Lockdown Protocol

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers a performance profile in Lockdown Protocol that is heavily dictated by resolution and graphics settings. The data shows a system capable of high frame rates, but the scaling between presets reveals where the bottleneck shifts from the CPU to the GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and expected trend: frame rates decrease as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop is not uniform across all settings. At 1080p High, the combo produces 204.4 FPS, while at 1440p High it drops to 148.7 FPS, a reduction of about 27%. Moving to 4K High yields 95 FPS, another 36% decrease from the 1440p figure. This pattern indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is the limiting component, as the RTX 4080 SUPER has ample headroom to render frames quickly but is constrained by the Ryzen 5 5600G's processing throughput.

The scaling behavior becomes more pronounced at lower settings. At Low settings, the frame rate climbs to 247.6 FPS at 1080p, but this only translates to 226.4 FPS at 1440p and 156.4 FPS at 4K. The relatively small gap between 1080p and 1440p Low (a 21 FPS difference) suggests that the CPU is still the primary limiter at these settings, as the GPU is not being pushed hard enough to matter. However, the jump from 1440p Low to 4K Low (a 70 FPS drop) indicates that the GPU begins to take over as the bottleneck as pixel count increases, even with the workload reduced.

Conversely, at Ultra settings, the frame rates are significantly lower across the board: 157 FPS at 1080p, 110.9 FPS at 1440p, and 70.8 FPS at 4K. The scaling here is more linear, with the 4K result being less than half of the 1080p result. This suggests that the Ultra preset burdens the GPU heavily, making it the definitive limiting factor at all resolutions. The data implies that for players seeking maximum frame rates, dropping from Ultra to High at 1080p yields a 47.4 FPS improvement (from 157 to 204.4 FPS), which is a substantial gain that points to the CPU being the ceiling at lower graphical loads.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER's specifications play a critical role in these results. With 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, the card has a memory bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s, which is sufficient to handle the data demands of Lockdown Protocol at 4K without becoming a constraint. The GPU's boost clock of 2550 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz are the key drivers of its raw compute performance. The FP32 throughput of 52.22 TFLOPS indicates a high level of shading capability, which directly translates to the frame rates observed at Medium and High settings, where the GPU is not the bottleneck.

The data shows that the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. At 4K Ultra, the combo only manages 70.8 FPS, which is a modest result for a card that ranks in the 88th percentile among all GPUs. This indicates that the Ultra preset in Lockdown Protocol is particularly demanding, likely due to advanced effects that load the GPU's tensor and RT cores (320 and 80 respectively). The card's 10,240 shading units are being pushed to their limits at this setting, and the 112 ROPs are not sufficient to keep pixel throughput high enough to maintain higher frame rates.

In contrast, the GPU's role at 1080p Low is minimal. The 247.6 FPS result is likely constrained by the CPU's single-thread performance, which is 872 in 3dmark_single_thread. The RTX 4080 SUPER is effectively idle in this scenario, as the CPU cannot feed it enough draw calls to utilize its full potential. This is a classic case of a high-end GPU being paired with a mid-range CPU, where the GPU's capabilities are only fully realized at higher resolutions or more demanding settings.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal balance between visual fidelity and frame rate is achieved at High settings. At 1080p High, the combo delivers 204.4 FPS, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate of most gaming monitors. Moving to 1440p High yields 148.7 FPS, still excellent for competitive play. The jump from High to Ultra at 1440p costs 37.8 FPS (from 148.7 to 110.9 FPS), which is a significant drop for what is likely a marginal visual improvement. The data suggests that Ultra is not worth the performance penalty, especially since High already provides a smooth experience.

For players prioritizing frame rate over visuals, Low settings offer the highest performance, with 247.6 FPS at 1080p and 226.4 FPS at 1440p. However, Medium settings provide a better balance, with 218.9 FPS at 1080p and 174.4 FPS at 1440p. The difference between Low and Medium at 1080p is 28.7 FPS, which is noticeable but not critical for players who want better texture quality. At 4K, the recommendation is to stick with Low or Medium, as High (95 FPS) and Ultra (70.8 FPS) may not meet the 60 FPS minimum for some players' preferences. Medium at 4K gives 114.3 FPS, which is a strong result for 4K gaming.

The data clearly shows that High is the sweet spot for this combo. It avoids the CPU bottleneck seen at Low settings and the GPU saturation seen at Ultra, providing a balanced workload that maximizes the available hardware. Players with high-refresh-rate 1080p or 1440p monitors will find High to be the most practical choice.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured results provides a comprehensive view of the combo's performance. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 157 at Ultra to 247.6 at Low. The progression is 204.4 at High and 218.9 at Medium. This ordering shows that the CPU is the primary limiter at this resolution, as the differences between settings are relatively small compared to higher resolutions. The 90.6 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p (from 247.6 to 157) is the smallest absolute difference across all resolutions, reinforcing the CPU-bound nature of this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are 226.4 at Low, 174.4 at Medium, 148.7 at High, and 110.9 at Ultra. The drop from Low to Ultra is 115.5 FPS, which is larger than at 1080p. This indicates that the GPU is starting to become more influential, but the CPU still plays a significant role, particularly at Low settings where the 226.4 FPS result is only 21.2 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result. This suggests that the CPU can still keep up with the GPU at 1440p Low, but the gap widens as settings increase.

At 3840x2160, the results are 156.4 at Low, 114.3 at Medium, 95 at High, and 70.8 at Ultra. The scaling here is the most pronounced, with the difference between Low and Ultra being 85.6 FPS. The 4K Low result of 156.4 FPS is only 91.2 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result, which shows that the GPU is now the limiting factor. The 4K Ultra result of 70.8 FPS is below the 100 FPS mark, indicating that this setting is too demanding for this combo to maintain high frame rates at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

In the context of all tested combos for Lockdown Protocol, this pairing ranks 144 out of 1637 combinations, placing it in the top 8.8% of all systems tested. This is a strong ranking, but it is important to note that the ranking is based on the average FPS across all settings and resolutions. The combo's high rank is largely driven by the RTX 4080 SUPER's performance at 1440p and 4K, where the GPU can stretch its legs. The CPU's relative weakness, as indicated by its 78th percentile ranking among all CPUs, does not significantly hurt the overall ranking because the game appears to be more GPU-bound at higher resolutions.

When comparing to other combos, the CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-11600H and the AMD EPYC 7713P, with deltaPct values of 0.2% and -0.2% respectively. This means the Ryzen 5 5600G performs within a very tight margin of these processors in synthetic benchmarks, but the real-world impact is minimal given the GPU's dominance. The GPU's nearest rival is the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, which is only 0.2% behind in average score, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, which is 2.9% behind. The RTX 4080 SUPER's 88th percentile ranking among GPUs reflects its capability, and this is reflected in the combo's high rank in this game.

The rank of 144 out of 1637 is particularly impressive when considering that the CPU is a Ryzen 5 5600G, a processor with a 65 W TDP and a Zen 3 architecture that is not typically associated with top-tier gaming performance. The fact that this combo still outperforms 91.2% of all other tested combos in Lockdown Protocol underscores the importance of the GPU in this specific game. The data suggests that for players who already own a high-end GPU, the CPU choice has a limited impact on the overall experience, especially at higher resolutions where the GPU is the primary driver of frame rates.