Lockdown Protocol

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and AMD Radeon RX 7600 pairing in Lockdown Protocol delivers a consistently smooth experience, but the game’s demands scale sharply with settings. The measured data indicates that the Low preset provides the most substantial performance headroom across all resolutions, making it the safest recommendation for competitive play. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 161.3 FPS, which is a massive lead over the next best option, Medium at 111.9 FPS. This 49.4 FPS gap is significant, suggesting that the Low preset avoids a specific bottleneck that the higher presets encounter.

For players prioritizing visual fidelity, the High preset is the only other setting that maintains a playable framerate at 1440p, hitting 75 FPS on average. At 1080p, High produces 99.5 FPS, which is still respectable, but the jump from High to Medium only yields a 12.4 FPS gain, while the jump from Medium to Low yields a 49.4 FPS gain. The data suggests that the Ultra preset is punishing across the board, dropping below 60 FPS even at 1080p with 73.4 FPS average. Therefore, the optimal experience for a high-refresh-rate monitor is the Low preset, while the High preset is the best choice for a balanced visual-to-performance ratio on standard 1080p and 1440p displays.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its benchmark results show a strong multi-threaded capability, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15045 and a single-core score of 2124. In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU’s influence is most evident when the GPU is not the limiting factor. At 1080p with the Low preset, the system reaches 161.3 FPS, a figure that is likely constrained by the CPU’s single-thread performance, as the GPU has far less work to do at these lower settings.

The processor’s 3DMark scores illustrate its scaling: a single-thread score of 696, a 4-thread score of 2579, and an 8-thread score of 3844. The data indicates that the CPU maintains a high level of performance when all threads are utilized, but the game may not fully leverage all 12 threads. The performance difference between the Low preset at 1080p (161.3 FPS) and the Medium preset (111.9 FPS) is substantial, suggesting that the game’s engine uses additional CPU overhead for higher settings, which this older CPU struggles to provide. The Ryzen 5 3600’s 32 MB of shared L3 cache is a notable asset, but the data points to the CPU being a limiting factor at high framerates, preventing the RX 7600 from reaching its full potential in lighter scenes.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Lockdown Protocol at 1440p smoothly?*

A: Yes, but only on the Low or High presets. At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 120 FPS, and the High preset averages 75 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 83.5 FPS, and Ultra falls to 56.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the maximum framerate achievable with this combo?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 161.3, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This is the only configuration that pushes past the 160 FPS mark in the data.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to the Low preset in terms of performance cost?

A: The Ultra preset is significantly more demanding. At 1080p, Ultra averages 73.4 FPS, which is 87.9 FPS less than the Low preset’s 161.3 FPS. At 4K, the gap widens further, with Ultra at 35.8 FPS and Low at 75.3 FPS, a difference of 39.5 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, the CPU appears to be the primary bottleneck, especially on the Low preset. The large FPS jump from Medium (111.9) to Low (161.3) suggests that reducing settings lowers the CPU load significantly, allowing the GPU to render frames faster.

Q: Is the 4K resolution playable on this hardware?

A: It depends on the settings. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 75.3 FPS, which is playable. The High preset averages 48.4 FPS, and Medium averages 51.9 FPS, both of which are borderline. Ultra is not playable, with an average of 35.8 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the Ryzen 5 3600 and RX 7600 ranks 1140 out of 1637 tested combos for Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the lower third of the database, indicating that while it is a functional pairing, many other configurations deliver higher framerates. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 18129 puts it in the 76th percentile of all CPUs, but its nearest rivals show how tight the competition is. The Intel Core i5-11400 scores 18150, a delta of -0.1%, and the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS scores 18101, a delta of 0.2%.

The GPU’s average benchmark score is 20258, placing it in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT, scores 20146, a delta of 0.6%, meaning the RX 7600 is actually 0.6% faster than its XT counterpart in this metric. The ranking of 1140 out of 1637 suggests that the system is held back more by the CPU than the GPU, as the CPU’s percentile (76) is higher than the GPU’s (63), but the overall combo rank is still relatively low. This indicates that while each component is capable individually, their combination in this specific game does not yield top-tier results.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a clear pattern of performance scaling across resolutions, but the impact varies significantly by settings. At the Low preset, the framerate drops from 161.3 FPS at 1080p to 120 FPS at 1440p, a 25.6% decrease, and then to 75.3 FPS at 4K, a 37.3% decrease from 1440p. This scaling suggests that the system becomes more GPU-limited as resolution increases, but the CPU is still able to keep up with the lower demand. In contrast, the High preset shows a different trend: 99.5 FPS at 1080p, 75 FPS at 1440p (a 24.6% drop), and 48.4 FPS at 4K (a 35.5% drop from 1440p).

The Medium preset follows a similar path: 111.9 FPS at 1080p, 83.5 FPS at 1440p, and 51.9 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most demanding: 73.4 FPS at 1080p, 56.8 FPS at 1440p, and 35.8 FPS at 4K. The consistent ~25% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~35% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates that the GPU, the RX 7600 with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth, is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions. The CPU’s role diminishes as resolution increases, as the GPU takes on more of the rendering load.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the performance hierarchy is clear. The Low preset delivers the highest average at 161.3 FPS. The Medium preset follows at 111.9 FPS, which is 49.4 FPS slower. The High preset averages 99.5 FPS, and the Ultra preset is the slowest at 73.4 FPS. This shows a 87.9 FPS difference between the lowest and highest settings.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset remains the top performer with 120 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 83.5 FPS, and the High preset averages 75 FPS. The Ultra preset is the only one below 60 FPS, with an average of 56.8 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 63.2 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset is the only one that remains above 60 FPS, averaging 75.3 FPS. The Medium preset averages 51.9 FPS, and the High preset averages 48.4 FPS. The Ultra preset falls to 35.8 FPS, which is less than half the framerate of the Low preset. The data confirms that 4K requires the lowest settings to maintain a playable experience on this hardware.