Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol presents an unusual pairing challenge: an eight-core Zen 5 desktop CPU paired with an integrated graphics solution. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a high-end 2025 processor, but the Intel Arc B390 is an IGP with a 9th percentile ranking among all GPUs. The measured data shows a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-limited at every resolution and settings level, making the CPU's theoretical strength largely irrelevant for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent, confirming that the Intel Arc B390 is the primary limiting component. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 88 FPS at 1920x1080 to 65 FPS at 2560x1440, a 26% reduction. Pushing further to 3840x2160 drops the average to 42 FPS, which is just 48% of the 1080p performance. This pattern is not linear; the scaling penalty intensifies as resolution increases, which is typical for a GPU that is running out of pixel throughput.

The High settings row tells a similar story. Starting at 55 FPS at 1080p, the average drops to 40 FPS at 1440p and then to 26 FPS at 4K. The delta between 1440p and 4K here is 14 FPS, a 35% loss. For comparison, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 15 FPS, a 27% loss. The proportional loss is slightly worse at higher resolutions, suggesting the GPU's fixed-function units (ROPs and TMUs) are being saturated. The Arc B390 has only 24 ROPs and a pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s, which is a modest figure for handling 4K workloads.

The scaling behavior indicates that the Ryzen 7 9700F is never the bottleneck. If the CPU were limiting, we would expect the FPS to remain flat or even increase slightly at lower resolutions where GPU load decreases. Instead, the data shows a clear monotonic decrease in FPS as resolution increases across all four settings presets. The 9700F's 5.50 GHz boost clock and 16 threads are more than sufficient to feed this GPU. The frame rate is being dictated by the Arc B390's ability to rasterize pixels, not by the CPU's ability to prepare draw calls.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested hardware combinations, this pairing lands at rank 2512 out of 2828 combos for Lockdown Protocol. That places it in the bottom 11% of all tested systems, which is a poor result for a CPU that sits in the 94th percentile of all processors. The disconnect between the CPU's high Passmark average score of 69996 and the in-game rank is stark. The GPU's 9th percentile ranking (with an average 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1482) drags the entire combo down.

Looking at the GPU's nearest rivals puts this into perspective. The Arc B390 scores just 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX and 1.5% higher than the GeForce 800M. It is only 2.7% ahead of the GeForce GT 710. These are all legacy or entry-level mobile/desktop parts from a decade ago. The data suggests that in Lockdown Protocol, this IGP is performing at a level comparable to those very old discrete GPUs, despite being built on a 3 nm process with 1536 shading units. The 7.680 TFLOPS FP32 figure does not translate into competitive gaming performance here.

The combo rank is heavily influenced by the GPU's low 9th percentile score. While the CPU's nearest rivals (AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, Intel Core i7-14700KF) are within 0.9% of the 9700F's average score, that proximity in CPU performance does nothing to improve the gaming outcome. The 2512th rank out of 2828 combos is a direct reflection of the GPU's inability to produce high frame rates in this FPS title. For context, the CPU's own benchmark scores show a strong single-thread result of 4691 and a multithread score of 36470, but these metrics are irrelevant when the GPU caps the frame rate at under 90 FPS even at 1080p Low.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that players should prioritize the Low preset if the goal is maximum smoothness. At 1920x1080, Low delivers an average of 88 FPS, which is the only settings/resolution combination that approaches high-refresh-rate territory. Medium at 1080p drops to 63 FPS, a 28% reduction in average FPS for what might be a minor visual improvement. The Ultra preset at 1080p yields only 41 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that most FPS players consider acceptable.

At 2560x1440, the choice becomes more constrained. Low is the only preset that remains above 60 FPS, with an average of 65 FPS. Medium falls to 46 FPS, High to 40 FPS, and Ultra to 30 FPS. For 1440p gaming, the data shows that Low is the only viable option for a playable experience. The step from Low to Medium costs 19 FPS, which is a significant hit for a single settings tier.

At 3840x2160, no preset achieves even 45 FPS. Low averages 42 FPS, Medium 30 FPS, High 26 FPS, and Ultra 19 FPS. The 4K resolution is not practical for this combo in Lockdown Protocol if smooth gameplay is required. The recommendation based on the data is clear: use Low settings at 1080p or 1440p. The 1080p Medium preset (63 FPS average) is a compromise, but the 1440p Low preset offers a higher resolution with a slightly lower frame rate, which may be preferable for image quality over settings quality.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080: The best performance is found at Low settings, with an average of 88 FPS. Medium settings produce an average of 63 FPS, with a minimum of 53 FPS and a maximum of 72 FPS, indicating some frame time variance. High settings average 55 FPS. Ultra settings are the slowest, averaging 41 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 47 FPS, showing a heavy performance cost for higher visual fidelity.

2560x1440: Low settings average 65 FPS. Medium settings drop to 46 FPS, with a minimum of 39 FPS and a maximum of 53 FPS. High settings average 40 FPS. Ultra settings average 30 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 35 FPS at this resolution, but the absolute numbers are lower across the board.

3840x2160: Low settings average 42 FPS. Medium settings average 30 FPS, with a minimum of 25 FPS and a maximum of 34 FPS. High settings average 26 FPS. Ultra settings average 19 FPS. At 4K, even the Low preset struggles to maintain a stable 40+ FPS average, and the Ultra preset drops below 20 FPS, which is effectively unplayable for a fast-paced FPS.

The Medium preset is the only one with recorded min/max FPS data across all resolutions. At 1080p, the variance is 19 FPS (53-72). At 1440p, the variance is 14 FPS (39-53). At 4K, the variance is 9 FPS (25-34). This suggests that higher resolutions compress the frame time variance, but that is likely because the GPU is consistently saturated rather than experiencing occasional spikes.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture (Panther Lake chip). It has a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz. The memory is "System Shared," meaning it uses the system's DDR5 RAM, and the bandwidth is listed as "System Dependent." This is a critical limitation. The 9700F supports dual-channel DDR5 with a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, but the GPU must share that bandwidth with the CPU. In gaming workloads, this shared bandwidth often becomes a bottleneck, particularly at higher resolutions where the GPU needs to fetch more texture data.

The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1482 places it at the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all NVIDIA parts from the GT 5xx/7xx era. The 1.3% delta to the GT 520MX and 2.7% delta to the GT 710 illustrates that while the Arc B390 is technically newer, its raw performance in this benchmark is equivalent to those ancient parts. With 1536 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 24 ROPs, the GPU is not lacking in core count, but the system-shared memory and low power envelope (80 W TDP) severely limit its real-world throughput.

The data shows that VRAM is not a discrete factor here because the memory is system-shared. There is no dedicated VRAM pool to exhaust. Instead, the performance is tied to the system's DDR5 bandwidth and latency. The boost clock of 2500 MHz is decent for an IGP, but the pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s are the limiting factors when moving from 1080p to 4K. The FPS drop from 88 to 42 at Low settings when going from 1080p to 4K (a 52% reduction) aligns with the GPU being asked to process roughly four times the pixel count, even if not all pixels are fully shaded due to the Low preset.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Lockdown Protocol at 60 FPS?

A: Only at 1920x1080 with Low settings, which produces an average of 88 FPS. At 2560x1440 Low, the average is 65 FPS. No preset at 3840x2160 reaches 60 FPS; the best is Low at 42 FPS.

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F the bottleneck in this system?

A: No. The benchmark data shows the FPS drops consistently as resolution increases, which is a classic sign of GPU limitation. The CPU's Passmark single-thread score of 4691 and multithread score of 36470 are strong, but they are irrelevant here because the Intel Arc B390 cannot keep up.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B390 scores 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, 1.5% higher than the GeForce 800M, 2.5% higher than the GT 625 OEM, and 2.7% higher than the GT 710 in the 3DMark Steel Nomad benchmark.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1440p?

A: Low settings are the only option for a playable frame rate, averaging 65 FPS. Medium drops to 46 FPS, which is a 29% performance loss and may be noticeable in a fast-paced FPS.

Q: Why does the 4K Ultra preset perform so poorly?

A: The 4K Ultra preset averages 19 FPS. This is due to the Arc B390's limited pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and the system-shared memory, which cannot provide sufficient bandwidth at such a high resolution and settings level.

Q: Does the CPU's high benchmark score help in this game?

A: No. The combo ranks 2512 out of 2828 tested systems. The CPU is in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, but the GPU is in the 9th percentile. The gaming performance is entirely dictated by the GPU's low 3DMark score of 1482.