Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol places this AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER pairing in a specific performance tier, with measured results showing a system that can handle competitive play at high refresh rates but requires careful settings management for 4K output. The data indicates a clear hierarchy where resolution scaling and preset selection dramatically affect the experience, with the GPU acting as the primary constraint in most scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data supports a tiered approach to settings based on target resolution and refresh rate. For 1080p gaming, the Low preset delivers an average of 179.2 FPS, which is the only setting level that comfortably exceeds the 144Hz threshold for high-refresh displays. The High preset at 1080p still produces a strong 108.3 FPS average, making it viable for 100Hz+ monitors, while Medium lands at 124.4 FPS and Ultra drops to 83.9 FPS. Competitive players prioritizing frame rate should select Low at 1080p, but those wanting visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness can opt for High, which maintains a 108.3 FPS average.

At 1440p, the situation becomes more nuanced. The Low preset yields 128.8 FPS, which is excellent for 120Hz panels, while High produces 77.6 FPS and Medium achieves 94.8 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p falls to 61.9 FPS, making it less attractive for fast-paced FPS gameplay. The data suggests that Medium at 1440p offers the best balance for most users, as it stays above the 90 FPS mark while providing improved visuals over Low. For 4K resolution, the numbers tell a different story: High averages 52 FPS, Medium 60.2 FPS, Low 83.5 FPS, and Ultra only 41.7 FPS. None of these reach the 60 FPS target except Low, which does clear it comfortably. Users with 4K displays should either accept Low settings for playable frame rates or consider dropping resolution to 1440p for a better experience.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER serves as the definitive performance limiter in this configuration, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth proving adequate for 1080p and 1440p but strained at 4K. The GPU's 2560 shading units and 64 ROPs, running at a base clock of 1605 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, deliver 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. This Turing-architecture card, built on a 12 nm process with 13,600 million transistors, sits at the 65th percentile among all GPUs in the database, indicating it is a mid-to-upper tier part that has aged into a solid 1080p/1440p performer.

The measured FPS deltas between Low and Ultra settings across resolutions reveal the GPU's workload scaling. At 1080p, the jump from Low (179.2 FPS) to Ultra (83.9 FPS) represents a 53.2% performance drop, while at 4K the same settings comparison shows a 50.1% reduction from 83.5 FPS to 41.7 FPS. This consistency suggests the RTX 2070 SUPER's compute resources are being saturated by the higher presets, particularly at 4K where even Medium settings only achieve 60.2 FPS. The card's 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores provide feature support but do not materially assist in this game's rasterization workload, as evidenced by the steep Ultra preset penalties. Compared to its nearest rivals in the database, the RTX 2070 SUPER's average benchmark score of 22206 places it 0.5% below the NVIDIA RTX A400 (22307) and 0.9% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (22006), showing it remains competitive within its generation but has been surpassed by newer mobile parts like the RTX 4060 Mobile (22729, 2.3% higher).

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks 1012 out of 1637 tested combos for Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database. This ranking reflects the GPU's age relative to modern parts; the CPU is not the bottleneck, as evidenced by the Ryzen 9 5900X's strong synthetic scores. The processor achieves a 90th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 39453, and its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 4245P (39383, 0.2% lower) and Intel Core i7-13700F (39095, 0.9% lower). In contrast, the GPU's 65th percentile ranking and 22206 average score drag the combo down when paired with such a capable processor.

The 1012th rank out of 1637 implies that approximately 38% of tested configurations perform worse, meaning the system is far from the bottom but also not competitive with modern high-end setups. This ranking is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows the combo struggling to maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra (41.7 FPS) while excelling at 1080p Low (179.2 FPS). The disparity between the CPU's high percentile (90) and the GPU's moderate percentile (65) highlights a system imbalance where the RTX 2070 SUPER cannot fully utilize the Ryzen 9 5900X's 12 cores and 24 threads in this title. The CPU's 3.70 GHz base and 4.80 GHz boost clocks, along with its 64 MB L3 cache, provide ample headroom that the GPU leaves untapped at lower resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured averages show a clear progression: Low settings produce 179.2 FPS, Medium drops to 124.4 FPS, High settles at 108.3 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 83.9 FPS. The step from Low to Medium represents a 30.6% performance loss, while the jump from High to Ultra costs 22.5%. These numbers indicate that the RTX 2070 SUPER has enough headroom at 1080p to run High settings comfortably above 100 FPS, making this resolution the sweet spot for the combo. The 1440p measurements follow a similar pattern with lower absolute values: Low achieves 128.8 FPS, Medium 94.8 FPS, High 77.6 FPS, and Ultra 61.9 FPS. The transition from Low to Medium at 1440p costs 26.4% performance, and High to Ultra costs 20.2%, showing that the GPU's scaling is relatively consistent across these two resolutions.

The 4K data reveals the GPU's limitations most starkly. At 3840x2160, Low settings yield 83.5 FPS, which is surprisingly high for a 4K workload and suggests the game is not excessively demanding at lower presets. Medium drops to 60.2 FPS, High falls to 52 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 41.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 4K is 27.9%, while High to Ultra is 19.8%. These figures indicate that 4K gaming is only viable at Low or possibly Medium settings for this combo, and even then, the frame rates are borderline for fast-paced FPS action. The 1080p Ultra result of 83.9 FPS is nearly identical to the 4K Low result of 83.5 FPS, suggesting that the GPU's workload at these two extremes is comparable, with the higher resolution being offset by simpler shading at Low preset.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 1440p at High settings shows a drop from 108.3 FPS to 77.6 FPS, a 28.3% reduction. Moving from 1440p to 4K at the same settings further reduces performance to 52 FPS, another 33.0% drop. This progressive decline indicates that the RTX 2070 SUPER's fill rate and memory bandwidth (448.0 GB/s) become increasingly strained as pixel count rises. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is not exceeded at these settings, but the GPU's 64 ROPs and 113.3 GPixel/s pixel rate are clearly insufficient for smooth 4K Ultra gameplay.

At Low settings, the scaling pattern shifts: 1080p yields 179.2 FPS, 1440p drops to 128.8 FPS (a 28.1% reduction), and 4K falls to 83.5 FPS (a 35.2% reduction from 1440p). The larger percentage loss from 1440p to 4K compared to 1080p to 1440p suggests that the GPU's compute units are hitting a throughput ceiling as resolution increases, even with minimal shading work. This is characteristic of a GPU that is compute-bound rather than memory-bound at lower presets. The Medium settings show a similar trend: 124.4 FPS at 1080p, 94.8 FPS at 1440p (23.8% drop), and 60.2 FPS at 4K (36.5% drop). The consistent pattern across presets—where the 1440p to 4K transition always incurs a larger percentage penalty than the 1080p to 1440p step—confirms that the limiting component is the GPU's raw processing power, not the CPU or memory subsystem.

The Ryzen 9 5900X's capabilities, including its 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth and PCIe Gen 4 interface, are more than sufficient to feed the RTX 2070 SUPER at all tested resolutions. The CPU's single-thread performance (941 in 3dmark_single_thread, 4680 in Cinebench R23 single-core) ensures that frame pacing is not CPU-limited in this title, even at 1080p Low where the GPU is producing nearly 180 FPS. The data points to a system where upgrading the GPU would yield significant FPS gains across all resolutions, while the CPU would continue to provide ample headroom for future GPU upgrades.