-bit bus are being saturated at 4K. The Medium preset at 4K shows a minimum of 57 FPS and maximum of 77 FPS, revealing noticeable frame time variance. The Ultra preset at 44 FPS average is the clearest evidence that the GPU is the sole bottleneck here. The CPU's role diminishes to near-irrelevance at 4K; even a significantly faster processor would not recover the 15 FPS gap between Medium (67 FPS) and High (59 FPS) at this resolution. The data indicates that Lockdown Protocol's engine scales primarily with GPU throughput once the resolution exceeds 1440p, and the i5-12400's architecture is never the constraining factor in any of the 12 measured configurations.

How This Combo Ranks

Among the 3,714 combos tested for Lockdown Protocol, the Intel Core i5-12400 + AMD Radeon RX 7700 pairing sits at rank 1709. This is almost dead-center in the distribution—the 50th percentile would be rank 1857, so this combo is slightly above the median. The CPU's percentile ranking of 72 (meaning it outperforms 72% of all CPUs in the benchmark database) and the GPU's percentile of 58 combine to produce a system that is better than average but not exceptional.

The ranking becomes more meaningful when contextualized against the CPU's nearest rivals. The AMD EPYC 7643, a server-class chip with a nearly identical average benchmark score of 18697 (0.1% slower than the i5-12400's 18683), would likely produce very similar frame rates in this game, assuming the GPU remains the bottleneck. The Intel Core i7-1355U and AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 are also within 0.7% of the i5-12400's average score, meaning any of these CPUs paired with the RX 7700 would land in roughly the same combo rank. Interestingly, the Intel Core i3-14100F is 0.9% faster in average benchmark score, suggesting that a cheaper CPU could achieve nearly identical results in Lockdown Protocol, since the game appears to be GPU-bound at most settings.

The GPU's nearest rivals tell a similar story. The AMD Radeon R9 370X, a much older architecture, scores within 0.1% of the RX 7700's average—this is almost certainly a quirk of the benchmark aggregation, as the R9 370X lacks the RX 7700's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and RDNA 3.0 features. The RTX 3060 Ti, which is 1.7% faster on average, would likely push the combo rank slightly higher, perhaps into the 1600s. The AMD Radeon RX 9060, at 1% faster, represents the closest modern alternative. The practical takeaway: this combo's rank 1709 is not a fixed ceiling but a reflection of the RX 7700's mid-pack GPU performance, and swapping to any of the four nearest GPU rivals would shift the ranking by only a few dozen positions at most.

The Verdict

The verdict data is unambiguous: this PC can run Lockdown Protocol at playable frame rates across all tested resolutions, but with important caveats at 4K. At 1920x1080, every preset—Low (200 FPS), Medium (142 FPS), High (124 FPS), and Ultra (93 FPS)—clears the 60 FPS threshold with substantial margin. The 1440p results are equally strong: Low (147 FPS), Medium (104 FPS), High (91 FPS), and Ultra (68 FPS) are all above 60 FPS, with Ultra being the "best settings" choice at 68 FPS average. This makes 1440p the sweet spot for this combo, as it delivers Ultra-quality visuals while maintaining smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the verdict becomes more nuanced. The playable settings list includes Low (95 FPS) and Medium (67 FPS), but High (59 FPS) and Ultra (44 FPS) fall below the 60 FPS threshold. The best playable setting at 4K is Medium, with an average of 67 FPS and a minimum of 57 FPS. This means the combo can run 4K, but only with reduced quality settings. The 1 FPS gap between High (59 FPS) and the 60 FPS threshold is particularly frustrating, as it suggests that minor tweaks—such as disabling a few demanding effects—could push High settings into playable territory. However, based on the measured data, the official verdict restricts 4K to Medium settings. For gamers who prioritize resolution over quality, this is a usable 4K experience; for those who insist on High or Ultra at 4K, this combo will disappoint. The 1440p Ultra result of 68 FPS is the most compelling argument for this pairing: it offers near-4K visual fidelity with a comfortable frame rate margin.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data reveals consistent scaling patterns across resolutions and presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset produces an average of 200 FPS, which is the highest recorded result for this combo. Medium averages 142 FPS with a minimum of 121 and maximum of 163, showing a 42 FPS spread that indicates some frame time variance. High averages 124 FPS, and Ultra averages 93 FPS—both without reported minimum or maximum values. The 1080p results show that this combo has enormous headroom at the lowest resolution, with even Ultra leaving 33 FPS of margin above the 60 FPS threshold.

At 2560x1440, the results follow a similar pattern but with reduced margins. Low averages 147 FPS, Medium averages 104 FPS (minimum 88, maximum 120), High averages 91 FPS, and Ultra averages 68 FPS. The Medium preset's 88 FPS minimum is notable because it represents the lowest 1% frame rate recorded at this resolution, yet it remains comfortably above 60 FPS. The Ultra preset at 68 FPS average has no reported minimum, but the 23 FPS gap between Medium and Ultra suggests that Ultra is approaching the combo's practical limit at 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the data becomes sparser and more revealing. Low averages 95 FPS, Medium averages 67 FPS with a minimum of 57 and maximum of 77, High averages 59 FPS, and Ultra averages 44 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 57 FPS is the only recorded sub-60 FPS result across all 12 configurations, and it occurs in a preset that averages 67 FPS. This 10 FPS gap between minimum and average indicates that 4K Medium is borderline—it will occasionally dip below 60 FPS during intense scenes, even though the average is playable. The High preset's 59 FPS average is technically below the threshold, but it is close enough that in-game settings adjustments could tip it over. The Ultra preset's 44 FPS average is a definitive failure for smooth gameplay, representing a 34% drop from High.

Best Settings per Resolution

For 3840x2160, the best playable setting is Medium, which achieves an average of 67 FPS. This is the only resolution where the verdict restricts the user to a mid-tier preset. The Medium preset's minimum of 57 FPS is a concern—it means that during demanding scenes, frame rates will dip below 60 FPS—but the average remains playable. Users who want a more consistent experience could drop to Low (95 FPS), but Medium offers a better visual quality-to-performance tradeoff. The 1 FPS gap between High (59 FPS) and the 60 FPS threshold is the most frustrating data point in the entire dataset, as it suggests that a single settings tweak could make High viable.

At 2560x1440, the best setting is Ultra, with an average of 68 FPS. This is a remarkable result for a mid-range combo: it means the user can enable the highest quality preset at 1440p and still maintain a playable frame rate. The margin is slim (8 FPS above the threshold), but the absence of reported minimum/maximum values for Ultra at this resolution suggests the data may not capture the worst-case frame times. For a safer experience, High (91 FPS) or Medium (104 FPS) provide more headroom, but Ultra is officially rated as playable.

At 1920x1080, the best setting is Ultra, with an average of 93 FPS. This gives a 33 FPS margin above the 60 FPS threshold, which is ample for smooth gameplay. The 1080p results are so strong that the user could arguably enable Ultra and never think about performance again. The 200 FPS Low result suggests that the combo is capable of driving high-refresh-rate monitors at 1080p with reduced settings, but Ultra at 93 FPS is the recommended configuration for visual quality without sacrificing smoothness.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The nearest CPU rivals to the Intel Core i5-12400 offer a range of alternatives that would perform nearly identically in Lockdown Protocol. The AMD EPYC 7643 (average score 18697, 0.1% slower) is a server processor that would be an unusual choice for gaming, but its benchmark parity means frame rates would be statistically indistinguishable. The Intel Core i7-1355U (18730, 0.3% slower) is a low-power laptop chip, so it would only be relevant in a mobile context. The AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 (18811, 0.7% slower) represents a modern alternative with similar throughput. The Intel Core i3-14100F (18519, 0.9% faster) is the most practical alternative: it is likely cheaper and would deliver essentially identical performance in this GPU-bound game. Any of these CPUs paired with the RX 7700 would produce combo ranks within a few dozen positions of 1709.

On the GPU side, the nearest rivals paint a similar picture. The AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862, 0.1% faster) is a much older card and would likely lack the RX 7700's driver optimizations and modern feature set, despite the benchmark parity. The AMD Radeon RX 9060 (16014, 1% faster) is the most compelling modern alternative; it would push the combo rank slightly higher and might make 4K High settings playable, given the 1% performance advantage. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679, 1.1% slower) is a workstation card that would perform slightly worse. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (16129, 1.7% faster) is the strongest rival and would likely secure the 4K High threshold (59 FPS average) by a slim margin. None of these alternatives would fundamentally change the combo's character: this pairing is defined by solid 1080p and 1440p performance with marginal 4K capability, and swapping to any nearest rival would preserve that profile.