Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with AMD Ryzen 9 5900X + Intel Arc B390

Lockdown Protocol, a 2024 FPS title, shows a dramatic split between CPU and GPU capabilities when paired with the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and Intel Arc B390. The Ryzen 9 5900X, a 12-core, 24-thread Zen 3 processor from the 5000 series, ranks in the 87th percentile against all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 41,376. The Intel Arc B390, by contrast, sits in the 9th percentile against all GPUs with an average benchmark score of just 1,482. This pairing produces playable framerates only at lower resolutions and settings, with the GPU acting as the clear bottleneck throughout the measured scenarios.

FAQ

Q: How does the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The Ryzen 9 5900X scores an average benchmark of 41,376. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 7 366H, scores 41,263, placing the AMD chip 0.3% ahead. The Intel Core Ultra 7 356H trails by 0.4% at 41,215, while the AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 440 also sits 0.4% behind at 41,208. The Intel Core i7-14650HX leads by 0.5% with a score of 41,576.

Q: Where does the Intel Arc B390 rank among all GPUs?

A: The Arc B390 ranks in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 1,482. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, scores 1,463, which is 1.3% lower. The NVIDIA GeForce 800M scores 1,460 (1.5% behind), the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM scores 1,446 (2.5% behind), and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 scores 1,443 (2.7% behind).

Q: What is the best framerate this combo achieves in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The highest measured average framerate is 88 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At the same resolution, Medium settings produce 63 FPS and High produces 55 FPS. The lowest measured average is 19 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 5900X a strong processor for this game?

A: The CPU performs well in synthetic benchmarks, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16,262 and a single-core score of 1,527. Its 3DMark scores scale from 941 in single-thread to 10,075 at max threads. However, in Lockdown Protocol, the measured framerates suggest the GPU limits performance, so the CPU's headroom is largely unused.

Q: Does the Arc B390 support modern graphics APIs needed for Lockdown Protocol?

A: Yes, the Intel Arc B390 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. This covers the API requirements for a modern FPS like Lockdown Protocol, though the GPU's raw performance remains the limiting factor.

Q: How does the combo rank among tested configurations for this game?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X + Intel Arc B390 combination ranks 2,512 out of 2,828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the bottom 11% of configurations, consistent with the GPU's low percentile ranking.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution built on the Xe3-LPG architecture, fabricated on Intel's 3 nm process. Its base clock runs at 300 MHz, boosting up to 2500 MHz, with 1,536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units. The GPU includes 12 ray tracing cores and delivers 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The memory subsystem is entirely system-shared, meaning the GPU draws from the same DDR4 memory pool as the CPU, with bandwidth described as "System Dependent."

The Arc B390's benchmark results are modest. It scores 1,482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, which places it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are entry-level discrete GPUs from over a decade ago: the GT 520MX, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710, all scoring within 1.3% to 2.7% of the Arc B390. This positions the integrated GPU at the very bottom of the performance spectrum for modern gaming.

In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU's limitations are immediately visible in the measured framerates. At 3840x2160, even Low settings only produce 42 FPS average, while High drops to 26 FPS and Ultra falls to 19 FPS. The 4K Medium preset yields 30 FPS average with a minimum of 25 FPS and maximum of 34 FPS. These numbers indicate that the Arc B390 cannot sustain smooth gameplay at 4K under any settings preset, with the Ultra row falling below the generally accepted playability threshold of 30 FPS.

Dropping to 2560x1440 improves results but still shows the GPU struggling. Low settings produce 65 FPS average, which is playable, but High drops to 40 FPS and Ultra to 30 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p delivers 46 FPS average with a range of 39 to 53 FPS. The pattern is consistent: the Arc B390 requires significant settings reductions to maintain acceptable framerates, and even then, the margin is thin.

At 1920x1080, the GPU finally shows some competence. Low settings yield 88 FPS average, Medium produces 63 FPS, High delivers 55 FPS, and Ultra manages 41 FPS. The Medium preset at 1080p shows a minimum of 53 FPS and maximum of 72 FPS, indicating reasonable frame pacing. This resolution is clearly the Arc B390's comfort zone for Lockdown Protocol, though the GPU's 9th percentile ranking means even these numbers require significant settings compromises relative to what a mid-range discrete GPU would achieve.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X provides substantial processing headroom that the Arc B390 cannot fully utilize in Lockdown Protocol. This 12-core, 24-thread processor from the 5000 series uses the Zen 3 architecture (codenamed Vermeer) on a 7 nm TSMC process. It features a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz, with a TDP of 105 W. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 64 MB of L3 cache. Memory support is dual-channel DDR4 with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, and the CPU supports ECC memory. It was released in November 2020 with a launch MSRP of $549.

The CPU's benchmark scores are solid across the board. In 3DMark, it scores 9,075 at 16 threads, 3,588 at 4 threads, and 941 at single-thread. Cinebench R23 results show 16,262 multi-core and 1,527 single-core. Geekbench scores are 14,118 multi-core and 2,083 single-core. PassMark multi-thread score is 39,002, with single-thread at 3,469. The processor's percentile ranking of 87th among all CPUs reflects its strong position relative to the broader CPU market.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is largely secondary to the GPU. The game's measured framerates at every resolution and settings combination are consistent with GPU-bound performance. For example, at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 88 FPS, but this does not approach the CPU's capability ceiling. The Ryzen 9 5900X's nearest rivals — the Intel Core Ultra 7 366H, Core Ultra 7 356H, and Ryzen AI 5 PRO 440 — all score within 0.4% of the AMD chip, indicating that any of these processors would likely produce similar results with the same GPU.

The CPU's 24 threads and high boost clock provide ample compute resources for modern game engines, but Lockdown Protocol's framerates are constrained by the Arc B390's 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and system-shared memory. The 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth of the CPU's dual-channel DDR4 interface is shared with the GPU, which could introduce additional latency or bandwidth contention in memory-intensive scenes, though the measured data does not isolate this effect.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured framerates for this combo span three resolutions and four quality presets, with 12 total data points. At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly low. Low settings produce 42 FPS average, which is the best 4K result. Medium settings yield 30 FPS average with a minimum of 25 and maximum of 34. High settings drop to 26 FPS, and Ultra falls to 19 FPS. None of these 4K results provide a consistently smooth experience, and only the Low preset approaches playability at 42 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the picture improves. Low settings achieve 65 FPS average, a 54.8% improvement over the 4K Low result. Medium settings produce 46 FPS average with a range of 39 to 53 FPS. High settings deliver 40 FPS average, and Ultra manages 30 FPS. The 1440p Medium preset offers the most balanced experience at this resolution: 46 FPS average with a minimum above 39 FPS keeps the experience mostly smooth, though dips below 40 FPS could be noticeable in fast-paced FPS gameplay.

At 1920x1080, the combo shows its best performance. Low settings produce 88 FPS average, which is the highest measured framerate across all configurations. Medium settings yield 63 FPS average with a minimum of 53 and maximum of 72. High settings deliver 55 FPS average, and Ultra manages 41 FPS. The 1080p Medium preset is particularly notable: 63 FPS average with a 53 FPS minimum means the framerate stays above the 50 FPS threshold for the vast majority of the session. Even the High preset at 55 FPS average could be acceptable for less demanding players.

The scaling patterns are consistent across resolutions. Dropping from Ultra to Low at 4K improves the average framerate from 19 to 42 FPS, a 121% increase. At 1440p, the same settings change improves from 30 to 65 FPS, a 117% increase. At 1080p, the improvement is from 41 to 88 FPS, a 115% increase. The consistency of this scaling suggests the GPU is the primary limiter at all settings levels, with the CPU providing sufficient headroom to avoid becoming a bottleneck even at the lowest settings.

Resolution scaling also shows predictable behavior. At Low settings, moving from 4K to 1440p improves framerate by 54.8%, and moving from 1440p to 1080p improves it by 35.4%. At Medium settings, the improvements are 53.3% (4K to 1440p) and 37.0% (1440p to 1080p). At High settings, the improvements are 53.8% and 37.5%. At Ultra settings, the improvements are 57.9% and 36.7%. The GPU's limited memory bandwidth from the system-shared configuration likely contributes to the steep performance penalties at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X + Intel Arc B390 combination ranks 2,512 out of 2,828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol. This places the configuration in the bottom 11.1% of all tested systems, which is unsurprising given the GPU's 9th percentile ranking. The CPU's 87th percentile ranking does little to boost the overall position because the game's framerates are overwhelmingly GPU-limited.

The rank discrepancy between the CPU and GPU components is stark. The Ryzen 9 5900X outperforms its nearest rivals by small margins — 0.3% over the Core Ultra 7 366H, 0.4% over the Core Ultra 7 356H, and 0.4% over the Ryzen AI 5 PRO 440 — while trailing the Core i7-14650HX by 0.5%. These differences are within noise for gaming workloads. The Arc B390, by contrast, outperforms its nearest rival, the GT 520MX, by 1.3%, but all four nearest rivals are separated by less than 3%, indicating a cluster of extremely low-performance GPUs.

In practical terms, this combo rank means the system will struggle with Lockdown Protocol at higher settings and resolutions. The 2,512th rank out of 2,828 combos places it alongside other configurations with entry-level or integrated graphics. For comparison, a combo with the same CPU but a mid-range discrete GPU would likely rank significantly higher, given the CPU's strong synthetic scores. The data suggests that the Arc B390's integrated nature — with system-shared memory and a 80 W TDP — fundamentally limits the gaming experience regardless of the powerful CPU driving it.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend heavily on the target resolution and the user's tolerance for framerate dips.

At 1920x1080, the Medium preset offers the best balance. The 63 FPS average with a 53 FPS minimum keeps the experience smooth for most FPS gameplay, and the 72 FPS maximum shows there is headroom in less demanding scenes. The High preset at 55 FPS average is also viable, though the lack of minimum FPS data means users should be cautious about potential dips. The Low preset at 88 FPS is the best choice for competitive play where maximum framerate matters, but the visual quality reduction may be unnecessary given the Medium preset's strong performance.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is the recommended choice. The 46 FPS average with a 39 FPS minimum is borderline for smooth gameplay, but it is the only 1440p preset that stays above 39 FPS at all times. The Low preset at 65 FPS is the safer option for users who prioritize smoothness over visual quality, though the gap in visual fidelity between Low and Medium is worth considering. The High preset at 40 FPS and Ultra at 30 FPS are both below the ideal smoothness threshold for an FPS game, and neither has minimum FPS data to assess worst-case performance.

At 3840x2160, no settings preset provides a fully satisfactory experience. The Low preset at 42 FPS average is the only option above the 40 FPS mark, but the lack of minimum FPS data means dips could be significant. The Medium preset at 30 FPS average with a 25 FPS minimum will feel stuttery in fast-paced gameplay. The High preset at 26 FPS and Ultra at 19 FPS are effectively unplayable for an FPS title. Users who must play at 4K should use the Low preset and accept the visual compromises, or consider reducing the resolution to 1440p for a substantially better experience.

The overall recommendation is to run Lockdown Protocol at 1920x1080 with the Medium preset. This configuration delivers 63 FPS average with a minimum of 53 FPS, providing a smooth and responsive experience that suits the FPS genre. Users with 1440p monitors can drop to the Medium preset at that resolution for 46 FPS average, but should be prepared for occasional dips below 40 FPS. The 4K resolution is not recommended for this combo, as even the best settings preset cannot sustain framerates that meet the demands of competitive FPS gameplay.