Lockdown Protocol

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Lockdown Protocol with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and AMD Radeon RX 570 shows a steep performance cliff as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo delivers 78.8 FPS, but that drops to 58.0 FPS at 2560x1440 and 39.1 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 26% loss moving from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings, and a further 33% loss moving from 1440p to 4K. The scaling pattern is consistent across all quality presets, indicating that the GPU is the dominant limiting factor.

The High preset tells the same story: 46.7 FPS at 1080p, 37.9 FPS at 1440p, and 21.7 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at High settings is roughly 54%, which is close to what would be expected from a pure pixel-count increase. This is classic GPU-bound behavior. The Ryzen 9 9900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, is not the bottleneck here; the Polaris 20 GPU simply cannot feed frames fast enough at higher resolutions.

Ultra settings amplify the issue. The combo manages 37.1 FPS at 1080p, 26.2 FPS at 1440p, and just 19.0 FPS at 4K. The delta between Low and Ultra at 4K is more than double — 39.1 versus 19.0 FPS. This suggests that the game's Ultra preset imposes a heavy shading load that the RX 570's 2,048 shading units and 32 ROPs struggle to sustain at high pixel counts. The data clearly shows that this pairing is best suited for 1080p gaming, where even High settings remain playable.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU combo in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 as the only resolution where the combo consistently exceeds 37 FPS across all settings. At 1080p Low, it reaches 78.8 FPS; at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 37.1 FPS. Higher resolutions fall below 40 FPS even on Low settings.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 78.8 to 58.0, a loss of 20.8 FPS. At Medium settings, the drop is from 52.9 to 42.7, a loss of 10.2 FPS. The absolute loss is largest at Low settings because the frame rate ceiling is higher.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 9900X holding back the RX 570 in this game?

A: No. The benchmark results indicate a GPU-limited scenario. The CPU's 12 cores and 24 threads provide ample headroom, and its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 46,438 places it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. The FPS scaling with resolution follows the GPU's workload, not the CPU's capability.

Q: What is the playable settings ceiling for 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 58.0 FPS, which is smooth. Medium settings yield 42.7 FPS, and High drops to 37.9 FPS. Ultra falls to 26.2 FPS, which is likely too stuttery for an FPS title. The data suggests Medium is the realistic ceiling for 1440p.

Q: How does the RX 570 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 570 has an average benchmark score of 30,158, which places it in the 74th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, scores 30,109 — a delta of only 0.2%. The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT scores 30,097, also a 0.2% delta. This means the RX 570 is statistically tied with those cards in aggregate benchmarks, though game-specific results may differ.

Q: Does the combo rank favorably among all tested combinations?

A: No. The combo ranks 1,543rd out of 1,637 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 6% of all pairings. This low rank is driven by the GPU's age and limited memory bandwidth, not the CPU.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the decisive component in this pairing. Its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is modest by modern standards but sufficient for 1080p in this title. The GPU's base clock is 1168 MHz with a boost clock of 1244 MHz, and its 32 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s. These specifications translate directly into the measured FPS: the card simply runs out of fillrate and shading capacity at higher resolutions.

The RX 570's FP32 performance is 5.095 TFLOPS, and its texture rate is 159.2 GTexel/s. In Lockdown Protocol, these numbers correlate with the 1080p Medium result of 52.9 FPS. At 4K, the same settings yield 26.5 FPS — exactly half, which aligns with the fourfold increase in pixel count. The GPU's 14 nm process and GCN 4.0 architecture are aging, but the benchmark data shows it can still handle 1080p gaming at acceptable frame rates.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 74th among all GPUs is misleading for this game. While its average benchmark score of 30,158 is within 0.2% of the RTX 5060 and RX 7700 XT, those rivals are far newer and likely perform better in modern titles. The measured FPS in Lockdown Protocol reflects the GPU's real-world limits: 78.8 FPS at 1080p Low is playable, but 19.0 FPS at 4K Ultra is not. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is also a concern for High and Ultra presets at 1440p and above, though the data does not isolate VRAM-related stutters.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. Low settings produce 78.8 FPS, Medium drops to 52.9 FPS, High reaches 46.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 37.1 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 41.7 FPS, indicating that the preset choice has a massive impact at 1080p. For competitive FPS play, Low settings offer the smoothest experience, while Ultra remains technically playable but close to the 30 FPS threshold.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates compress. Low yields 58.0 FPS, Medium 42.7 FPS, High 37.9 FPS, and Ultra 26.2 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra shrinks to 31.8 FPS. Notably, High at 1440p (37.9 FPS) is nearly identical to Ultra at 1080p (37.1 FPS), suggesting that the GPU's shading units are the common bottleneck. Medium at 1440p is the only preset that remains above 40 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles across the board. Low produces 39.1 FPS, Medium 26.5 FPS, High 21.7 FPS, and Ultra 19.0 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is just 2.7 FPS, indicating that the GPU is saturated and additional quality settings yield diminishing returns. No 4K preset reaches 60 FPS, and only Low approaches playability. The data suggests that 4K is not viable for this pairing in Lockdown Protocol.

How This Combo Ranks

The Ryzen 9 9900X and RX 570 combination ranks 1,543rd out of 1,637 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 5.7% of all pairings. This rank is remarkably low given that the CPU is a top-tier part — its average benchmark score of 54,450 puts it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D, scores 54,681, a delta of just -0.4%. The CPU is not the problem.

The GPU is the anchor. The RX 570's average benchmark score of 30,158 places it in the 74th percentile of GPUs, but its nearest rivals — the RTX 5060, RX 7700 XT, Tesla M60, and RTX 5070 Mobile — all score within 0.8% of it in synthetic tests. The low combo rank is therefore a product of pairing a 94th-percentile CPU with a 74th-percentile GPU. The measured FPS data confirms this imbalance: the CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 46,438 is wasted when the GPU cannot push frames beyond 78.8 FPS at 1080p Low.

In context, this combo ranks below nearly all modern pairings, but the data does not indicate a faulty configuration. It simply reflects the GPU's age and the game's demand for fillrate. For a 1080p esports title, the rank would be acceptable; for Lockdown Protocol at higher resolutions, it is not.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data supports a clear hierarchy of settings for this combo. At 1080p, Low settings at 78.8 FPS are the best choice for competitive play, offering a 26 FPS advantage over Medium (52.9 FPS) and a 32 FPS advantage over High (46.7 FPS). The jump from Low to Medium costs 25.9 FPS, which is a steep price for marginal visual gains. Ultra at 37.1 FPS is the worst value, sacrificing 41.7 FPS relative to Low.

At 1440p, Medium settings at 42.7 FPS are the recommended balance, as they stay above 40 FPS while delivering better visuals than Low (58.0 FPS). High at 37.9 FPS is borderline, and Ultra at 26.2 FPS should be avoided. At 4K, no preset is ideal, but Low at 39.1 FPS is the only one that approaches playability; Medium at 26.5 FPS and above fall below 30 FPS.

For the best overall experience, the data points to 1080p Medium as the sweet spot: 52.9 FPS is smooth, and the visual upgrade over Low is significant without the steep cost of High or Ultra. Players prioritizing frame rate over visuals should drop to 1080p Low for 78.8 FPS. The 4K results are uniformly poor, so this resolution is not recommended for this pairing.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a high-end desktop processor with 12 cores, 24 threads, and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its base clock is 4.40 GHz, and it is built on TSMC's 4 nm process with a 120 W TDP. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 46,438 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 6,555 in single-core, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 19,827. These numbers place it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-14700F, scores 54,097, a delta of 0.7%.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics data. The measured FPS scaling — where dropping resolution from 1080p to 4K at the same settings reduces FPS by roughly half — indicates that the CPU is not the limiting component. The Ryzen 9 9900X has 64 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB of L2 per core, which ensures that thread scheduling and cache hits are not bottlenecks. Its PassMark multithread score of 54,643 and 3DMark max-threads score of 13,929 confirm strong multi-threaded performance.

The data shows that the CPU's 12 cores and 24 threads are underutilized in this game, as the GPU saturates first. Even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would theoretically be most stressed, the FPS of 78.8 is still limited by the GPU's 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput. If the GPU were upgraded, the Ryzen 9 9900X would likely support significantly higher frame rates, but that is outside the scope of this measured configuration. The CPU is a non-factor in the low combo rank; it is the GPU that drags the pairing down.