Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with AMD Ryzen 7 5800X + AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

The measured frame rates for this AMD pairing in Lockdown Protocol reveal a system that scales predictably with resolution and settings, but with notable bottlenecks emerging at the highest presets. At 1080p Ultra, the combo delivers 109 FPS average, while dropping to 4K Ultra reduces that to 52 FPS — a 52% performance cut that points directly at the graphics card as the primary constraint. The data set shows consistent behavior across the board: the RX 7800 XT is clearly the limiting factor at high resolutions, while the Ryzen 7 5800X's 8-core, 16-thread configuration provides ample headroom to push frame rates well past 200 FPS at lower settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lives. At Low settings, the system produces 235 FPS at 1080p, 172 FPS at 1440p, and 111 FPS at 4K — that is a 53% reduction from 1080p to 4K, which is almost exactly proportional to the pixel count increase from 2.07 million to 8.29 million pixels. This near-linear scaling is the classic signature of a GPU-bound scenario: the CPU is not the constraint, and the graphics card's raw throughput determines the frame rate.

Moving to High settings, the scaling is even steeper in absolute terms: 146 FPS at 1080p drops to 107 FPS at 1440p, then to 69 FPS at 4K. The 4K figure is only 47% of the 1080p result, which is slightly worse than pure pixel-count scaling would predict. This suggests that at 4K High, the GPU is not only filling more pixels but also handling more complex shading and texture work per pixel, pushing the Radeon RX 7800 XT closer to its limits.

The Ultra preset shows the most aggressive degradation: 109 FPS at 1080p, 80 FPS at 1440p, and 52 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result represents just 48% of the 1080p Ultra figure. Interestingly, the gap between 1080p High and 1080p Ultra is 37 FPS (146 vs 109), while the gap between 4K High and 4K Ultra is only 17 FPS (69 vs 52). This compression of differences at higher resolutions is counterintuitive but revealing — it suggests that at 4K, the GPU is so heavily loaded that even the additional work required by Ultra settings produces diminishing returns in frame rate impact.

The medium preset data includes min and max FPS values, which provide insight into frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the system averages 167 FPS with a minimum of 142 and maximum of 192 — a 50 FPS spread. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 122 FPS with a range of 104 to 141. At 4K Medium, the average is 79 FPS with a range of 67 to 91. The relative spread (max minus min divided by average) is remarkably consistent at around 30%, which indicates the frame time variance scales proportionally with the average frame rate. This is a sign of stable GPU utilization rather than erratic CPU spikes.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Lockdown Protocol with this CPU-GPU combo?

A: The data shows 1440p High as the sweet spot, delivering 107 FPS average. This is well above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining high visual quality. At 4K High, the average drops to 69 FPS, which is playable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes.

Q: How much FPS does the Ultra preset cost compared to High?

A: At 1080p, Ultra costs 37 FPS over High (109 vs 146). At 1440p, the penalty is 27 FPS (80 vs 107). At 4K, the penalty shrinks to 17 FPS (52 vs 69). The relative penalty is largest at 1080p, where Ultra is 25% slower than High.

Q: Does the Ryzen 7 5800X bottleneck the Radeon RX 7800 XT in this game?

A: At Low settings, the system reaches 235 FPS at 1080p and 172 FPS at 1440p. These high frame rates suggest the CPU is keeping up with the GPU's output. The near-pixel-proportional scaling from 1080p to 1440p to 4K indicates GPU-bound behavior, not CPU limitation.

Q: What is the minimum FPS for the Medium preset?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with min FPS recorded. At 1080p, the minimum is 142 FPS. At 1440p, it drops to 104 FPS. At 4K, the minimum is 67 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

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

A: The combo ranks 1235 out of 3714 total combinations tested for Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the upper third of all systems, though not among the top performers.

Q: Is the RX 7800 XT's 16 GB VRAM sufficient for 4K Ultra?

A: The measured 4K Ultra average of 52 FPS suggests the card is compute-limited rather than VRAM-limited, as the frame rate is well above what would indicate memory swapping. The 16 GB capacity is ample for this game's requirements at any resolution.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium as the most balanced preset across all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the system delivers 167 FPS average with a 142 FPS minimum, providing a very smooth experience with room to spare. At 1440p Medium, the 122 FPS average and 104 FPS minimum remain comfortably above the 100 FPS mark, making this the recommended combination for high-refresh-rate monitors. Even at 4K Medium, the 79 FPS average and 67 FPS minimum keep gameplay fluid, though the minimum is getting close to the 60 FPS threshold.

High settings offer a meaningful visual upgrade over Medium, but the frame rate cost is significant. At 1080p High, the average drops to 146 FPS, which is still excellent. At 1440p High, 107 FPS is very playable. However, at 4K High, the 69 FPS average leaves little margin for drops in intense combat scenes. The data suggests that for 4K users, Medium is the safer choice, while 1440p users can comfortably run High.

Ultra settings are the most demanding and show the steepest drops. At 1080p Ultra, 109 FPS is still smooth, but the 52 FPS at 4K Ultra is below what most players would consider ideal for a competitive FPS. The gap between Ultra and High at 1080p is 37 FPS, which is a substantial 25% penalty for what may be marginal visual gains. Players prioritizing frame rate should stick with High or Medium, while those wanting maximum visual fidelity on a 1080p or 1440p monitor can justify Ultra.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings hierarchy is visible. Low settings produce 235 FPS average, the highest measured result in the entire data set. Medium settings reduce this to 167 FPS, with a minimum of 142 FPS and a maximum of 192 FPS. High settings further reduce the average to 146 FPS. Ultra settings deliver 109 FPS, which is the lowest 1080p result but still comfortably playable.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down proportionally. Low settings achieve 172 FPS, Medium averages 122 FPS with a 104-141 FPS range, High produces 107 FPS, and Ultra drops to 80 FPS. The step from High to Ultra at 1440p is 27 FPS, which is a 25% reduction — identical to the percentage penalty seen at 1080p. This consistency suggests the relative cost of Ultra settings is resolution-independent.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly straining. Low settings still manage 111 FPS, which is respectable for 4K. Medium averages 79 FPS with a 67-91 FPS range. High drops to 69 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 52 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 4K is 111 → 79 → 69 → 52, showing that the biggest single step is from Low to Medium (32 FPS drop), while Medium to High and High to Ultra are smaller steps of 10 and 17 FPS respectively.

The Medium preset is the only one with min and max FPS values recorded across all resolutions. The spread between minimum and maximum frames is 50 FPS at 1080p, 37 FPS at 1440p, and 24 FPS at 4K. In percentage terms, the max is 35% higher than the min at 1080p, 36% at 1440p, and 36% at 4K. This consistent relative variance indicates the frame pacing characteristics remain stable regardless of resolution.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is the dominant factor in this system's Lockdown Protocol performance. The card's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for this game at any resolution. The measured frame rates at 4K, particularly the 111 FPS at Low settings, demonstrate that the memory subsystem is not the limiting factor — the compute units are.

The card's clock profile shows a base of 1295 MHz, a game clock of 2124 MHz, and a boost clock of 2430 MHz. The game clock is the relevant figure for sustained gaming loads, and the measured performance suggests the card is hitting close to this target. The 3840 shading units and 240 texture mapping units provide the raw throughput needed for the pixel-heavy work at 4K. The 96 ROPs handle the final pixel output, and the pixel rate of 233.3 GPixel/s aligns with the observed 4K performance.

The RDNA 3.0 architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, delivers 37.32 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. This is the theoretical ceiling for the card's shader work, and the measured frame rates indicate the game is utilizing a significant portion of this capability. The card's 60 ray tracing cores are present, though the measured data does not specify whether ray tracing is enabled in any preset.

The GPU's percentile ranking is 51 among all GPUs, which places it exactly at the median. Interestingly, the nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (with a delta of -0.5%) and the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (with a delta of -1.8%). These rival cards are from older generations and lower tiers, yet their average benchmark scores are within 2% of the RX 7800 XT. This suggests that the RX 7800 XT's synthetic benchmark performance is not representative of its real-world gaming capability, as the measured FPS in Lockdown Protocol shows strong 4K performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X provides the computational foundation for this system. With 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture (codenamed Vermeer), this CPU was designed for high-refresh-rate gaming. The base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 4.70 GHz give it strong single-thread performance, which is critical for FPS games like Lockdown Protocol.

The CPU's benchmark results show a balanced profile. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15476 and single-core score of 1574.5 indicate strong all-around performance. The 3DMark results are particularly relevant: 16-thread score of 7586, 8-thread score of 6035, and single-thread score of 943. These show good scaling from 8 to 16 threads, with the 16-thread score being only 25% higher than the 8-thread score, suggesting diminishing returns from the additional threads.

The CPU's 32 MB of L3 cache and 64 KB L1 plus 512 KB L2 per core provide ample cache for game workloads. The dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth is adequate, though it is worth remembering this system uses DDR4 while the GPU uses GDDR6. The PCIe Gen 4 interface with 20 lanes provides sufficient bandwidth for the RX 7800 XT's PCIe 4.0 x16 connection.

The 5800X's percentile ranking is 81 among all CPUs, which is well above the GPU's 51 percentile. This disparity is telling: the CPU is far more capable relative to its peers than the GPU is. In the context of Lockdown Protocol, this means the CPU is unlikely to be the bottleneck in most scenarios. The nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H (0.1% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT (0.6% delta), showing the 5800X sits in a competitive performance tier.

The measured FPS data supports this analysis. At 1080p Low, the system produces 235 FPS, which is a very high frame rate that would require strong CPU throughput to feed the GPU. The fact that the frame rate scales almost perfectly with pixel count from 1080p to 4K indicates the CPU is not the constraint — if it were, the 1080p results would show lower frame rates than the pixel scaling would predict.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5800X and Radeon RX 7800 XT ranks 1235 out of 3714 tested combinations in Lockdown Protocol. This places the system in the 67th percentile of all tested combos, meaning it outperforms roughly two-thirds of systems while being beaten by one-third. Given the CPU's high percentile ranking (81) and the GPU's mediocre percentile ranking (51), the overall combo ranking reflects the GPU's relative weakness more than the CPU's strength.

The rank of 1235 suggests that while this system is capable of strong frame rates in absolute terms, many other combinations deliver higher performance. The data shows that the RX 7800 XT's synthetic benchmark score of 24176 in Passmark G3D is respectable, but its nearest rivals in that benchmark include cards like the GTX 1660 and RX 6500 XT, which are not typically associated with high-end gaming. This suggests the RX 7800 XT's real-world gaming performance may be more competitive than its synthetic scores indicate, but the combo's rank in Lockdown Protocol is still mid-pack.

The gap between the CPU and GPU performance tiers is the key takeaway. The 5800X is a top-tier CPU from its generation, while the 7800 XT is a mid-range GPU. In Lockdown Protocol, which appears to be GPU-bound at most settings, this imbalance means the system is not fully utilizing the CPU's potential. The 1080p Low result of 235 FPS shows the CPU can drive high frame rates, but the GPU cannot maintain those rates at higher settings and resolutions. Players looking to maximize performance from this combo should focus on optimizing GPU settings rather than CPU-related tweaks.