Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with AMD Ryzen 9 9900X + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

Lockdown Protocol, released in 2024, presents an interesting case study in how a high-end CPU and GPU combination behaves across different resolution and quality settings. The measured data for this AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX pairing reveals a system that scales predictably with resolution, but with some notable inflection points that hint at where the bottleneck shifts between the processor and the graphics card. This analysis examines the measured FPS rows, the hardware characteristics from the fact pack, and how this combination ranks among the 3,714 tested combos in this game.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data shows a clear and expected pattern: performance degrades as resolution increases, but the rate of degradation is not uniform across all settings. At Low settings, the jump from 1080p to 1440p is steep—from 304 FPS down to 223 FPS, a drop of 81 FPS. Moving from 1440p to 4K at Low settings brings another 79 FPS reduction, landing at 144 FPS. This near-linear drop suggests that at Low settings, the GPU is still the primary limiting factor even at 1080p, since the frame rates are high enough that the CPU's 12 cores and 24 threads are not being saturated.

The Medium settings row tells a similar story but with slightly different magnitudes. At 1080p Medium, the average is 216 FPS, which falls to 158 FPS at 1440p (a 58 FPS drop), and then to 102 FPS at 4K (a 56 FPS drop). The consistency of these deltas indicates that the GPU workload scales proportionally with pixel count. However, the High settings reveal a more interesting pattern. At 1080p High, the system produces 188 FPS, which drops to 138 FPS at 1440p—a 50 FPS reduction. But then from 1440p to 4K, the drop is only 49 FPS (from 138 to 89). This slightly shallower curve at the highest resolution suggests that at 4K High, the GPU is becoming the dominant bottleneck, and the CPU's headroom is no longer the constraint.

Ultra settings show the most dramatic scaling. The system delivers 141 FPS at 1080p Ultra, which falls to 103 FPS at 1440p (a 38 FPS drop), and then to 67 FPS at 4K (a 36 FPS drop). The percentage losses are more severe here: from 1080p to 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops by 52.5%. This is a larger relative decrease than the Low settings, which only lose 52.6% from 304 to 144 FPS—wait, that's actually nearly identical in percentage terms. The absolute numbers hide the fact that the relative scaling is remarkably consistent across settings, hovering around 50-52% total reduction from 1080p to 4K. This consistency points to a well-balanced system where neither CPU nor GPU creates a disproportionate bottleneck at any particular resolution.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX brings substantial graphics resources to this game. With 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, the memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s is more than sufficient for Lockdown Protocol's textures and geometry at any resolution. The 24 GB frame buffer means that even at 4K Ultra settings, VRAM capacity is unlikely to be a limiting factor—the game simply doesn't need that much memory, but the headroom guarantees no texture thrashing.

The GPU's clock behavior is relevant to the measured results. The base clock of 1929 MHz, boost clock of 2498 MHz, and game clock of 2365 MHz indicate that the card operates in a range where it can sustain high frame rates without thermal throttling under typical gaming loads. The 96 ray tracing cores are present, but the measured data doesn't isolate ray tracing performance, so their impact on these specific FPS numbers is unknown. The pixel rate of 479.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 959.2 GTexel/s are the raw throughput figures that drive the fill-rate-dependent aspects of Lockdown Protocol's rendering.

The GPU's benchmark scores provide context for its overall capability. The PassMark G3D score of 31,238 is the most relevant metric for gaming performance, and the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,841 suggests strong DirectX 12 performance, which is the API Lockdown Protocol likely uses. The GPU's percentile rank of 64 among all GPUs is modest, but this is a percentile that includes workstation and enterprise cards. More telling is the average benchmark score of 19,410, which places it in a peculiar neighborhood: its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB (delta +0.4%), NVIDIA Quadro K5200 (delta -1%), AMD FirePro D300 (delta -1.2%), and NVIDIA TITAN Xp (delta +1.2%). These are vastly different cards in terms of architecture and era, which suggests the aggregate benchmark score is not perfectly representative of gaming performance. The measured FPS in Lockdown Protocol, however, shows this GPU is clearly capable of high refresh rate gaming at 1080p and solid 4K performance.

FAQ

Q: Does the 24 GB VRAM make a difference in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The measured FPS data does not show any VRAM-related performance cliffs at any resolution or settings. The 24 GB capacity exceeds what the game likely requires even at 4K Ultra, as evidenced by the consistent frame rates at each resolution without sudden dips that would indicate memory swapping.

Q: Why is the 4K High FPS (89) so much lower than 1080p High (188)?

A: The 4K resolution has 4 times the pixel count of 1080p, and the measured data shows the GPU workload increasing proportionally. The 89 FPS at 4K High represents a 52.7% reduction from the 1080p High figure, which is consistent with the expected scaling for a GPU-bound scenario at these settings.

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

A: The data shows that 1440p Medium provides 158 FPS, which is above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on high-end monitors. 1440p High at 138 FPS is also viable. For 4K, Medium at 102 FPS is playable, but Ultra at 67 FPS may be below the threshold for competitive play.

Q: How does this combo's rank in Lockdown Protocol compare to its overall CPU and GPU ranks?

A: The combo ranks 460 out of 3,714 tested combinations, placing it in the top 12.4% of all combos. The CPU's percentile rank of 92 and GPU's percentile rank of 64 suggest the CPU is stronger relative to its peers, but the combo rank reflects the combined performance in this specific game.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1080p Low?

A: At 304 FPS, the frame rate is extremely high, and the CPU's 12 cores and 24 threads with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz are likely the limiting factor. The GPU's capability at lower resolutions is sufficient to push beyond what the CPU can feed, though the measured numbers don't isolate CPU-specific limits.

Q: Does the Ultra preset provide a meaningfully better experience than High?

A: At 1440p, Ultra delivers 103 FPS versus High's 138 FPS—a 25.4% reduction for the visual quality upgrade. At 4K, Ultra drops to 67 FPS versus High's 89 FPS, a 24.7% reduction. The trade-off is measurable but depends on whether the visual improvements justify the FPS cost.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 304 FPS, which is well beyond any display's refresh rate. Medium settings see a drop to 216 FPS, with a minimum of 183 FPS and maximum of 248 FPS. High settings yield 188 FPS, and Ultra brings the average down to 141 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 163 FPS, indicating that the settings presets have a substantial impact on GPU workload even at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but the gaps between settings tighten. Low settings average 223 FPS, Medium drops to 158 FPS (min 134, max 182), High reaches 138 FPS, and Ultra falls to 103 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 120 FPS, a smaller absolute gap than at 1080p but a similar percentage reduction. The Medium settings at 1440p show a minimum of 134 FPS, which is above 60 FPS but below the 144 FPS threshold—this is worth noting for players with high refresh rate monitors.

At 3840x2160, the system still produces playable frame rates across all settings. Low averages 144 FPS, Medium averages 102 FPS (min 87, max 117), High averages 89 FPS, and Ultra averages 67 FPS. The minimum FPS of 87 at 4K Medium is still well above the 60 FPS playability threshold, and even the Ultra average of 67 FPS is acceptable for non-competitive play. The fact that Low at 4K achieves 144 FPS suggests that for players willing to reduce settings, 4K high refresh rate gaming is achievable with this combo.

The medium settings rows are the only ones with min/max data provided, which gives insight into frame pacing at that quality level. At 1080p Medium, the range from 183 to 248 FPS shows a fairly tight distribution. At 1440p Medium, the range narrows to 134-182 FPS, and at 4K Medium, it's 87-117 FPS. The narrowing range at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU is more consistently loaded, reducing the variance that CPU-side bottlenecks can cause at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and frame rate. For 1080p, the High preset at 188 FPS is the best balance—it's above 144 Hz refresh rate, and the jump to Ultra only adds visual quality at the cost of 47 FPS (188 to 141). The Medium preset at 216 FPS is also viable for competitive play, but the visual reduction may not be worth the extra 28 FPS over High.

At 1440p, the High preset at 138 FPS is the sweet spot for players with 144 Hz monitors. The Medium preset at 158 FPS provides additional headroom above 144 Hz, but the Ultra preset at 103 FPS falls below that threshold. For players with 60 Hz displays, Ultra at 103 FPS is still excessive, and Medium at 158 FPS would be a better choice to reduce GPU load and potentially lower power consumption.

At 4K, the Medium preset at 102 FPS is the clear recommendation for a balanced experience. The Low preset at 144 FPS is available for players who prioritize frame rate over visuals, but the Medium settings provide 87 FPS minimums, which is comfortably above 60 FPS. The High preset at 89 FPS is very close to Medium's 102 FPS but likely adds visual features that may be worth the 13 FPS difference. The Ultra preset at 67 FPS is the only setting that dips below 60 FPS minimums (though min data isn't provided for Ultra), making it less suitable for consistent competitive play.

The data suggests that the High preset is the "recommended" quality level for this combo across all resolutions, as it maintains frame rates above 60 FPS even at 4K and above 138 FPS at 1440p. However, the Ultra preset's 67 FPS at 4K is still playable and may be preferred for visual fidelity in single-player or co-op contexts.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from the Zen 5 architecture, built on a 4 nm process at TSMC. Its base clock of 4.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz are high enough to avoid becoming a bottleneck in most gaming scenarios, especially at higher resolutions where the GPU takes on more work. The 64 MB of L3 cache, distributed as 1 MB per core L2 and 80 KB per core L1, provides substantial on-die storage for game assets and instructions.

The CPU's benchmark results indicate strong multi-threaded and single-threaded performance. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 32,172 and single-core score of 2,253 both place it in a high-performance tier. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 12,552 and max-thread score of 13,929 show that the processor scales well with thread count, which is relevant for Lockdown Protocol's physics and AI workloads. The PassMark multithread score of 54,643 and single-thread score of 4,672 further confirm that this CPU can handle both lightly-threaded and heavily-threaded game components.

In Lockdown Protocol specifically, the CPU's role is likely to be more important at lower resolutions and settings where the GPU is not fully utilized. The 304 FPS at 1080p Low is a frame rate that would stress most CPUs' ability to issue draw calls and process game logic. The fact that the system maintains 144 FPS at 4K Low suggests that the CPU is not a limiting factor at higher resolutions, but at 1080p Low, the CPU's 12 cores are probably the reason the frame rate doesn't go even higher.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 9015 (delta -0.1%), AMD EPYC 7313 (delta +0.2%), Intel Core i9-14900 (delta -1.1%), and Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (delta -1.4%). These deltas are all within 1.4% of the 9900X's average benchmark score, indicating that in synthetic benchmarks, this CPU is essentially tied with some server and workstation parts. However, in gaming, the 9900X's higher single-thread performance (as shown by the 3DMark single-thread score of 1,286) likely gives it an edge over those rivals in CPU-bound scenarios.

How This Combo Ranks

In Lockdown Protocol, this combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX ranks 460th out of 3,714 tested combos. This places it in the top 12.4% of all combinations, which is a strong showing given the breadth of hardware tested. The rank reflects the actual measured FPS data, not synthetic benchmarks, so it accounts for the game-specific performance characteristics of both components.

The combo's rank is notably better than the GPU's individual percentile rank of 64, which suggests that the CPU's high performance compensates for the GPU's middling percentile position. The CPU's percentile rank of 92 places it in the top 8% of all CPUs, and when paired with a GPU that ranks at the 64th percentile, the combined result is a top-12.4% finish. This indicates that Lockdown Protocol is more CPU-sensitive than some other games, or that the 9900X's strong single-thread performance specifically benefits this game's engine.

The rank of 460 out of 3,714 means there are 459 combos that perform better, but given the GPU's 64th percentile rank, this is a case where the CPU is doing heavy lifting to boost the overall result. The data implies that if the GPU were upgraded to a higher-tier card, the combo rank would likely improve, but if the CPU were downgraded, the rank would suffer more significantly. This is an important consideration for players looking to optimize their Lockdown Protocol experience—the CPU choice matters more than the GPU choice for this specific title, at least within the range of hardware tested here.

The measured FPS data supports this interpretation, as the frame rates at 1080p Low (304 FPS) are high enough that a less capable CPU would likely reduce them, while the 4K Ultra results (67 FPS) are more GPU-bound. The combo's rank reflects a balance that favors the CPU's capabilities, and players with this hardware can expect strong performance across all resolutions, with the caveat that Ultra settings at 4K will require accepting frame rates below the 144 Hz threshold.