Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol is a demanding test for this pairing, and the recorded data makes that clear from the outset. The Intel Core i5-12400F is a six-core, twelve-thread Alder Lake processor with a 73rd percentile standing across all CPUs in the database, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 sits in the 40th percentile of all GPUs. That asymmetry, a mid-range CPU paired with an entry-level graphics card, defines how this configuration behaves in the game. Across twelve measured combinations of resolution and preset, only one clears the 60 FPS playability threshold, and it is the least demanding of them all.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measurements cover three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160) and four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). All figures below are average frame rates from the recorded runs.

Starting at 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested:

• Low: 76 FPS average. This is the only result in the entire dataset that exceeds the 60 FPS threshold.
• Medium: 54 FPS average, with frame times ranging from a minimum of 46 to a maximum of 62. The maximum brushes the playability line, but the average sits below it.
• High: 47 FPS average, a drop of 7 FPS from Medium.
• Ultra: 35 FPS average, less than half the Low-preset figure.

Moving up to 2560x1440:

• Low: 56 FPS average. This is close to playable but still short of the 60 FPS bar.
• Medium: 40 FPS average, with a minimum of 34 and a maximum of 46.
• High: 35 FPS average, on par with the 1080p Ultra result.
• Ultra: 26 FPS average.

At 3840x2160 the results fall off sharply:

• Low: 36 FPS average, which is lower than the 1080p Ultra figure.
• Medium: 26 FPS average, with a minimum of 22 and a maximum of 29.
• High: 22 FPS average.
• Ultra: 17 FPS average, the weakest number in the dataset.

Two patterns stand out. First, the frame rate roughly halves when moving from 1080p to 4K at any given preset: Low goes from 76 to 36, Medium from 54 to 26, High from 47 to 22, and Ultra from 35 to 17. That near-perfect scaling with pixel count is the signature of a graphics-card bottleneck. Second, the min/max spreads recorded at Medium are proportionally tight (46 to 62 at 1080p, 34 to 46 at 1440p, 22 to 29 at 4K), which indicates consistent frame delivery rather than erratic stutter, even though the averages themselves are low.

Best Settings per Resolution

Applying the 60 FPS playability threshold to the measured data:

• 1920x1080: Low preset at 76 FPS average. This is the only resolution where any preset qualifies, and even then it is the single entry on the list. Medium at 54 FPS falls short.
• 2560x1440: No preset qualifies. The best available result is Low at 56 FPS average, which misses the threshold by a small margin, but a miss is a miss.
• 3840x2160: No preset qualifies. The best available result is Low at 36 FPS average, far below the bar.

The verdict data confirms this: only 1080p lists a playable setting (Low), while both 1440p and 4K list none at all. There is no headroom to trade resolution for image quality here. The 1080p Low result is the ceiling of what this configuration delivers in Lockdown Protocol.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at hardware that would deliver a comparable experience, the database places the Core i5-12400F alongside several near-equal CPUs. The AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS posts an average benchmark score of 19047 against the Intel chip's 19039, a statistical tie at effectively zero difference. The Intel Core 3 201E scores 19056, marginally higher, and the Intel Core i5-1335U comes in at 18982, essentially identical. Interestingly, the AMD EPYC 7773X also lands at 18979 on the composite average, despite being a very different class of product; the aggregate score similarity suggests these four chips would feed a mid-range graphics card in broadly similar fashion in game workloads.

On the graphics side, the GTX 1650's average score of 7472 is closely matched by the AMD Radeon HD 8850M at 7447, a difference of a fraction of a percent. The Intel UHD Graphics 750 at 7441 and the AMD Radeon R7 350 at 7425 sit just below it. The Intel Arc A310 at 7550 is the only listed rival that scores higher, by a small margin. Any of these GPUs paired with a comparable CPU would be expected to produce Lockdown Protocol results in the same territory as the numbers above: playable only at 1080p on reduced settings, and nowhere near 60 FPS at higher resolutions.

The Verdict

Can this PC run Lockdown Protocol? Only in a narrow sense. The configuration clears the 60 FPS playability threshold in exactly one scenario: 1920x1080 at the Low preset, averaging 76 FPS. Every other combination fails. At 1080p, Medium, High, and Ultra all average below 60. At 1440p, no preset reaches the threshold, with Low topping out at 56 FPS. At 4K, the results are decisively unplayable, peaking at 36 FPS on Low and bottoming out at 17 FPS on Ultra.

For a fast-paced FPS title where low latency and high frame rates matter, the practical takeaway is that this pairing confines the game to 1080p with reduced visual settings. Players sensitive to frame rates below 60 will find even that sole qualifying preset borderline in feel, though the recorded spread of 46 to 62 FPS at 1080p Medium suggests the experience degrades gradually rather than catastrophically as settings rise.

FAQ

Q: Can the i5-12400F + GTX 1650 run Lockdown Protocol at 1080p?

A: Yes, but only on the Low preset, which averages 76 FPS. Medium averages 54 FPS, below the 60 FPS playability threshold.

Q: Can this setup handle 1440p?

A: No. The best 1440p result is 56 FPS on Low, which misses the 60 FPS threshold. Medium manages 40 FPS, High 35 FPS, and Ultra 26 FPS.

Q: Is 4K playable at all?

A: Not with this hardware. Averages range from 36 FPS on Low down to 17 FPS on Ultra at 3840x2160, all far below playable levels.

Q: Which component is holding the configuration back?

A: The graphics card. Frame rates scale almost exactly with resolution, roughly halving from 1080p to 4K at every preset, which indicates the GTX 1650 is the limiting factor. The CPU sits in the 73rd percentile of all CPUs while the GPU sits in the 40th percentile of all GPUs.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to similar GPUs in the database?

A: Its average benchmark score of 7472 is essentially tied with the AMD Radeon HD 8850M (7447), Intel UHD Graphics 750 (7441), and AMD Radeon R7 350 (7425), and slightly below the Intel Arc A310 (7550).

Q: Does the frame rate stay stable at Medium settings?

A: Reasonably so. At 1080p Medium the recorded range is 46 to 62 FPS, and at 1440p Medium it is 34 to 46 FPS. The spread is proportionally tight, indicating consistent frame delivery even though the averages are modest.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database's tested configurations for Lockdown Protocol, this CPU and GPU pairing ranks 3580 out of 3714 combinations. That places it in the bottom portion of the field, consistent with what the raw FPS numbers show: a single playable result out of twelve tested scenarios. The rank reflects the GTX 1650's entry-level standing more than any weakness in the processor. The i5-12400F itself ranks respectably among CPUs, but a strong CPU cannot compensate for a graphics card averaging 17 to 76 FPS across the settings matrix. Roughly 130 configurations rank below this one, which gives a sense of how far performance falls in this game at the lowest end of the tested hardware spectrum.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling data tells a consistent story about which component governs performance at each resolution. From 1080p to 4K, average frame rates drop by 53 to 57 percent at every preset (Low: 76 to 36, Medium: 54 to 26, High: 47 to 22, Ultra: 35 to 17). When frame rate scales this tightly with pixel count, the graphics card is the constraint, because the CPU's workload changes little as resolution rises while the GPU's grows substantially.

The CPU-side evidence supports this reading. The Core i5-12400F carries a 73rd percentile ranking across all CPUs, with a single-thread Passmark score of 3481, a Geekbench single-core score of 1964, and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 12380. For a game genre that typically leans on a few fast threads, those numbers are more than sufficient to avoid a processor bottleneck at any tested resolution. The GTX 1650, by contrast, sits in the 40th percentile of all GPUs with 896 shading units, 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, and 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth, specifications that struggle with modern rendering loads at higher pixel counts.

The preset scaling reinforces the GPU-bound diagnosis. Dropping from Ultra to Low at 1080p more than doubles the frame rate, from 35 to 76, a 117 percent gain from settings alone. That sensitivity to visual quality, combined with resolution scaling that tracks pixel count almost linearly, means the practical lever for improving performance in Lockdown Protocol on this machine is the graphics subsystem. The processor has headroom to spare; the recorded data shows it is waiting on the GPU at every resolution and every preset tested.