Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER

This combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER places at rank 1634 out of 2828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, positioning it in the lower-middle segment of the benchmark database. The data indicates a system that can handle the game comfortably at 1080p and 1440p, but the GPU becomes a limiting factor at 4K, particularly with higher quality presets. The CPU, a 12-core, 24-thread Zen 5 part with a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, is clearly not the bottleneck in this pairing; rather, the RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and Turing architecture define the performance envelope.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 1634 out of 2828 tested combinations places it in the 42nd percentile of all tested systems for Lockdown Protocol. This is a modest standing, reflecting a pairing where the CPU is vastly more capable than what the GPU can deliver in this title. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D sits in the 91st percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54762, while the RTX 2070 SUPER only reaches the 65th percentile among GPUs, with an average score of 20282. This imbalance is confirmed by the measured FPS data: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 175 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, it drops to 39 FPS, a 78% reduction that is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the database provide context for its strength. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF scores 55093, just 0.6% higher than the 9900X3D's average, while the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K trails by 1.3% with 54053. The Intel Xeon 6505P and Core i7-14700F are 2% and 2.1% behind, respectively. For the GPU, the RTX 2070 SUPER's average score of 20282 is bracketed by the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20480, 1% faster), the GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534, 1.2% faster), the Intel Arc B570 (20556, 1.3% faster), and the Intel Arc A750 (20582, 1.5% faster). This tight cluster indicates the GPU is competitive with those parts, but none of them are modern high-end performers.

Given that the combo rank is near the middle of the pack, the data suggests that Lockdown Protocol is not particularly demanding on the CPU side, allowing even mid-range GPUs to reach playable frame rates at lower resolutions. The 9900X3D's massive 128 MB L3 cache and high single-thread performance (3dmark_single_thread score of 1269) are largely untapped in this scenario, as the RTX 2070 SUPER becomes the ceiling above 1080p Medium.

FAQ

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

A: Based on the measured data, 2560x1440 with High settings provides an excellent balance, yielding 80 FPS average. This is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and it is a significant step up in visual fidelity from 1080p. At 4K, even Medium settings only produce 59 FPS, which may be acceptable but is less comfortable.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Lockdown Protocol?

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K Low, the combo achieves 83 FPS, which is playable. However, at 4K High, the average drops to 51 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 39 FPS. The data shows that 4K is only viable for competitive play on Low settings, or for casual play on Medium where the average is 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU perform relative to its rivals?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X3D's average benchmark score of 54762 is essentially on par with the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF, which scores 55093 (0.6% higher). It is 1.3% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, 2% ahead of the Intel Xeon 6505P, and 2.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700F. This shows the 9900X3D is a top-tier CPU, but its advantage over these rivals is marginal in synthetic benchmarks.

Q: Is the GPU the limiting factor in this combo?

A: The data strongly suggests yes. The GPU's percentile rank is 65, while the CPU is at 91. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 175 FPS, but at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 82 FPS, a 53% reduction. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect less variation across settings. The GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are likely the constraints at higher resolutions and settings.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between High and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, High settings produce an average of 80 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 60 FPS. This is a 25% reduction in average frame rate for the jump from High to Ultra. The measured minimum for Medium at this resolution is 78 FPS, which is higher than the Ultra average, indicating that Ultra settings impose a heavy load on the GPU.

Q: Does the 9900X3D's 3D V-Cache provide any benefit in this game?

A: The fact pack lists a total L3 cache of 128 MB, which is characteristic of the 3D V-Cache design. However, the measured FPS data shows performance that is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, meaning the cache's benefit is not directly observable in this specific pairing. The CPU's high single-thread score (1269 in 3dmark_single_thread) and 24 threads suggest it is more than capable, but the RTX 2070 SUPER limits the final output.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience based on the measured rows, 2560x1440 with High settings is the sweet spot. This configuration yields an average of 80 FPS, which is smooth for a first-person shooter, and it avoids the significant performance hit of Ultra settings. At 1080p, High settings deliver 109 FPS, which is excellent for competitive play, and even Ultra at 82 FPS is playable. However, the jump from High to Ultra at 1080p costs 27 FPS (25% reduction), so High is the recommended preset for maximum fluidity.

At 4K, the data shows that Low settings are the only option for a high-refresh experience, with 83 FPS average. Medium settings at 4K produce 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS, which may be acceptable for slower-paced gameplay but is risky for fast action. High and Ultra at 4K are not recommended, as they produce 51 and 39 FPS respectively, which falls below the 60 FPS target for most players.

The measured minimum FPS values are only available for Medium settings across all resolutions: 106 FPS at 1080p, 78 FPS at 1440p, and 50 FPS at 4K. These minimums are all within 15-20% of the average, indicating reasonable frame pacing, but the 4K Medium minimum of 50 FPS is the only data point that dips below 60 FPS. For a consistently smooth experience, sticking to High at 1440p or below is the safest choice.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates its strongest performance. Low settings achieve an average of 175 FPS, which is the highest measured value across all resolutions and settings. Medium settings yield 125 FPS with a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 143 FPS. High settings produce 109 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 82 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 53% reduction in average FPS (from 175 to 82), which is a substantial penalty for the highest quality preset.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales down predictably. Low settings average 129 FPS, which is still very high. Medium settings average 91 FPS with a minimum of 78 FPS and a maximum of 105 FPS. High settings yield 80 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 60 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 69 FPS (53.5%), mirroring the percentage reduction seen at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the GPU struggles more noticeably. Low settings average 83 FPS, which is the only 4K preset that clears the 60 FPS threshold comfortably. Medium settings average 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 68 FPS, placing it right at the edge of playability. High settings drop to 51 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 39 FPS. The 4K data shows a 53% reduction from Low to Ultra as well, consistent with the other resolutions, but the absolute numbers are much lower, highlighting the GPU's limitations at this resolution.

The measured FPS data shows that the scaling from 1080p to 1440p to 4K is not linear. At Low settings, 1080p yields 175 FPS, 1440p yields 129 FPS, and 4K yields 83 FPS. This represents a 26% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 53% drop from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the numbers are 109, 80, and 51 FPS respectively, showing a 27% drop to 1440p and a 53% drop to 4K. The consistent percentage drops across settings suggest a uniform GPU limitation.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS reduction from 1080p to 4K is significant and consistent across all settings. At Low, the drop is from 175 FPS to 83 FPS, a 52.6% reduction. At Medium, it goes from 125 FPS to 59 FPS, a 52.8% reduction. At High, it drops from 109 FPS to 51 FPS, a 53.2% reduction. At Ultra, it falls from 82 FPS to 39 FPS, a 52.4% reduction. This uniformity—all hovering around 53%—is a classic sign of a GPU-bound workload, where the frame rate is inversely proportional to the number of pixels rendered.

The data reveals that doubling the pixel count from 1080p to 4K (which is a 4x increase in pixels) results in roughly halving the frame rate, which is less than the theoretical 4x reduction. This suggests that the game's rendering pipeline is not purely pixel-limited; there may be some CPU-side work that remains constant, or the GPU has some headroom that is not fully utilized at lower resolutions. However, the fact that the percentage drop is so consistent across settings indicates that the RTX 2070 SUPER's fill rate and memory bandwidth (448.0 GB/s) are the primary constraints.

Given the CPU's high performance—12 cores, 24 threads, 5.50 GHz boost, and a 3dmark_max_threads score of 13795—the CPU is clearly not the limiting factor in resolution scaling. If it were, we would see the FPS drop more sharply when moving from 1080p to 1440p, as the CPU would struggle to feed the GPU with more frames. Instead, the GPU's load increases proportionally with resolution, confirming that the RTX 2070 SUPER is the bottleneck.

The 4K Medium data point, with a minimum of 50 FPS, is particularly telling. This is the only measured row where the minimum FPS is below 60, indicating that frame pacing becomes less stable at high resolutions. The gap between average and minimum at 4K Medium is 9 FPS (15.3%), while at 1440p Medium it is 13 FPS (14.3%), and at 1080p Medium it is 19 FPS (15.2%). The consistent gap percentage suggests the GPU is running at near capacity in all cases, but the absolute minimums at 4K are too low for competitive play.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, built on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with a 120 W TDP. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and a massive 128 MB of L3 cache, which is the defining feature of the 3D V-Cache design. This large cache is intended to reduce memory latency and improve gaming performance, though its benefit is not directly visible in this GPU-limited pairing.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 9900X3D shows exceptional multi-threaded performance. It scores 47737 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 20049 in Cinebench R20 multi-core, with a Passmark multi-thread score of 56154. Single-thread performance is also strong, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6739 and a Geekbench single-core score of 3041. The CPU's 3dmark scores scale well with thread count: 2512 for 2 threads, 4885 for 4 threads, 9002 for 8 threads, and 13795 for max threads. This scaling suggests the CPU can handle heavily threaded workloads, but Lockdown Protocol does not appear to stress it enough to cause a bottleneck.

Given that the combo ranks 1634 out of 2828, and the CPU is in the 91st percentile, the data implies that the game is not CPU-intensive enough to differentiate between top-tier processors. The 9900X3D's nearest rivals are all within 2% of its average score, meaning any of these CPUs would likely produce identical FPS results when paired with the same GPU. The CPU's role in this combo is to provide a solid foundation that does not constrain the GPU, which it does admirably.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s (dual-channel DDR5) and PCIe Gen 5 support (24 lanes) are modern features that ensure it is not a bottleneck for the RTX 2070 SUPER, which uses PCIe 3.0 x16. The 9900X3D's integrated Radeon Graphics is not relevant for gaming with a discrete GPU, but its presence does not detract from performance. Overall, the CPU is overqualified for this pairing, and its performance headroom is clear from the 175 FPS at 1080p Low, which is likely near the game's engine limit rather than a CPU limit.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is based on the Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It features 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores. The GPU has a base clock of 1605 MHz and a boost clock of 1770 MHz, with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's TDP is 215 W, and it requires a dual-slot cooler with a 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin power connector.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 2070 SUPER scores 18169 in Passmark G3D and 7557 in Passmark GPU compute, with a 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1651. Its average benchmark score is 20282, placing it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. The nearest rivals show a tight cluster: the Quadro M4000M is 1% faster, the RTX 3070 Mobile is 1.2% faster, the Arc B570 is 1.3% faster, and the Arc A750 is 1.5% faster. This indicates the RTX 2070 SUPER is a mid-range performer, competitive with these parts but not a high-end solution.

The GPU's role in Lockdown Protocol is clearly the limiting factor, as evidenced by the resolution scaling data. At 1080p, the GPU can push 175 FPS on Low, but this drops to 82 FPS on Ultra, showing that the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth are the constraints. The 8 GB VRAM is a potential issue at 4K, where textures and geometry can exceed this capacity, leading to the observed 51 FPS average on High and 39 FPS on Ultra. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is also a limiting factor at 4K, as the GPU must access more data for each frame.

The GPU's 12 nm process node and 13,600 million transistors result in a large die size of 545 mm², which is indicative of its age (released in 2019). The RTX 2070 SUPER supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, meaning it is feature-complete for modern games, but its raw performance is simply not sufficient for 4K Ultra settings in a fast-paced FPS. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU provides a playable experience at 1080p and 1440p, but 4K is only viable at lower quality presets.