Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol is a fast-paced FPS that scales aggressively across resolutions and settings, and the combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 produces a clear performance hierarchy. The data shows a system capable of extreme frame rates, with the limiting factor shifting from the GPU at 4K to the CPU at lower resolutions, making settings choices critical for maximizing the experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combination indicates that the Medium preset offers the optimal balance of visual fidelity and performance headroom across all three tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 255 FPS average, which is only 35 FPS behind the Low preset’s 290 FPS, while providing a substantial 84 FPS uplift over High settings. The Medium preset is the only configuration that provides a full set of min/max FPS data, showing a 217 FPS minimum, which ensures the gameplay remains fluid even during intense firefights.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again stands out, hitting 192 FPS average with a 163 FPS minimum. This is a 29 FPS improvement over High settings and a 67 FPS advantage over Ultra, while still being 69 FPS behind Low. The data suggests that High settings at 1440p are the first point where the system begins to lose the headroom needed for a locked high-refresh-rate experience, as the 167 FPS average is respectable but the lack of min/max data implies less stability. For 3840x2160, the Medium preset is the only viable option for smooth gameplay at 124 FPS average, with a 105 FPS minimum. High at 108 FPS and Ultra at 81 FPS are playable but begin to show the GPU’s workload.

The Ultra preset is consistently the least efficient choice across all resolutions, offering the lowest frame rates with no measurable benefit in the data provided. Low settings provide the highest FPS but sacrifice too much visual quality for the incremental gains, especially at 1080p where the 290 FPS ceiling does not justify the drop from Medium. Therefore, the data strongly supports Medium as the recommended preset for this hardware pairing, as it provides the best combination of average FPS, minimum FPS stability, and performance consistency.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this system achieves in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 290, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This is the maximum frame rate recorded in the data, with the next highest being 261 FPS at 2560x1440 on Low settings.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to Medium at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 125 FPS, which is 67 FPS lower than the Medium preset’s 192 FPS. The Ultra preset also lacks min/max frame data, indicating less consistent performance, making Medium the superior choice for competitive play.

Q: Is the RTX 4090 the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests the CPU becomes a significant factor at 1920x1080. The gap between Low (290 FPS) and Ultra (171 FPS) is 119 FPS, but the CPU's single-thread score of 951 in 3dmark and passmark single-thread score of 3685 indicate it may limit the GPU's full potential at such high frame rates.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for 4K Medium settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Medium settings, the minimum FPS is 105, with a maximum of 142 and an average of 124. This is the only 4K configuration with reported min/max data, showing a stable enough range for demanding gameplay.

Q: How much faster is 1080p High compared to 4K High?

A: The average FPS at 1920x1080 on High is 228, which is 120 FPS higher than the 108 FPS average at 3840x2160 on High. This represents a 111% increase in performance when dropping from 4K to 1080p.

Q: Does the Ryzen 5 8400F hold back the RTX 4090 in this game?

A: The benchmark data indicates a CPU limitation at lower resolutions. The 1080p Low preset’s 290 FPS is the ceiling, but the CPU’s 6-core/12-thread configuration with a 4.70 GHz boost clock might struggle to feed the GPU beyond that point, as the 4K results show the GPU scaling more predictably with settings changes.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications align with the measured frame rates in Lockdown Protocol. The GPU features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. This massive memory pool and bandwidth are crucial for handling the game’s textures and geometry at high resolutions, as evidenced by the 4K results. The GPU’s 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate provide ample raw performance for the game’s rendering demands.

The RTX 4090’s clock speeds, with a base of 2235 MHz and a boost of 2520 MHz, allow it to scale performance effectively when the CPU is not the limiting factor. This is visible in the 4K benchmarks, where the GPU is fully utilized. At 3840x2160, the average FPS drops from 124 on Medium to 81 on Ultra, a 34.7% reduction, which is a direct result of the GPU’s workload increasing with higher settings. The GPU’s 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores provide advanced features, though the data does not isolate their specific impact on this title.

The GPU’s performance percentile of 88 places it well above average, and its average benchmark score of 60347 is significantly higher than its nearest rivals, including the Intel Arc Pro A60 which is essentially tied at 60326 with a 0% delta. The RTX 4090’s 88th percentile ranking means it outperforms the vast majority of GPUs, which is consistent with the high frame rates observed. However, the data shows that at 1080p, the GPU is not always the bottleneck, as the frame rate differences between presets (290 FPS Low vs 228 FPS High) suggest that the CPU is starting to limit the GPU’s output. The GPU’s 24 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for any settings in this game, as no VRAM-related performance drops are evident in the measured data.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Lockdown Protocol with the Ryzen 5 8400F and RTX 4090 covers three resolutions and four settings presets, providing a comprehensive view of performance scaling. At 1920x1080, the system produces its highest frame rates. The Low preset averages 290 FPS, the Medium preset averages 255 FPS with a minimum of 217 and maximum of 293, the High preset averages 228 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 171 FPS. This shows a clear performance curve, with Low being 35 FPS faster than Medium, and Medium being 27 FPS faster than High.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates drop but remain exceptionally high. The Low preset averages 261 FPS, the Medium preset averages 192 FPS with a minimum of 163 and maximum of 220, the High preset averages 167 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 125 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 1440p is 69 FPS, which is larger than the 35 FPS gap at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is beginning to take on more of the workload. At 3840x2160, the GPU is fully engaged. The Low preset averages 174 FPS, the Medium preset averages 124 FPS with a minimum of 105 and maximum of 142, the High preset averages 108 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 81 FPS.

The data reveals that the Medium preset is the only one consistently providing min/max frame data across all resolutions, suggesting it offers the most stable frame pacing. The Ultra preset, by contrast, has no min/max data at any resolution, implying significant frame time variance. The difference between 1080p and 4K on the Medium preset is 131 FPS, from 255 to 124, which is a 51.4% reduction in average frame rate. This breakdown shows that the system is capable of extreme performance at lower resolutions, but the GPU’s workload becomes the primary factor at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is substantial and reveals the system’s bottleneck characteristics. On the Medium preset, the average FPS falls from 255 at 1080p to 192 at 1440p, a 24.7% decrease, and then to 124 at 4K, a 35.4% decrease from 1440p. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor as resolution increases. The 1080p to 1440p drop of 63 FPS is smaller than the 1440p to 4K drop of 68 FPS, showing that the GPU’s workload grows more steeply at higher resolutions.

Looking at the Low preset, the scaling is even more pronounced. From 290 FPS at 1080p to 261 FPS at 1440p is only a 10% drop, but from 1440p to 174 FPS at 4K is a 33.3% drop. This suggests that at Low settings and 1080p, the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU is not being fully stressed. The RTX 4090 has sufficient headroom at 1080p, but as the resolution increases, the GPU’s rendering workload becomes the dominant constraint. The High preset shows a similar trend, with a 26.9% drop from 1080p to 1440p (228 to 167 FPS) and a 35.3% drop from 1440p to 4K (167 to 108 FPS).

The Ultra preset exhibits the most dramatic scaling, dropping from 171 FPS at 1080p to 125 FPS at 1440p, a 26.9% reduction, and then to 81 FPS at 4K, a 35.2% reduction. This consistent pattern across presets indicates that the resolution scaling is primarily GPU-bound. The data shows that the CPU can maintain high frame rates at 1080p, but the GPU’s workload doubles or triples at 4K due to the increased pixel count. The RTX 4090’s 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth and 443.5 GPixel/s pixel rate are being fully utilized at 4K, as the frame rates fall to levels that are more typical for high-end GPUs at this resolution.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a base clock of 4.20 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its performance in the benchmark data shows a processor that is capable but not top-tier, ranking in the 77th percentile among all CPUs. The CPU’s 3dmark single-thread score of 951 and passmark single-thread score of 3685 indicate strong single-core performance, which is essential for FPS games like Lockdown Protocol. The 3dmark 16-thread score of 6091 and max-thread score of 6165 show that multi-threaded performance scales well with the 12 threads.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p with lower settings. The 290 FPS average on Low settings at 1920x1080 is likely near the CPU’s maximum throughput, as the GPU is not fully stressed at this resolution and settings combination. The CPU’s boost clock of 4.70 GHz allows it to handle the game’s physics and game logic quickly, but the 6-core/12-thread configuration may limit the ability to push beyond this frame rate. The CPU’s L3 cache of 16 MB is shared and relatively modest, which could impact performance in scenes with large amounts of data to process.

The CPU’s nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F, has an average score of 24964, which is only 0.2% different from the 8400F’s 25005, indicating they perform nearly identically. The Intel Core i7-13620H is 0.4% behind, and the AMD EPYC 9474F is 0.4% ahead. This shows that the 8400F is well-positioned among its peers, but it is not a high-end CPU by any means. At 4K, the CPU’s role diminishes, as the GPU becomes the bottleneck. The difference between the Low preset’s 174 FPS and Ultra’s 81 FPS at 4K is entirely due to GPU workload, as the CPU is not the limiting factor at this resolution.

The data suggests that the CPU is sufficient for this GPU pairing, but it does leave some performance on the table at 1080p. The 290 FPS ceiling on Low settings is high, but a more powerful CPU might push even higher. However, for most users, the 6-core/12-thread configuration with a 65W TDP is adequate, and the CPU’s percentile ranking of 77 confirms it is better than most processors available. The CPU’s role is to feed the GPU, and it does so effectively, except at the lowest resolutions and settings where its limits are reached.