Lockdown Protocol

The pairing of the Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 in Lockdown Protocol presents a stark contrast in component tiers. The CPU, a 4-core, 8-thread Alder Lake-S part with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, relies on a 12 MB shared L3 cache. Its benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 11912 and a single-core result of 1681, place it in the 72nd percentile of all CPUs. This is a modest processor designed for mainstream desktop use, a fact underscored by its 10 nm process node and 58 W TDP. In contrast, the RTX 5080 is a flagship-class Blackwell 2.0 GPU with a 5 nm process node and a 360 W TDP, featuring 10752 shading units and a boost clock of 2617 MHz. The data suggests that in Lockdown Protocol, this combination's performance is heavily dictated by the CPU's ability to feed the GPU, rather than the GPU's raw rendering power.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i3-12100F's physical configuration is the primary determinant of its performance ceiling in Lockdown Protocol. With only 4 cores and 8 threads, it relies on high clock speeds to maintain responsiveness. The boost clock of 4.30 GHz is critical for single-threaded game logic, while the 12 MB shared L3 cache helps mitigate the latency of repeated data access. The benchmark results confirm a strong single-thread capability relative to its multi-thread performance; its Geekbench single-core score of 2224 is proportionally much higher than its multi-core score of 7413. This indicates that while the CPU can handle a few demanding threads well, its overall throughput is limited.

This limitation becomes evident when examining the frame rate data at lower resolutions. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves an average of 271.8 FPS. However, this high frame rate does not scale linearly with resolution reductions, suggesting the CPU is nearing its limit. The CPU's 3DMark scores for 8 threads (4026) and max threads (4023) are nearly identical, confirming that the extra virtual threads provided by Hyper-Threading offer little additional performance in this workload. The game appears to be bottlenecked by the physical core count, as the jump from 4 to 8 threads in the benchmark shows a significant gain (from 2859 to 4026), but adding more threads beyond that yields no benefit. In Lockdown Protocol, the i3-12100F provides just enough single-core speed to drive high frame rates, but its limited core count prevents it from pushing even higher, especially when the GPU is underutilized.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The benchmark database places this specific CPU-GPU combination at rank 85 out of 1637 tested combos for Lockdown Protocol. This puts it in the top 5.2% of all systems tested, a strong showing that reflects the immense power of the RTX 5080. However, the ranking also reveals the imbalance of this pairing. While the GPU is a top-tier component, the CPU is not. The data indicates that the combo's rank is likely suppressed by the i3-12100F's performance, as more balanced systems with a slower GPU but a faster CPU could potentially achieve a higher ranking in this CPU-sensitive title. The percentile data supports this: the CPU sits in the 72nd percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU sits in the 89th percentile of all GPUs. This 17-percentage-point gap highlights the mismatch. The combo achieves a high rank, but it is a rank earned by the GPU's brute force, not by an efficient synergy between the two components.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The frame rate scaling across resolutions clearly illustrates the shifting bottleneck. At 1080p High, the system averages 219.4 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, performance drops to 158.8 FPS, a 27.6% decrease. This substantial drop indicates that the GPU is now becoming the primary limiting factor, as the increase in pixel count demands more from the rendering hardware. The trend continues to 4K High, where the average FPS falls to 106.1, another 33.2% decline from the 1440p result.

The behavior at Low settings is more revealing. At 1080p Low, the system hits 271.8 FPS, likely a CPU-imposed ceiling. When the resolution is increased to 1440p Low, the frame rate only drops to 241.9 FPS. This relatively small decline of 11% suggests that at 1080p Low, the CPU was the bottleneck, and the GPU had spare capacity. The extra load from 1440p is absorbed by that spare capacity, resulting in a smaller FPS impact. However, at 4K Low, the FPS drops to 167.6, a 30.7% reduction from 1440p, showing that the GPU's limits are finally reached. This pattern confirms that the i3-12100F caps performance at lower resolutions and settings, while the RTX 5080 becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions and detail levels.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured FPS data provides a detailed view of the system's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 271.8 FPS (Low), 238.6 FPS (Medium), 219.4 FPS (High), and 163.3 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Ultra is 108.5 FPS, indicating that the game's Ultra settings impose a significant load on the GPU. At 2560x1440, the averages are 241.9 FPS (Low), 186.9 FPS (Medium), 158.8 FPS (High), and 118.7 FPS (Ultra). The drop from Low to Ultra here is 123.2 FPS, a larger absolute difference than at 1080p, showing the increased GPU workload. At 3840x2160, the averages are 167.6 FPS (Low), 118.9 FPS (Medium), 106.1 FPS (High), and 78.5 FPS (Ultra). The difference between Low and Ultra is 89.1 FPS.

The data shows that the 4K Ultra setting is the only configuration that drops below the 90 FPS threshold, averaging 78.5 FPS. This is the only point where the system struggles to maintain high refresh rates. For all other settings and resolutions, the system remains above 100 FPS, with the 1080p Low and 1440p Low configurations exceeding 200 FPS. The performance scaling from Medium to High is generally modest, but the jump to Ultra is consistently steep, suggesting that Ultra settings include effects that are particularly taxing on the GPU. The 1440p Medium result of 186.9 FPS is notable, as it offers a balance of visual quality and performance that is significantly higher than the 4K High result of 106.1 FPS.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain its high performance. The GPU is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture and features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s. This substantial bandwidth ensures that texture and geometry data can be fed to the 10752 shading units without starvation, even at high resolutions and detail settings. The GPU's boost clock of 2617 MHz, combined with its 84 RT cores and 336 Tensor cores, provides the raw compute power necessary for the high frame rates seen in the data. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8637 and Passmark G3D score of 36565 place it in the 89th percentile of all GPUs.

The GPU's role becomes clear in the benchmark results. At 4K Ultra, the system averages 78.5 FPS, a result that is entirely dependent on the GPU's ability to process the scene. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is likely sufficient for Lockdown Protocol at these settings, preventing any memory-related stutters. The GPU's performance is also highlighted by the scaling from High to Ultra; the consistent drop in FPS when moving to Ultra settings across all resolutions indicates that these settings introduce computationally expensive effects that stress the GPU's shader and ROP units. While the CPU is a limiting factor at lower resolutions, the RTX 5080's power is what allows the system to achieve playable frame rates at 4K, a feat that would be impossible with a less capable GPU. The data shows that the GPU is the star of this show, but it is often waiting for the CPU to catch up.