Lockdown Protocol

Settings Recommendations

For Lockdown Protocol, the measured data clearly indicates that Medium settings provide the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 124 FPS average with a 106 FPS minimum and 143 FPS maximum, representing a 15 FPS improvement over High settings while only sacrificing 51 FPS compared to Low. The Medium preset maintains a comfortable buffer above 60 FPS even at 4K, where it achieves 59 FPS average with a 50 FPS minimum and 68 FPS maximum. This makes Medium the only preset that stays playable across the entire resolution range without dropping below the 50 FPS threshold.

High settings are a reasonable alternative for users prioritizing visual fidelity, but the data shows diminishing returns. At 1080p, High produces 109 FPS average, which is only 15 FPS less than Medium but represents a 66 FPS drop from Low. The gap widens at higher resolutions: at 1440p, High drops to 80 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 51 FPS, barely maintaining 60 FPS-class performance. Ultra settings should be avoided for competitive play, as the 1080p result of 81 FPS is only 21 FPS higher than the 4K Medium result, and at 4K Ultra falls to 39 FPS average, which is below the 40 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Low settings offer the highest frame rates by a substantial margin—175 FPS at 1080p, 128 FPS at 1440p, and 83 FPS at 4K—but the visual compromise is significant. The data suggests that for most users, Medium at 1440p (91 FPS) or 1080p (124 FPS) represents the sweet spot, offering frame rates well above display refresh rate capabilities while maintaining adequate visual quality. For users with 4K displays, Medium is the only viable option that keeps the game responsive, with the 59 FPS average being close enough to 60 FPS that most players will not notice a difference in smoothness.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060, built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 44 chip, operates with a base clock of 1700 MHz, a boost clock of 2990 MHz, and a game clock of 2400 MHz. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves to be a limiting factor in Lockdown Protocol's higher settings. The GPU's 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units deliver a 21.43 TFLOPS FP32 performance, with a pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s. These specifications place the GPU at the 59th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 16014.

The benchmark data shows that the RX 9060's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which scores 16129 on average, a delta of -0.7 percent. This indicates near-parity in raw compute capability. However, in Lockdown Protocol specifically, the RX 9060's performance varies dramatically with settings, suggesting that memory bandwidth and capacity play a more significant role than raw compute throughput. The 8 GB frame buffer becomes stressed at 4K Ultra, where the 39 FPS average indicates the GPU is hitting memory bandwidth limitations rather than shader throughput limits.

The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support and 12_2 feature level are reflected in its PassMark DirectX 12 score of 44, which is notably lower than its DirectX 11 score of 182. This suggests that Lockdown Protocol's rendering path may be more optimized for DirectX 11-style workloads, explaining why the GPU's performance in this game does not fully align with its synthetic benchmark scores. The RDNA 4.0 architecture's 28 ray tracing cores are present but do not appear to be heavily utilized in this title, as the game's performance scales more predictably with traditional rasterization settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, a Zen 3 architecture processor codenamed Vermeer, brings 16 cores and 32 threads to the system. Its base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 4.90 GHz, combined with 64 MB of L3 cache, position it as a high-end desktop processor. The CPU's 105 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth provide ample headroom for gaming workloads. In synthetic benchmarks, the 5950X achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 26017 and single-core score of 1614, with a 3DMark max-threads score of 11597.

The processor's percentile ranking of 91 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 51947, places it in the upper echelon of desktop processors. Its nearest rival in average score is the Intel Core Ultra 5 235HX at 52073, a delta of -0.2 percent, while the AMD EPYC 8124P scores 52121 (-0.3 percent). The Intel Core i9-13900F trails at 51730 (0.4 percent), and the Intel Core i7-14700 leads at 52301 (-0.7 percent). These narrow deltas indicate that the 5950X remains competitive with much newer processors in general compute workloads.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's performance is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the GPU at most settings and resolutions. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 175 FPS, which is nearly triple the 4K Ultra result of 39 FPS. This wide spread indicates that while the CPU can feed the GPU at high frame rates, the system's overall performance is heavily influenced by GPU load at higher resolutions. The 5950X's strong multithreading capabilities, evidenced by its PassMark multithread score of 45424 and integer math score of 185520, ensure that even in CPU-intensive scenes with many AI-controlled characters, the processor maintains consistent frame delivery.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and AMD Radeon RX 9060 ranks 1647 out of 2828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the 58th percentile of all system configurations tested. This ranking reflects a significant imbalance between the CPU's high-end positioning and the GPU's mid-range performance tier. The CPU alone ranks in the 91st percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 59th percentile among all GPUs, creating a system where the processor's capabilities are largely untapped in this game.

This mid-pack ranking suggests that users with this combination are getting performance that is roughly consistent with the GPU's tier rather than the CPU's tier. The 2828 combos tested include systems with both more powerful and less powerful components, and the 1647 rank indicates that approximately 58 percent of tested configurations outperform this pairing. This is not surprising given that the GPU's average benchmark score of 16014 places it near the RTX 3060 Ti (16129) and Radeon RX 7700 (15852), both of which are considered mid-range offerings.

The rank also suggests that Lockdown Protocol is more GPU-bound than CPU-bound for this configuration. If the game were heavily CPU-dependent, the 5950X's strong performance would likely push the combo higher in the rankings, closer to the CPU's 91st percentile standing. Instead, the result aligns more closely with the GPU's 59th percentile, indicating that frame rates are primarily determined by graphics processing rather than processor throughput. Users seeking higher rankings would need to upgrade the GPU rather than the CPU, as the 5950X already provides substantial headroom for future GPU upgrades.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At Medium settings, the system delivers 124 FPS at 1080p, 91 FPS at 1440p, and 59 FPS at 4K. This represents a 26.6 percent drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 52.4 percent drop from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is nearly linear with pixel count, suggesting that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at all resolutions when using Medium settings. The pixel count increases by 2.25 times from 1080p to 4K, and the frame rate drops by roughly half, which is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario.

Low settings show a similar pattern but with higher absolute frame rates: 175 FPS at 1080p, 128 FPS at 1440p, and 83 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are slightly smaller—26.9 percent from 1080p to 1440p, and 52.6 percent from 1080p to 4K—indicating that even at Low settings, the GPU remains the bottleneck. If the CPU were limiting performance, we would expect to see a plateau at lower resolutions where frame rates stop increasing, but the data shows continuous scaling across all resolutions.

High and Ultra settings exhibit the same proportional scaling, with High dropping from 109 FPS at 1080p to 80 FPS at 1440p (26.6 percent) and 51 FPS at 4K (53.2 percent). Ultra drops from 81 FPS at 1080p to 60 FPS at 1440p (25.9 percent) and 39 FPS at 4K (51.9 percent). The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings strongly indicates that the RX 9060's rendering throughput is the limiting factor, and that the CPU's 16 cores and 32 threads are not constraining performance at any resolution. This is further supported by the fact that even at 1080p Low with 175 FPS, the frame rate continues to scale upward rather than plateauing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates its highest performance across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 175 FPS, making this the fastest configuration measured. Medium settings yield 124 FPS average with a minimum of 106 FPS and maximum of 143 FPS, providing a stable range that stays well above typical display refresh rates. High settings deliver 109 FPS average, while Ultra settings produce 81 FPS average. The 94 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p indicates that settings have a substantial impact on performance at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales down proportionally. Low settings achieve 128 FPS average, Medium delivers 91 FPS with a minimum of 77 FPS and maximum of 105 FPS, High produces 80 FPS, and Ultra reaches 60 FPS. The 68 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1440p shows that the gap narrows as resolution increases, with Ultra maintaining a playable 60 FPS average. The Medium settings' minimum of 77 FPS ensures that even during intense gameplay moments, the frame rate stays comfortably above 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly across all settings. Low settings produce 83 FPS average, Medium delivers 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and maximum of 68 FPS, High achieves 51 FPS, and Ultra falls to 39 FPS. The 44 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is the narrowest of all resolutions, indicating that the GPU's 8 GB memory capacity and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth become increasingly strained as pixel count rises. The Medium settings' minimum of 50 FPS is the only sub-60 FPS minimum recorded across all settings and resolutions, but it remains in a playable range. Ultra at 4K is the only configuration that drops below 40 FPS, which is generally considered the minimum threshold for acceptable gameplay performance.