Lockdown Protocol

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 delivers a consistently smooth Lockdown Protocol experience across all tested resolutions, with the data showing that 60 FPS is cleared at every preset from 1080p through 1440p, and even at 4K the combo manages to keep High settings playable. The benchmark results indicate that this pairing is a strong match for the game, with the GPU emerging as the primary performance driver as resolution increases, while the CPU's high multi-threaded throughput ensures no bottleneck at lower settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K on this system?

A: The data shows that High is the most demanding preset that remains playable at 3840x2160, producing an average of 72 FPS, while Ultra drops below the 60 FPS threshold to 54 FPS.

Q: How does this combo perform at 1440p Ultra settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Ultra settings, the system achieves an average of 84 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS playability threshold and represents a 30 FPS improvement over the 4K Ultra result.

Q: What is the maximum frame rate recorded for this system?

A: The highest average FPS in the measured data is 245 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings, indicating the system's capability for high-refresh-rate esports-style play.

Q: Is the Intel Core i7-13700K or the AMD Radeon RX 9070 the limiting factor?

A: The benchmark data suggests the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the frame rate drops by 42% when moving from 1440p High to 4K High, while the CPU's strong multi-threaded score of 30745 in Cinebench R23 indicates it can sustain high framerates at lower resolutions.

Q: Does this system support ray tracing for Lockdown Protocol?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9070 features 56 RT cores built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), which includes hardware-accelerated ray tracing capabilities, though the measured FPS data does not include ray tracing-specific benchmarks.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested systems for this game?

A: The combination ranks 1099th out of 3714 tested combos, placing it in the top 30% of all configurations tested for Lockdown Protocol, which indicates above-average performance relative to the entire database.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data reveals a clear division of labor between the Intel Core i7-13700K and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 depending on the resolution and preset selected. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 245 FPS, which is 135 FPS higher than the 110 FPS gap seen at 4K Low versus 4K High, suggesting that the CPU's 16 cores and 24 threads are more than sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions. The CPU's single-threaded performance, evidenced by a Geekbench single-core score of 2529 and a Passmark single-thread score of 4333, ensures that frame pacing remains consistent even when the GPU is producing very high framerates.

As resolution increases, the GPU's workload becomes the dominant factor, and the scaling between presets illustrates this shift. At 4K, moving from Low to Medium reduces average FPS from 116 to 82, a 29% drop, while moving from Medium to High brings it down to 72 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 54 FPS. The same preset progression at 1080p shows a much smaller relative penalty: Low to Medium drops from 245 to 174 FPS, Medium to High from 174 to 152 FPS, and High to Ultra from 152 to 114 FPS. This pattern indicates that at 1080p the GPU still has headroom, while at 4K the RX 9070's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth become the binding constraint.

The CPU's influence is most visible at the lowest resolution and preset combination, where the 245 FPS result at 1080p Low is 65 FPS higher than the 180 FPS at 1440p Low, despite the GPU having less work to do in terms of pixel count. This suggests that at 1080p Low, the system is approaching the limits of what the CPU can process per frame, although the i7-13700K's 3DMark max-threads score of 12412 indicates it has substantial multi-threaded capacity for game logic and physics calculations. The GPU's 36.13 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 564.5 GTexel/s texture rate are the metrics that correlate most strongly with the FPS differences seen between presets at each resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-13700K and AMD Radeon RX 9070 achieves a rank of 1099 out of 3714 tested combos for Lockdown Protocol, placing it within the top 29.6% of all configurations in the database. This ranking is notable because the individual components have different percentile standings: the CPU sits at the 89th percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 46881, while the GPU sits at the 69th percentile among all GPUs with an average score of 23877. The combo's rank is therefore more heavily weighted by the CPU's strong relative performance, with the GPU still providing adequate throughput for this particular game's demands.

The rank of 1099 indicates that the system outperforms roughly 70% of all tested configurations, which is a solid result for a pairing that includes a high-end desktop CPU from the 13th generation and a mid-to-high-end GPU from the RX 9000 series. The data shows that the system's performance is consistent across all presets at 1440p and 1080p, with every settings combination clearing 60 FPS, which is a stronger outcome than many lower-ranked combos that may only achieve playability at Medium or Low presets. At 4K, the system still manages to keep High settings above 60 FPS, which further reinforces its position in the upper third of the ranking distribution.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The nearest rivals for the Intel Core i7-13700K, based on average benchmark scores, include the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 with a score of 46971 and a delta of -0.2%, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 at 47022 with a -0.3% delta, the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX at 46654 with a +0.5% delta, and the Intel Xeon w3-2535 at 46653 with a +0.5% delta. These CPUs all fall within a narrow 0.8% performance band around the i7-13700K's average score of 46881, meaning that swapping to any of these processors would result in nearly identical frame rates in Lockdown Protocol, assuming the GPU remains the same.

For the AMD Radeon RX 9070, the nearest GPU rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z with an average score of 23736 and a +0.6% delta, the AMD Radeon RX 6800S at 24063 with a -0.8% delta, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile at 23628 with a +1.1% delta, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER at 24170 with a -1.2% delta. These GPUs all perform within 1.2% of the RX 9070's average score of 23877, indicating that any of these alternatives would produce essentially the same FPS results in Lockdown Protocol at all resolutions and presets. The tight clustering of these scores means that the choice between these GPUs would not meaningfully change the playability verdict for this game.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that maintains an average of at least 60 FPS is High, which produces 72 FPS on average with the data showing no minimum FPS below the threshold. The Medium preset achieves 82 FPS with a minimum of 70 FPS, and Low reaches 116 FPS, but Ultra drops to 54 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS playability threshold, making High the optimal choice for visual quality while maintaining smooth gameplay.

At 2560x1440, Ultra is the best settings preset, delivering an average of 84 FPS, which is 24 FPS above the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset achieves 112 FPS, Medium reaches 128 FPS, and Low tops out at 180 FPS, all of which are well above playable levels, but Ultra provides the highest visual quality without sacrificing frame rate smoothness.

At 1920x1080, Ultra again is the top recommendation, achieving 114 FPS on average, which is 54 FPS above the threshold. High produces 152 FPS, Medium hits 174 FPS with a minimum of 148 FPS, and Low reaches 245 FPS, demonstrating that the system has substantial headroom at this resolution even with all settings maxed out.

The Verdict

The data confirms that this PC can run Lockdown Protocol with excellent performance across all tested resolutions. At 3840x2160, the system achieves 60 FPS or higher on Low, Medium, and High presets, with High being the best playable setting at 72 FPS average, while Ultra falls short at 54 FPS. At 2560x1440, every preset including Ultra clears the 60 FPS threshold, with Ultra delivering 84 FPS average, and at 1920x1080, all presets are playable with Ultra reaching 114 FPS average.

The verdict is unambiguous: this combination of the Intel Core i7-13700K and AMD Radeon RX 9070 provides a thoroughly playable experience for Lockdown Protocol at 1080p and 1440p with maximum settings, and at 4K with High settings. Players seeking the absolute highest visual fidelity at 4K would need to accept the 54 FPS average on Ultra, but the 72 FPS result on High offers a strong compromise that maintains smooth gameplay. The system's rank of 1099 out of 3714 combos and the CPU's 89th percentile standing suggest that this pairing is well-balanced for this title, with the GPU's 69th percentile being sufficient to complement the CPU's strengths at the resolutions where this game is most likely to be played.