Lockdown Protocol

The data for Lockdown Protocol, measured with the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, provides a clear picture of a high-end configuration. The benchmark results across resolutions and presets show a system capable of delivering high frame rates, with specific trade-offs between visual fidelity and performance. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS to determine the optimal settings, the CPU's role, and how this specific combination ranks against other tested hardware.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the High preset offers the most balanced experience across all three tested resolutions, providing a significant performance headroom above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining substantial visual quality. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 204.1 FPS, which is 48.6 FPS above the Medium preset's 238.3 FPS, but more importantly, it is 48.6 FPS below the Low preset's 318.7 FPS, showing that the GPU has ample headroom to handle more demanding settings without dropping below high refresh rates.

For 2560x1440, the High preset's 149.4 FPS is particularly compelling. It represents a 37.6 FPS improvement over the Ultra preset's 111.8 FPS, while only sacrificing 23.2 FPS compared to the Medium preset's 172.6 FPS. This places the High preset comfortably within the range for high-refresh-rate 1440p gaming, where the difference between 149.4 and 172.6 FPS is less perceptible than the visual jump from Medium to High. The data suggests that the High preset is the sweet spot for this resolution, as it avoids the steep performance cost of Ultra while offering better image quality than Medium.

At 3840x2160, the High preset yields 98.6 FPS, which is a good result for 4K gaming. The Ultra preset drops to 72.1 FPS, a significant 26.5 FPS reduction, while the Medium preset offers 113.5 FPS. The High preset's 98.6 FPS is only 14.9 FPS below Medium, but the visual improvement from Medium to High is typically more substantial than the marginal frame rate loss. Given that the Ultra preset falls below 75 FPS, the High preset is the recommended choice for 4K, as it maintains a smooth experience without the severe performance penalty of the highest settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS achievable with this CPU and GPU combo at 1080p?

A: The maximum measured average FPS is 318.7, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This drops to 155.5 FPS at the Ultra preset, showing a wide range of performance depending on the visual settings.

Q: How does the performance at 1440p Ultra compare to 1080p Ultra?

A: At 2560x1440 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 111.8. This is 43.7 FPS lower than the 155.5 FPS recorded at 1920x1080 with the same Ultra preset, indicating a substantial load increase on the GPU at the higher resolution.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at lower resolutions?

A: The data shows diminishing returns when lowering settings at 1080p. The jump from Low (318.7 FPS) to Medium (238.3 FPS) is an 80.4 FPS difference, while the jump from Medium to High (204.1 FPS) is 34.2 FPS. This suggests that while the GPU is still the primary limiter, the CPU's performance ceiling is being approached at the very high frame rates of the Low preset.

Q: What is the frame rate cost of using the Ultra preset over High at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages 72.1 FPS, which is 26.5 FPS lower than the High preset's 98.6 FPS. This represents a 26.9% performance reduction for the highest visual quality setting.

Q: Can this configuration handle a 144Hz monitor at 1440p?

A: Yes, the data indicates it can. The High and Medium presets at 2560x1440 produce 149.4 FPS and 172.6 FPS respectively, both exceeding the 144 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset at 111.8 FPS falls short of this target.

Q: How does the 4K Low preset performance compare to the 1080p Ultra preset?

A: The 3840x2160 Low preset averages 159 FPS, which is 3.5 FPS higher than the 1920x1080 Ultra preset's 155.5 FPS. This demonstrates that the GPU is capable of handling the increased pixel count of 4K more efficiently than the extreme shader and effect load of the Ultra preset at a lower resolution.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. In the context of Lockdown Protocol, a fast-paced FPS, the CPU's single-thread performance is critical for game logic, physics, and draw call processing. The benchmark data for the CPU shows a 3dmark_single_thread score of 1049, and a more relevant 3dmark_2_threads score of 2043, which reflects the engine's ability to utilize multiple cores for rendering tasks. The CPU's strong single-core and dual-core performance, as indicated by these scores, ensures that it can feed the RTX 4080 SUPER with enough data to maintain high frame rates.

The performance scaling in the measured FPS data supports this analysis. At 1920x1080, the difference between the Low preset (318.7 FPS) and the High preset (204.1 FPS) is 114.6 FPS. This large gap is primarily due to the GPU's workload at higher settings. However, the fact that the Low preset doesn't exceed 320 FPS suggests a CPU-imposed limit. The Ryzen 7 7700's 16 threads are ample for modern games, but its 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth are the key architectural features that help avoid stutters and maintain consistent frame pacing in a game like Lockdown Protocol, where large numbers of entities or destructible environments can stress the processor. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system is hitting a performance ceiling, which is likely the CPU's maximum frame generation capability.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination ranks at position 100 out of 1637 tested combos for Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the top 6.1% of all configurations tested, indicating a very high-performing system. This ranking is a holistic measure of the combo's ability to run the game, and it is consistent with the raw performance shown in the FPS data, which demonstrates high average frame rates across all resolutions and settings.

Looking at the individual component benchmarks, the CPU has a percentile ranking of 91 against all CPUs, while the GPU has a percentile ranking of 88 against all GPUs. The combo's in-game rank of 100 is slightly better than what either component's individual percentile might suggest, implying that the pairing is well-balanced for this specific title. The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H, has an average benchmark score of 40431, which is a mere 0.1% difference from the Ryzen 7 7700's 40468. This shows that the Ryzen 7 7700 is performing at the top of its class. Similarly, the GPU's nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, has an average score of 53489, just 0.2% behind the RTX 4080 SUPER's 53610. This high level of performance from both components contributes to the combo's strong ranking, placing it ahead of the vast majority of other systems in the database.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and expected trend: performance decreases as resolution increases. At the High preset, the average FPS drops from 204.1 at 1920x1080 to 149.4 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 54.7 FPS. Further increasing the resolution to 3840x2160 results in 98.6 FPS, another drop of 50.8 FPS. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a system where the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the increased pixel count demands more from the renderer.

The scaling becomes more pronounced at higher settings. For the Ultra preset, the FPS drops from 155.5 at 1080p to 111.8 at 1440p (a 43.7 FPS drop) and then to 72.1 at 4K (a 39.7 FPS drop). The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings is 53.6%, which is steeper than the 51.7% drop at High settings. This indicates that the combination of high resolution and high settings puts a significant strain on the GPU. Conversely, at the Low preset, the drop from 1080p (318.7 FPS) to 1440p (240.9 FPS) is 77.8 FPS, but the drop from 1440p to 4K (159 FPS) is 81.9 FPS. This shows that even at Low settings, the GPU's workload at 4K is substantial. The data suggests that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the component determining the frame rate at 1440p and 4K, while at 1080p with Low settings, the CPU's frame generation limit is likely being reached.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data for the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is as follows:

At 1920x1080:

• Low: 318.7 average FPS
• Medium: 238.3 average FPS
• High: 204.1 average FPS
• Ultra: 155.5 average FPS

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 240.9 average FPS
• Medium: 172.6 average FPS
• High: 149.4 average FPS
• Ultra: 111.8 average FPS

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 159.0 average FPS
• Medium: 113.5 average FPS
• High: 98.6 average FPS
• Ultra: 72.1 average FPS

This data reveals that the Low preset at 1080p is the only configuration to exceed 300 FPS, while the Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration to fall below 75 FPS. The gap between the Low and Ultra presets at each resolution is substantial: 163.2 FPS at 1080p, 129.1 FPS at 1440p, and 86.9 FPS at 4K. These figures quantify the significant performance cost of the Ultra preset, which is responsible for the largest frame rate drops. The consistent scaling across resolutions confirms the GPU-bound nature of the game at higher settings, while the compression of FPS ranges at 4K (from 159.0 to 72.1) shows that the GPU's raw power is the defining factor for the experience at this resolution.