Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol is a fast-paced FPS that stresses both the CPU and GPU, and this specific pairing of an AMD Ryzen 7 9700F with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti produces a clear performance hierarchy depending on resolution. The data shows a system that is exceptionally strong at 1080p and 1440p, but begins to show its limits at 4K, particularly when visual quality is pushed to its absolute maximum. The measured FPS values indicate that the combination of the 8-core Zen 5 processor and the Ampere flagship GPU is well-balanced for high-refresh-rate gaming at standard resolutions, but the demands of 4K Ultra tilt the bottleneck firmly toward the graphics card.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling behavior from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic transition from a CPU-bound to a GPU-bound workload. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces an average of 259 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 190 FPS, a reduction of 26.6%. At 4K Low, the average falls to 122 FPS, which is another 35.8% drop from the 1440p figure. This pattern indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU is capable of feeding frames far faster than the GPU can render them, but the GPU's rendering load becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises.

The scaling becomes more dramatic when looking at the High preset. At 1080p High, the average is 161 FPS. At 1440p High, it drops to 118 FPS, a 26.7% decrease. The jump to 4K High results in 76 FPS, which is a 35.6% reduction from the 1440p result. The consistency of these percentage drops across Low and High presets suggests a predictable scaling curve where the RTX 3080 Ti's raw compute and memory bandwidth are being taxed in a linear fashion relative to pixel count. The GPU's 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 912.4 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the data requirements at these settings, but the shading workload scales directly with resolution.

The most telling data point is the 4K Ultra result, which averages just 57 FPS. This is a 52.5% reduction from the 1080p Ultra average of 120 FPS. The gap between 4K High (76 FPS) and 4K Ultra (57 FPS) is 25%, which is notably larger than the 14.3% gap between 1440p High (118 FPS) and 1440p Ultra (88 FPS). This amplified penalty at 4K Ultra suggests that the GPU's 34.10 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 186.5 GPixel/s pixel rate are being saturated by the combination of high resolution and maximum settings. The data indicates that this combo is not viable for smooth 4K Ultra play, as the 57 FPS average falls below the 60 FPS threshold that most competitive FPS players consider the minimum for responsive gameplay.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal balance of visual fidelity and frame rate is achieved at the High preset for most resolutions. At 1080p High, the 161 FPS average is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on competitive monitors, and it is only 38% below the Low preset's 259 FPS. The Medium preset at 1080p offers 184 FPS, which is a 14.3% improvement over High, but the visual quality difference between Medium and High in a fast-paced FPS often justifies the modest frame rate hit for better visibility of distant enemies.

At 1440p, the High preset's 118 FPS average is the sweet spot for this combo. It provides a fluid experience on 120 Hz to 144 Hz displays, and the 135 FPS Medium preset only adds a 14.4% margin. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops to 88 FPS, which is still playable but sacrifices the high-refresh advantage that the CPU and GPU combination can otherwise deliver. The data suggests that players with 1440p 144 Hz monitors should stick to High to maintain a consistent frame rate above the refresh threshold, as the 118 FPS average leaves only a 22% headroom above 96 FPS minimums.

For 4K, the High preset's 76 FPS average is the highest playable configuration. The Medium preset at 4K offers 87 FPS, which is a 14.5% improvement, but the minimum FPS of 74 recorded for Medium suggests occasional dips that could be noticeable in intense firefights. The Low preset at 4K provides 122 FPS, which is excellent for 120 Hz 4K displays, but the visual compromise is significant. The Ultra preset at 4K is not recommended, as the 57 FPS average is below the 60 FPS standard and would result in a suboptimal experience for a competitive FPS. The data shows that this combo is best utilized at 1080p or 1440p with High or Medium settings, where it can fully leverage the CPU's single-thread performance and the GPU's compute capabilities.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested hardware combinations for Lockdown Protocol, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ranks at position 936 out of 3714 total combos. This places it in the top 25.2% of all tested configurations, which is a strong result considering the large number of possible CPU and GPU pairings. The ranking reflects the balanced nature of this combo: the CPU is not bottlenecking the GPU at most settings, and the GPU is powerful enough to drive high frame rates at mainstream resolutions.

The percentile data for the individual components supports this ranking. The CPU sits in the 94th percentile versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 69996. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, which scores 69875 (a 0.2% delta), and the Intel Core i7-14700KF, which scores 70163 (a -0.2% delta). This means the 9700F is performing essentially at parity with these high-end competitors, making it a top-tier processor for gaming workloads. The GPU, meanwhile, sits in the 83rd percentile versus all GPUs, with an average score of 41187. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro 5300, which scores 40870 (a 0.8% delta), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, which scores 40377 (a 2% delta). The RTX 3080 Ti is therefore slightly ahead of these alternatives in raw compute benchmarks, though the RTX 5070 is a close competitor.

The combo's rank of 936 suggests that while the individual components are excellent, the overall system is not in the absolute top tier for this game. This is likely due to the fact that higher-ranked combos typically pair the RTX 3080 Ti with newer or higher-clocked CPUs, or pair newer GPUs like the RTX 40-series with the same CPU. The data shows that this combo is a solid mid-to-high tier performer, and the ranking reflects that it will handle Lockdown Protocol well but may not be the absolute best for pushing 4K Ultra at maximum frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full dataset provides a comprehensive view of performance across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 259 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire test suite. The Medium preset at 1080p averages 184 FPS, with a minimum of 156 FPS and a maximum of 211 FPS, showing a tight frame time distribution. The High preset at 1080p averages 161 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 120 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 139 FPS, representing a 53.7% reduction in performance from the lowest to highest quality settings.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 190 FPS, which is still exceptionally high for a 1440p resolution. The Medium preset averages 135 FPS, with a minimum of 115 FPS and a maximum of 155 FPS. The High preset averages 118 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 88 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each preset is consistent: Low drops by 26.6%, Medium by 26.6%, High by 26.7%, and Ultra by 26.7%. This uniform scaling confirms that the GPU is the primary limiting factor when moving to 1440p, as the CPU has enough headroom to maintain the same frame rates if the GPU could keep up.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 122 FPS, which is a 35.8% drop from 1440p Low. The Medium preset averages 87 FPS, with a minimum of 74 FPS and a maximum of 100 FPS. The High preset averages 76 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 57 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is steeper than from 1080p to 1440p, with an average drop of 36% across all presets. This indicates that the GPU is being pushed much harder at 4K, and the 12 GB of VRAM, while sufficient, is paired with a memory bus that is fully saturated at this resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is the dominant component in this combo for determining frame rates at higher resolutions and settings. Its architecture, Ampere on an 8 nm Samsung process, features 10,240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. The GPU's base clock is 1365 MHz with a boost clock of 1665 MHz, and it has 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores. The memory subsystem consists of 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, providing 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 186.5 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 532.8 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 34.10 TFLOPS.

In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU's role is most evident in the 4K results. The 57 FPS average at 4K Ultra shows that the GPU is the bottleneck, as the CPU is capable of delivering over 120 FPS at 4K Low. The difference between 4K Low (122 FPS) and 4K Ultra (57 FPS) is 65 FPS, or a 53.3% reduction, which is almost entirely due to the increased shading and texture work required at Ultra settings. The GPU's 12 GB of VRAM is not a limiting factor at any resolution, as the game's VRAM usage likely stays well below this capacity even at 4K Ultra. The memory bandwidth of 912.4 GB/s is sufficient for the data streaming requirements, but the raw compute throughput of 34.10 TFLOPS is what ultimately caps performance at maximum settings.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its position. It achieves a Passmark G3D score of 26896, a Passmark GPU Compute score of 15282, and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 170037. Its average benchmark score is 41187, placing it in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs. The nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 5300, scores 40870, which is a 0.8% difference, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 scores 40377, a 2% difference. This indicates that the RTX 3080 Ti is still competitive with newer GPUs, though its 350 W TDP and dual-slot design require adequate cooling and a 750 W PSU.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F plays a critical role in ensuring that the GPU is not starved of data, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU's performance becomes the limiting factor. This processor is built on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) using a 4 nm TSMC process, with 8 cores and 16 threads. 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 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 with dual-channel bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, and it connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes.

The CPU's benchmark results show strong single-thread and multithread performance. It achieves a Passmark Single Thread score of 4691, a Passmark Multithread score of 36470, and a Passmark Physics score of 2122. The average benchmark score is 69996, placing it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-14700KF, scores 70163, a -0.2% delta, while the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X scores 69515, a 0.7% delta. This puts the 9700F in the same performance tier as these high-end processors, which is remarkable given its lower TDP.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p. The 259 FPS average at 1080p Low is a CPU-limited result, as the GPU is capable of rendering more frames but is constrained by the CPU's ability to issue draw calls and process game logic. The 9700F's 5.50 GHz boost clock and 32 MB of L3 cache provide the single-thread performance needed for high frame rates in a competitive FPS. The fact that the 1080p High preset still delivers 161 FPS demonstrates that the CPU has ample headroom, as the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher settings. The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for this game, and the data shows no signs of CPU-related stuttering or frame drops, even at 4K where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor.