Lockdown Protocol

The pairing of Intel's Core Ultra 7 265 with AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT handles Lockdown Protocol comfortably at every tested resolution, with the single exception of Ultra settings at 4K, where the average frame rate dips just below the 60 FPS threshold. Benchmark results indicate the RX 9070 XT's 16 GB of GDDR6 and 48.66 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput give this build enough headroom to run the game's Ultra preset at 89 FPS at 2560x1440 and 121 FPS at 1920x1080, while a step down to High at 3840x2160 still delivers 76 FPS on average. All data below is measured, not estimated.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo scales from an average of 260 FPS on Low to 121 FPS on Ultra, with High landing at 161 FPS and Medium at 185 FPS. The Medium run is the only configuration at this resolution with full frame-time detail recorded: a minimum of 157 FPS and a maximum of 212 FPS. That spread means even the worst recorded moments at Medium stay well above double the 60 FPS playability threshold, which points to stable, consistent delivery rather than an average propped up by isolated peaks.

At 2560x1440, averages settle at 191 FPS on Low, 135 FPS on Medium, 118 FPS on High, and 89 FPS on Ultra. The Medium run again carries the recorded extremes: a minimum of 115 FPS and a maximum of 156 FPS. The gap between the Medium minimum and the 60 FPS line is nearly a factor of two, so 1440p play at that preset should remain fluid even in the game's most demanding scenes.

At 3840x2160, the numbers are 123 FPS on Low, 87 FPS on Medium, 76 FPS on High, and 57 FPS on Ultra. Medium's recorded range spans a minimum of 74 FPS to a maximum of 100 FPS. Ultra is the one preset that fails the 60 FPS bar at 4K — its 57 FPS average sits just under the threshold — but the margin is small enough that High, only three frames per second per tier below in structural terms, clears it with room to spare.

The resolution-to-resolution scaling tells a clean story. Dropping from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly a quarter of the frame rate at each preset; dropping from 1440p to 4K costs another quarter to a third. That proportionality is the signature of a GPU-limited workload, which the CPU analysis below reinforces.

Best Settings per Resolution

• 1920x1080 — Ultra, 121 FPS average. The maximum preset stays at double the playable threshold, making Ultra the obvious choice for full-HD play.
• 2560x1440 — Ultra, 89 FPS average. Ultra remains the most demanding preset that holds at or above 60 FPS, with a comfortable margin of nearly thirty frames.
• 3840x2160 — High, 76 FPS average. Ultra at 57 FPS falls short, so High is the ceiling at 4K. Medium at 87 FPS is an alternative for players who want a larger buffer, but High is the highest preset that qualifies.

In short: crank everything to Ultra up to 1440p, and back off one notch to High for 4K.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data indicates this game is GPU-bound on this hardware at every tested resolution. The evidence is in the scaling pattern: between 1080p and 4K, frame rates fall in near-constant proportion at each preset — 121 to 89 to 57 FPS on Ultra, 185 to 135 to 87 on Medium — which is exactly what happens when the graphics card, not the processor, sets the pace. A CPU-limited configuration would instead show frame rates flattening as resolution rises.

The preset scaling supports the same conclusion. Moving from Low to Ultra at a fixed resolution cuts performance by roughly half at every resolution — 260 to 121 at 1080p, 191 to 89 at 1440p, 123 to 57 at 4K. That sensitivity to visual settings, rather than to resolution alone, further indicates the RX 9070 XT is the component doing the limiting.

None of this means the Core Ultra 7 265 is a weak link. With 20 cores and 20 threads, a 5.30 GHz boost clock, a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42216 and a single-core score of 5960, and a 93rd percentile placement against all tested CPUs, it sits comfortably ahead of what a game of this type demands. The benchmark data simply shows the CPU has spare capacity at every setting combination tested; the frame rate ceiling is set by the Radeon card.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this exact CPU-plus-GPU pairing ranks 874th out of 3714 tested combinations for Lockdown Protocol. That places it in the top quartile of tested hardware — roughly the 76th percentile — which matches the measured results: comfortably above the playable line at nearly every setting, but not in the enthusiast stratum that pushes 4K Ultra past 60 FPS.

For context on the components individually, the Core Ultra 7 265 scores in the 93rd percentile against all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 64640. The RX 9070 XT sits in the 55th percentile against all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 13543, including a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 7260 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 65879. The combo's game ranking is therefore pulled closer to the GPU's standing than the CPU's — consistent with a GPU-limited title where the stronger processor cannot lift the frame rate further.

Similar Performance Alternatives

On the CPU side, the database's nearest rivals to the Core Ultra 7 265 are effectively interchangeable. The AMD EPYC 4464P averages 64823, within 0.3 percent; the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F averages 64438, within 0.3 percent; the AMD EPYC 7343 averages 64202, within 0.7 percent; and the AMD EPYC 9124 averages 65104, within 0.7 percent. Any of these would deliver functionally identical Lockdown Protocol performance alongside the RX 9070 XT, since the data shows the game does not lean hard on the processor in this configuration.

On the GPU side, the nearest listed rivals by average score are the AMD Radeon HD 7770M at 13536 (0.1 percent away), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 at 13515 (0.2 percent away), the NVIDIA P106-090 at 13470 (0.5 percent away), and the AMD Radeon Pro 555 at 13407 (1 percent away). These are the database's aggregate-score neighbors, so their overall benchmark averages cluster near the RX 9070 XT's 13543, even though the Radeon's modern DirectX 12 Ultimate support and measured game results position it as the reference point here. Swapping in any of these listed alternatives would, on the database's aggregate numbers, sit within about one percent of the reference card's average score.

The practical takeaway: because Lockdown Protocol is GPU-bound on this build, substituting any of the listed CPU alternatives changes nothing, while GPU substitutions along the listed rivals move aggregate scores by at most one percent.

The Verdict

Yes — this PC runs Lockdown Protocol well. At 1920x1080, every preset from Low through Ultra is playable, with Ultra delivering 121 FPS on average. At 2560x1440, the same holds: all four presets clear 60 FPS, and Ultra tops the chart at 89 FPS. At 3840x2160, Low, Medium, and High all pass — High at 76 FPS is the best qualifying preset — while Ultra at 57 FPS is the lone miss, falling three frames short of the threshold.

The recommended configuration is Ultra at 1440p or High at 4K, with the Medium preset's measured minimums (157 FPS at 1080p, 115 FPS at 1440p, 74 FPS at 4K) confirming that frame delivery stays consistent, not just high on average. For a fast-paced FPS where frame consistency matters, that combination of headroom and stability is the strongest argument for this pairing.