Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D + AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT

This combination pairs AMD's 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D with the Radeon RX 6800 XT, producing a 1080p experience that ranges from 113 FPS at Ultra to 242 FPS at Low, with 4K performance dropping to a 53–115 FPS spread across the same settings. The measured data shows a system that is clearly GPU-limited at higher resolutions, while the CPU's strong single-thread and multi-thread scores provide ample headroom at lower settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, confirming that the Radeon RX 6800 XT becomes the binding constraint as pixel count rises. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 242 FPS at 1920x1080 to 177 FPS at 2560x1440 (a 27% reduction) and then to 115 FPS at 3840x2160 (a further 35% drop from 1440p). This progression indicates that even at the lowest graphical preset, the GPU's rendering throughput—not the CPU—is the limiting factor once resolution increases.

The scaling pattern at Medium settings is similar but slightly less severe in percentage terms: 172 FPS at 1080p, 126 FPS at 1440p (a 27% drop), and 81 FPS at 4K (a 36% drop from 1440p). At High settings, the numbers are 150 FPS, 110 FPS, and 71 FPS respectively, showing a 27% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 35% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The consistency of these percentage drops across Low, Medium, and High suggests that the RX 6800 XT's memory bandwidth and compute resources scale predictably with resolution, with no sudden cliff or bottleneck shift.

Ultra settings exhibit the largest relative decline: 113 FPS at 1080p, 82 FPS at 1440p (a 27% drop), and 53 FPS at 4K (a 35% drop from 1440p). The 4K Ultra result of 53 FPS is the only measured average below 60 FPS in the entire dataset, indicating that this preset pushes the GPU to its limits. The fact that the percentage drops remain nearly constant (27% and 35%) across all four settings reinforces that resolution scaling is driven entirely by the GPU's pixel processing capability, with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's contribution remaining constant regardless of resolution.

The delta between Low and Ultra at each resolution is also informative. At 1080p, the gap is 129 FPS (242 vs 113); at 1440p, it narrows to 95 FPS (177 vs 82); at 4K, it shrinks to 62 FPS (115 vs 53). This narrowing gap with increasing resolution is a classic sign of GPU-bound operation—at 4K, the GPU is so saturated that even the most demanding preset cannot create as much relative headroom as it can at 1080p where the GPU has more idle capacity.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 6800 XT brings 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth—a configuration that proves adequate for all measured settings in Lockdown Protocol, including 4K Ultra where the 53 FPS average indicates the GPU's compute limits rather than memory exhaustion. The card's clock behavior, with a base of 1825 MHz, a game clock of 2015 MHz, and a boost of 2250 MHz, supports its 20.74 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, which is the primary driver of the resolution scaling observed.

The GPU's 4608 shading units and 288 TMUs, paired with 128 ROPs, give it a pixel rate of 288.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 648.0 GTexel/s. These figures explain why the 4K Ultra preset (53 FPS) is substantially lower than 4K High (71 FPS)—the extra shading and texture work at Ultra demands more from the fixed ROP and TMU resources. The 72 ray accelerators (RT cores) are present but their impact on this game's measured results cannot be isolated from the data, as no ray tracing-specific benchmarks were provided.

The RX 6800 XT's 85th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48,477, places it in the upper tier of tested hardware. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile (1.5% higher score), the Intel Arc A550M (2.5% lower), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (3% lower), showing that the RX 6800 XT sits in a competitive band despite being from an earlier generation. The card's 512.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is likely a key factor in maintaining playable 4K performance, as the measured 4K High average of 71 FPS stays above the 60 FPS threshold.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The highest measured average is 242 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next best is 177 FPS at 2560x1440 Low, followed by 172 FPS at 1920x1080 Medium.

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

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K High, the average is 71 FPS; at 4K Medium, it is 81 FPS with a minimum of 69 FPS. The 4K Ultra preset drops to 53 FPS, which is below the typical 60 FPS target, while 4K Low reaches 115 FPS.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's CPU performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The 9950X3D has an average benchmark score of 75,779, placing it 0.1% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755X3D, 0.3% ahead of the AMD EPYC 8224P, and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The only settings with reported minimum FPS values are Medium presets: 69 FPS at 4K, 107 FPS at 1440p, and 146 FPS at 1080p. Other presets did not have minimum FPS data recorded.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data shows the GPU is the primary limiter. The FPS drops by 27% from 1080p to 1440p and 35% from 1440p to 4K across all settings, while the CPU's high single-thread score (1,292 in 3DMark single-thread) and multi-thread score (17,184 in 3DMark max threads) provide no evidence of CPU constraint even at 1080p Low where 242 FPS is achieved.

Q: How does the RX 6800 XT's benchmark standing compare to recent GPUs?

A: The RX 6800 XT's average benchmark score of 48,477 places it 1.5% below the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile, 2.5% above the Intel Arc A550M, and 3% above both the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64.

Settings Recommendations

For the best balance of visual quality and frame rate, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 stands out: 126 FPS average with a minimum of 107 FPS and a maximum of 145 FPS. This provides a comfortable margin above 100 FPS while still offering higher fidelity than Low, and the minimum FPS of 107 ensures no significant stutter during demanding scenes. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 172 FPS with a minimum of 146 FPS, making it ideal for high-refresh-rate displays, though the jump to High (150 FPS) is modest and may be preferable for better visuals.

At 4K, the Medium preset is the recommended choice: 81 FPS average with a minimum of 69 FPS and a maximum of 94 FPS. This keeps the experience above 60 FPS at all times, unlike Ultra which averages only 53 FPS, and offers substantially better visual quality than Low's 115 FPS. The High preset at 4K (71 FPS) is also viable, but the Medium preset's minimum of 69 FPS provides more consistent frame pacing, which is critical in an FPS game where frame time spikes affect aiming precision.

For players with 1440p displays seeking maximum refresh rate, Low settings at 177 FPS is the only preset that approaches 180 FPS, but Medium at 126 FPS is likely the sweet spot for most competitive play, balancing responsiveness with acceptable graphical fidelity. At 1080p, the Ultra preset at 113 FPS is perfectly playable and offers the best image quality, while High at 150 FPS is the choice for those prioritizing frame rate without sacrificing too much detail.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are: Low 242, Medium 172 (with min 146 and max 198), High 150, and Ultra 113. The progression shows a 29% drop from Low to Medium, a 13% drop from Medium to High, and a 25% drop from High to Ultra. The Medium preset's minimum of 146 FPS indicates that even in the most demanding moments, the frame rate stays well above 144 FPS, while the maximum of 198 FPS shows headroom for variable refresh rate displays.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 177, Medium 126 (with min 107 and max 145), High 110, and Ultra 82. The drop from Low to Medium is 29%, from Medium to High is 13%, and from High to Ultra is 25%—nearly identical percentage deltas to 1080p, confirming consistent GPU scaling. The Medium minimum of 107 FPS is notably lower than the 1080p minimum of 146 FPS, reflecting the increased pixel workload at 1440p, but still comfortably above 100 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 115, Medium 81 (with min 69 and max 94), High 71, and Ultra 53. The percentage drops between settings match the lower resolutions (29% Low to Medium, 13% Medium to High, 25% High to Ultra), but the absolute values are much lower. The Medium preset's minimum of 69 FPS is the closest any measured setting comes to dropping below 60 FPS without actually doing so, while Ultra's 53 FPS average is the only sub-60 result in the dataset.

The maximum FPS values were only recorded for Medium presets: 198 at 1080p, 145 at 1440p, and 94 at 4K. These maxima are 15%, 15%, and 16% higher than their respective averages, suggesting consistent frame generation without significant spikes. The absence of min/max data for other presets limits deeper analysis, but the available Medium data points indicate stable performance characteristics across all three resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), built on TSMC's 4 nm process with 16,630 million transistors across two 70.6 mm² dies. Its 128 MB of L3 cache, combined with 80 KB L1 and 1 MB L2 per core, provides substantial data locality for game workloads. The CPU's base clock of 4.30 GHz and boost clock of 5.70 GHz, alongside DDR5 dual-channel memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth, positions it as a high-end desktop part.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 9950X3D achieves a 3DMark single-thread score of 1,292 and a max-thread score of 17,184, with intermediate results of 2,549 (2 threads), 4,963 (4 threads), and 9,259 (8 threads). The scaling from 2 to 4 to 8 threads is nearly linear (2x, 1.87x, 1.86x), indicating excellent multi-threading efficiency. Cinebench R23 scores of 2,259 single-core and 42,018 multi-core further confirm the CPU's capability, as does a Geekbench single-core score of 3,064 and multi-core of 26,736.

The CPU's 95th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 75,779, places it at the top of the tested processor hierarchy. Its nearest rivals—the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755, AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755X3D, AMD EPYC 8224P, and Intel Core Ultra 9 285—all score within 0.4% of the 9950X3D, indicating that this game's performance is not sensitive to the small benchmark differences between these top-tier CPUs. The CPU's strong single-thread performance (1,292 in 3DMark single-thread) is particularly relevant for an FPS game like Lockdown Protocol, where game logic and physics often rely on a few primary threads.

Given that the 9950X3D's multi-thread score of 17,184 in 3DMark max-threads is over 13 times its single-thread score, the CPU has massive headroom for any background tasks or streaming workloads that might run alongside the game. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU limitation—even at 1080p Low with 242 FPS, the frame rate is likely constrained by the GPU's pixel throughput rather than the CPU's instruction processing, as the CPU's benchmark scores far exceed what would be needed to sustain such frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT ranks 1,161 out of 3,714 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the 68.7th percentile of all configurations. The rank of 1,161 means that 1,160 other CPU-GPU pairings achieve higher average performance in this game, while 2,553 combos rank lower. Given the GPU's 85th percentile standing among all GPUs and the CPU's 95th percentile among all CPUs, the combo's rank is dragged down primarily by the GPU's relative position—the CPU is near the top of the pyramid, but the RX 6800 XT is not.

The gap between the CPU's and GPU's percentile standings (95 vs 85) suggests that pairing a higher-tier GPU with the 9950X3D would likely produce a better combo rank, as the CPU has significant headroom to drive faster graphics cards. The measured FPS data supports this: at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 242 FPS, but a more powerful GPU could push this higher if the CPU allows, given that the 9950X3D's single-thread score of 1,292 suggests it can handle very high frame rates without becoming the bottleneck.

The combo rank of 1,161 out of 3,714 (31.3% of combos rank higher) is consistent with the GPU's mid-upper tier positioning. The RX 6800 XT's nearest rivals in GPU benchmarks—the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile, Intel Arc A550M, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, and AMD Radeon RX Vega 64—all score within 3% of the RX 6800 XT, meaning any of these GPUs paired with the 9950X3D would likely achieve a similar combo rank. The fact that the RX 6800 XT's average benchmark score of 48,477 is only 1.5% below the RTX A1000 Mobile and 3% above the RTX 5070 Ti suggests that the combo's rank is not an outlier but rather a reflection of the GPU's genuine performance tier.