Lockdown Protocol

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 delivers a playable but heavily constrained experience in Lockdown Protocol, with the GPU acting as the definitive bottleneck across all tested resolutions. The data shows that this combination ranks in the bottom 4% of all tested configurations, sitting at rank 2723 out of 2828 combos, indicating that while the CPU is a top-tier performer, the graphics card severely limits the overall frame rate output.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results clearly indicate that the Low preset is the only viable option for achieving consistently smooth gameplay, while Medium serves as a compromise for users willing to tolerate occasional dips below 60 FPS. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 77 FPS, which is the only setting that breaks the 60 FPS threshold at any resolution. The Medium preset at 1080p produces an average of 54 FPS with a minimum of 46 FPS, meaning that during intense firefights or crowded scenes, frame rates will drop into the 40s, which can feel stuttery in a fast-paced FPS title.

The High preset at 1080p drops to 47 FPS average, and the Ultra preset falls to 36 FPS, both of which are below the ideal range for competitive shooting. Given that Lockdown Protocol is an FPS where reaction time matters, the Low preset at 1080p is the recommended choice, as it provides the highest average frame rate and avoids the sub-60 dips seen in Medium. For users with monitors that support variable refresh rates, the Medium preset at 1080p might be acceptable, as the 46 FPS minimum is still above the 30 FPS threshold that typically signals unplayable performance.

At 2560x1440, the situation becomes more restrictive. The Low preset yields 56 FPS average, which is playable but not ideal for competitive play. The Medium preset drops to 40 FPS average with a minimum of 34 FPS, and the High preset falls to 35 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p is effectively unplayable at 26 FPS. For 1440p users, the Low preset is the only reasonable choice, and even then, the experience will be suboptimal compared to 1080p. At 3840x2160, all presets fail to reach playable frame rates, with Low at 36 FPS, Medium at 26 FPS, High at 22 FPS, and Ultra at 17 FPS. The data does not support using this combo at 4K for any serious gameplay.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the primary limiting factor in this configuration, and its specifications confirm why it struggles with Lockdown Protocol. The GPU features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is modest by modern standards. Its architecture is GCN 4.0 based on the Polaris 20 chip, manufactured on a 14 nm process at GlobalFoundries. The card operates with a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective). With 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units, the RX 570 delivers 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s.

The GPU's percentile ranking against all GPUs is 74, which places it in the upper quartile of all graphics cards, but this is misleading in the context of a modern FPS title. The nearest rivals to the RX 570 include the AMD Radeon RX 6800M with a deltaPct of -0.4, the AMD Radeon R9 M295X at 0.7, the AMD Radeon RX 470 at -0.8, and the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 at 1.2. These deltas are all within 1.2% of the RX 570's average benchmark score of 28766, indicating that the card performs in a narrow band with its immediate peers. However, the 4 GB VRAM capacity is a critical weakness for Lockdown Protocol at higher resolutions and settings, as the game likely exceeds this capacity at 1440p and 4K, causing significant performance degradation.

The GPU's end-of-life production status further emphasizes that it was not designed for the demands of a 2024 release like Lockdown Protocol. The card supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3, which are modern APIs, but the underlying hardware lacks the architectural efficiency of newer generations. The measured frame rates show a clear pattern: as resolution increases, the frame rate drops proportionally, which is characteristic of a GPU that is fully saturated even at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals that the GPU is the limiting component at every resolution, with the CPU having ample headroom to spare. At the Low preset, the average frame rate drops from 77 FPS at 1080p to 56 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 21 FPS (27%), and then to 36 FPS at 4K, a further reduction of 20 FPS (36%). This linear scaling pattern is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the number of pixels being rendered directly correlates with the workload. The transition from 1440p to 4K represents a 2.25x increase in pixel count, but the frame rate only drops by 36%, which suggests that the game is not purely pixel-limited but also constrained by other factors such as memory bandwidth or VRAM capacity.

At the Medium preset, the average frame rates are 54 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 26 FPS at 4K. The minimum frame rates for Medium are 46 FPS at 1080p, 34 FPS at 1440p, and 22 FPS at 4K, with maximums of 63 FPS, 46 FPS, and 30 FPS respectively. The gap between minimum and maximum frame rates widens as resolution increases, indicating that the GPU struggles to maintain consistent performance under load. At 4K Medium, the 8 FPS spread between minimum and maximum (22 to 30 FPS) shows severe frame time inconsistency, making the experience feel stuttery even if the average is 26 FPS.

The High preset shows a similar trend: 47 FPS at 1080p, 35 FPS at 1440p, and 22 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset drops to 36 FPS at 1080p, 26 FPS at 1440p, and 17 FPS at 4K. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p for High and Ultra presets is approximately 25-28%, while the scaling from 1440p to 4K is approximately 35-37%. This non-linear scaling suggests that the RX 570's 4 GB VRAM is being exceeded at 1440p and 4K, causing the GPU to rely on slower memory paging, which exacerbates the performance drop beyond what pure pixel count would predict.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the benchmark data shows a clear hierarchy across the four tested presets. The Low preset achieves the highest average of 77 FPS, which is the only result that meets the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset produces an average of 54 FPS, with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 63 FPS, indicating that while the average is below 60 FPS, there are moments where the game hits the target. The High preset averages 47 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 36 FPS. The 41 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p demonstrates the significant performance cost of higher graphical fidelity on this GPU.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 56 FPS, which is still above the 30 FPS playability threshold but falls short of the 60 FPS ideal. The Medium preset averages 40 FPS with a minimum of 34 FPS and a maximum of 46 FPS, showing that even the minimum frame rate is below the 60 FPS target. The High preset averages 35 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 26 FPS. The drop from 77 FPS at 1080p Low to 56 FPS at 1440p Low represents a 27% reduction, which is substantial but not catastrophic. However, the Medium preset at 1440p drops to 40 FPS, a 26% reduction from the 54 FPS at 1080p Medium, and the minimum frame rate of 34 FPS approaches the threshold where gameplay becomes noticeably choppy.

At 3840x2160, all presets fail to deliver acceptable performance. The Low preset averages 36 FPS, which is technically playable but far from smooth. The Medium preset averages 26 FPS with a minimum of 22 FPS and a maximum of 30 FPS, showing that frame times are highly inconsistent. The High preset averages 22 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 17 FPS. The 4K results are uniformly below the 30 FPS minimum that most players consider the absolute floor for playability, with even the best preset (Low) barely exceeding that threshold. This indicates that the RX 570 is not suitable for 4K gaming in Lockdown Protocol under any settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 2723 out of 2828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the bottom 3.7% of all configurations. This ranking is primarily due to the GPU's limitations, as the CPU is a high-end part that ranks in the 94th percentile against all CPUs. The GPU, by contrast, ranks in the 74th percentile against all GPUs, but its absolute performance is insufficient for this game's demands. The data shows that this combo is outperformed by the vast majority of tested systems, which means that users with this pairing will experience significantly lower frame rates than the average player.

The low combo rank is consistent with the measured frame rates, which show that even at the lowest settings and resolution, the system only achieves 77 FPS average. This places the combo in a position where it cannot take advantage of high-refresh-rate monitors, as the frame rates are capped by the GPU's rendering capabilities. The CPU's high performance is effectively wasted in this configuration, as the GPU cannot keep up with the CPU's ability to feed frames. This is a classic case of imbalance, where a top-tier CPU is paired with an entry-level GPU, resulting in a system that underperforms relative to its component costs.

The nearest rivals to the CPU, such as the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX with a deltaPct of 0.2 and the Intel Core i7-14700KF with a deltaPct of -0.2, all exhibit similar average benchmark scores around 70000. This indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor in any of these configurations. Similarly, the GPU's nearest rivals, including the AMD Radeon RX 6800M at -0.4 and the AMD Radeon RX 470 at -0.8, all have average benchmark scores around 28766, showing that the RX 570 is performing as expected for its class. The bottleneck is therefore entirely on the graphics side.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a high-performance desktop processor that provides more than enough compute power for Lockdown Protocol, but its capabilities are largely unused due to the GPU bottleneck. The CPU features 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Granite Ridge, manufactured on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, along with ECC memory support. It connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes from the CPU.

The CPU's benchmark scores are exceptional, with a multithread score of 36470, a single-thread score of 4691, and an integer math score of 120788. These results place the CPU in the 94th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 69996. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX with a deltaPct of 0.2, the Intel Core i7-14700KF at -0.2, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X at 0.7, and the Intel Core i7-14700K at 0.9. All of these deltas are within 1%, indicating that the 9700F performs on par with these high-end parts.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and AI calculations, which for an FPS title are typically not the primary bottleneck at moderate to high resolutions. The measured frame rates show that even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would be most likely to become a limiting factor, the system achieves 77 FPS, which is far below what the CPU is capable of delivering. The CPU's single-thread performance of 4691 ensures that it can handle the game's main thread without issue, and the 8-core, 16-thread configuration provides ample headroom for background tasks and future game updates. The 5.50 GHz boost clock is particularly beneficial for FPS games that rely on high IPC and clock speed for responsiveness.

The data clearly shows that the CPU is not the constraining component in this combo. The frame rates scale with resolution and settings in a manner consistent with GPU-bound performance, and the CPU's benchmark scores are among the highest available. For users considering an upgrade, replacing the RX 570 with a more powerful GPU would yield substantial frame rate improvements, as the CPU has significant headroom to support faster graphics cards without becoming a bottleneck.