Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol is a fast-paced FPS that responds predictably to both resolution and quality presets, and the measured data for the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the Intel Arc B570 shows a clear hierarchy of performance. The combination sits at rank 2264 out of 2828 tested combos in this game, placing it in the lower half of the field, but the frame rates indicate it can still deliver a playable experience at the right settings. The dataset provides average FPS for four presets at three resolutions, with minimum and maximum figures only recorded for the Medium preset, which offers the most complete picture of performance stability.

Settings Recommendations

The Medium preset is the only configuration with a full set of measured data—average, minimum, and maximum FPS—across all three resolutions, making it the most reliable choice for consistent performance. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers an average of 96 FPS with a minimum of 82 FPS and a maximum of 111 FPS, which is a solid margin above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The minimum frame rate of 82 FPS suggests that even during demanding scenes, the system avoids severe dips, providing a stable experience that the High and Ultra presets cannot match with the same confidence, as their data lacks minimum values.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again proves to be the balanced option, producing an average of 71 FPS with a minimum of 60 FPS and a maximum of 81 FPS. The minimum of 60 FPS is exactly at the standard refresh rate target, meaning the system will occasionally touch the lower bound but generally stays above it, which is acceptable for most players. In contrast, the High preset at this resolution averages 62 FPS but has no recorded minimum, so it could potentially dip below the Medium preset's floor, making Medium the safer choice for those who prioritize frame time consistency.

The Low preset offers the highest frame rates across all resolutions, with 136 FPS at 1080p, 100 FPS at 1440p, and 64 FPS at 4K. However, this comes at the cost of visual fidelity, which is a significant trade-off in a game where visibility of enemies and environmental details can impact performance. For players with high-refresh-rate monitors at 1080p, Low might be tempting, but the Medium preset's 96 FPS average is still well above 60 FPS and provides better visuals, making it the recommended starting point for most users.

At 4K, the situation changes dramatically. The Medium preset averages 46 FPS with a minimum of 39 FPS and a maximum of 52 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS target and may result in noticeable stuttering during intense firefights. The Low preset at 4K averages 64 FPS, which is playable, but the visual quality will be noticeably reduced. Given the data, the best experience at 4K is to use the Low preset if frame rate is the priority, or accept the Medium preset's lower average if visual fidelity is more important than smoothness. The High and Ultra presets at 4K average 40 FPS and 30 FPS respectively, which are too low for a competitive FPS.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture, codenamed Battlemage, and it brings 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is a critical factor in Lockdown Protocol, as the game's performance scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a clear dependence on the GPU's ability to feed data to the rendering pipeline. The GPU's base and boost clocks are both locked at 2500 MHz, which is a modest clock speed for a modern graphics card, but the architecture's efficiency helps it maintain reasonable performance at lower resolutions.

The GPU's shading units number 2304, with 144 texture mapping units and 80 raster operation units, and it has 18 ray tracing cores. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s, with an FP32 compute throughput of 11.52 TFLOPS. In Lockdown Protocol, which is not a graphically demanding title compared to AAA releases, these figures are sufficient to push high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but they become the limiting factor at 4K, where the average FPS drops below 50 on all presets except Low.

The GPU's benchmark scores reflect its mid-range positioning. It scores 14195 in Passmark G3D, which places it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 20556 is nearly identical to the Intel Arc A750, which is only 0.1% slower, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, which is 0.1% faster. This indicates that the Arc B570 performs on par with last-generation mid-range offerings, and in Lockdown Protocol, the data shows it can handle 1080p and 1440p gaming well, but 4K is a struggle. The GPU's VRAM of 10 GB is adequate for this game, as the measured frame rates do not suggest any memory capacity issues, even at 4K with Ultra settings, which average 30 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for a consistent 60+ FPS experience with this CPU and GPU combo?

A: At 1920x1080, all presets except Ultra average above 60 FPS, with Medium at 96 FPS and High at 84 FPS. At 2560x1440, the Low and Medium presets average 100 FPS and 71 FPS respectively, while High averages 62 FPS, so 1440p is viable with Medium settings.

Q: How does the Arc B570 compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Arc B570's average benchmark score of 20556 is only 0.1% higher than the Intel Arc A750's 20582, and it is 0.1% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile's 20534, indicating near-identical performance among these three GPUs.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 9700X a bottleneck at 1080p with the Arc B570?

A: The CPU's percentile rank is 86, and its multi-threaded scores are strong, such as 20485 in Cinebench R23 multi-core. Since the GPU's 1080p Low preset achieves 136 FPS, the CPU is likely not the bottleneck, as the GPU is still able to produce high frame rates.

Q: What minimum FPS can be expected at 4K with Medium settings?

A: The measured minimum FPS at 3840x2160 with Medium settings is 39 FPS, with an average of 46 FPS and a maximum of 52 FPS, which indicates the system will dip below 40 FPS during demanding scenes.

Q: Does the Ultra preset ever provide a playable frame rate?

A: At 1080p, Ultra averages 63 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold. At 1440p, it drops to 46 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 30 FPS, so Ultra is only recommended for 1080p displays.

Q: How much faster is the Low preset compared to Ultra at 1080p?

A: The Low preset at 1920x1080 averages 136 FPS, which is 73 FPS higher than the Ultra preset's 63 FPS, representing a significant performance gain for competitive play.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of presets shows a clear performance ladder. The Low preset delivers the highest average at 136 FPS, followed by Medium at 96 FPS with a minimum of 82 FPS and a maximum of 111 FPS. The High preset averages 84 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 63 FPS. This spread of 73 FPS between the lowest and highest presets indicates that the GPU has substantial headroom at this resolution, and even the most demanding settings remain playable.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down as expected. The Low preset averages 100 FPS, which is a 26.5% reduction from 1080p. The Medium preset averages 71 FPS with a minimum of 60 FPS and a maximum of 81 FPS, showing that the minimum frame rate has dropped by 22 FPS compared to 1080p. The High preset averages 62 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 46 FPS. At this resolution, the Medium preset is the only one that maintains a minimum above 60 FPS, though the High preset's average is close to that threshold.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's limitations become apparent. The Low preset averages 64 FPS, which is the only preset at 4K to exceed the 60 FPS mark. The Medium preset averages 46 FPS with a minimum of 39 FPS and a maximum of 52 FPS, while the High preset averages 40 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 30 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 34 FPS, which is narrower than at lower resolutions, suggesting the GPU is becoming the bottleneck regardless of settings.

The complete dataset shows that the Medium preset is the only one with full min/max data, making it the most thoroughly characterized. The minimum FPS values of 82, 60, and 39 at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K respectively show a consistent degradation pattern, where each resolution step down reduces the minimum by roughly 20-21 FPS. This pattern indicates that the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute resources are being taxed progressively more as resolution increases.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 is consistent across presets. For the Low preset, the average FPS goes from 136 to 100, a reduction of 36 FPS or approximately 26.5%. The Medium preset drops from 96 to 71, a reduction of 25 FPS, and the High preset drops from 84 to 62, a reduction of 22 FPS. The Ultra preset drops from 63 to 46, a reduction of 17 FPS. This pattern shows that the higher the preset, the smaller the absolute FPS loss when moving from 1080p to 1440p, which suggests that at lower presets, the GPU has more headroom to give up.

The transition from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 is more punishing. The Low preset drops from 100 to 64 FPS, a 36% reduction, while the Medium preset drops from 71 to 46 FPS, a 35% reduction. The High preset drops from 62 to 40 FPS, a 35% reduction, and the Ultra preset drops from 46 to 30 FPS, a 35% reduction. The fact that the percentage drop is nearly identical across all presets when moving to 4K indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at this resolution, as the rendering workload scales uniformly with pixel count.

The data from the Medium preset, which has full min/max values, shows that the minimum FPS drops from 82 at 1080p to 60 at 1440p, and then to 39 at 4K. This represents a 46.3% drop in minimum FPS from 1080p to 4K, which is more severe than the average FPS drop of 52.1% (from 96 to 46). This suggests that the GPU's ability to maintain consistent frame times degrades faster than its average throughput, likely due to memory bandwidth constraints at higher resolutions.

The resolution scaling indicates that the Arc B570 is well-suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but 4K is beyond its comfort zone. The GPU's memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s is likely the bottleneck at 4K, as the 10 GB of VRAM is sufficient but the bus width of 160 bits limits the data throughput required for higher pixel counts. The fact that even the Low preset at 4K only averages 64 FPS, which is barely above 60, reinforces the conclusion that this GPU is not designed for 4K gaming in this title.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Granite Ridge, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. This is a capable enthusiast-class CPU that should not be the bottleneck in most gaming scenarios, and the benchmark data supports this. The CPU's multi-threaded performance is strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 20485 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 17906, placing it in the 86th percentile of all CPUs.

The CPU's single-thread performance is also solid, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2211 and a Geekbench single-core score of 3023. In a game like Lockdown Protocol, which is a competitive FPS, single-thread performance is often more important than multi-threaded throughput, as the game logic and physics typically run on a few cores. The CPU's boost clock of 5.50 GHz is high, which helps ensure that the game's main thread can run at maximum speed.

Comparing the 9700X to its nearest rivals, the CPU's average benchmark score of 37943 is nearly identical to the Intel Core i9-14901E, which scores 37911 and is only 0.1% slower. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 scores 37904, also 0.1% slower, and the Intel Core 5 211E scores 37829, which is 0.3% slower. This indicates that the 9700X is at the top of its performance class, and in gaming, it should provide more than enough processing power to feed the Arc B570.

The measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not limiting the GPU at lower resolutions. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 136 FPS, which is a high frame rate that would require a strong CPU to maintain. The fact that the GPU's performance scales down as resolution increases, but the CPU's workload remains relatively constant, suggests that the CPU is capable of keeping up with the GPU's demands at all tested settings. The CPU's 32 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth provide ample data feeding capability for the GPU.

The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for Lockdown Protocol, which is not a heavily multi-threaded game. The benchmark scores for 16 threads (9824 in 3DMark) and 8 threads (8184) show that the processor scales well with additional threads, but the game is unlikely to utilize all of them. The CPU's TDP of 65 W is low for a desktop processor, indicating that it runs efficiently and does not require exotic cooling solutions, which is a benefit for system builders.