Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with Intel Core i5-10400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER delivers a playable but uneven experience in Lockdown Protocol, a fast-paced FPS where frame pacing directly impacts aiming and reaction times. The measured data reveals a combo that handles 1080p and 1440p competently but begins to strain at 4K, with the GPU emerging as the clear bottleneck at higher resolutions while the CPU's six cores and twelve threads provide adequate headroom for this title. This pairing sits at rank 2165 out of 3714 tested combos, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database, which suggests meaningful performance headroom exists in other configurations.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and reveals a system that becomes progressively GPU-bound as pixel count increases. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 109 FPS at 1920x1080 to 80 FPS at 2560x1440, a 26.6% reduction, then further to 51 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a 53.2% total decline from 1080p. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario — the RTX 2070 SUPER simply cannot maintain the same throughput when pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K.

Low settings show an even steeper relative drop: 175 FPS at 1080p falls to 129 FPS at 1440p and then 83 FPS at 4K, a 52.6% overall reduction. The fact that Low settings at 4K (83 FPS) still outperform High settings at 4K (51 FPS) by 62.7% indicates that the GPU's raw shading capability, not the CPU, is the limiting factor at this resolution. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is likely saturated at 4K, especially with higher texture quality demands.

The scaling between 1440p and 4K is particularly telling. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 91 at 1440p to 59 at 4K, a 35.2% reduction. This non-linear scaling suggests that memory bandwidth or fill rate constraints become more pronounced as resolution increases, consistent with the GPU's 113.3 GPixel/s pixel rate and 283.2 GTexel/s texture rate being stretched thin at 4K. At 1080p, the i5-10400F's 2.90 GHz base and 4.30 GHz boost clocks provide sufficient single-thread performance to keep frame rates high, but at 4K the CPU has idle capacity while the GPU works at full load.

GPU Role

The RTX 2070 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the observed performance envelope. With 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, this Turing-architecture GPU delivers 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present, though Lockdown Protocol's implementation of ray tracing or DLSS features is not reflected in the measured FPS data, which likely uses standard rasterization.

The memory subsystem is a critical factor. The 8 GB GDDR6 frame buffer, running at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective speed, provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. At 4K Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 39, which is below the 60 FPS threshold most competitive FPS players consider minimum. Even at 1440p Ultra, the 60 FPS average is marginal for a genre where high refresh rates matter. The GPU's 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20282, places it slightly below the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20480, -1%), RTX 3070 Mobile (20534, -1.2%), Intel Arc B570 (20556, -1.3%), and Intel Arc A750 (20582, -1.5%) in synthetic tests, yet real-world game performance can differ from these aggregate scores.

The GPU's power configuration — 215 W TDP with a 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin power connector and 550 W suggested PSU — means it can sustain boost clocks for extended sessions, but thermal throttling at 4K could explain why the gap between Medium (59 FPS) and High (51 FPS) at 4K is smaller than at lower resolutions. The 1605 MHz base and 1770 MHz boost clocks are modest by modern standards, and the 12 nm TSMC process node limits efficiency compared to newer architectures. This is an end-of-life product with a launch MSRP of 499 USD, and its age shows in 4K scenarios where newer GPUs with higher bandwidth and more shading units would scale better.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of settings for each resolution, and the optimal choice depends on whether the user prioritizes frame rate or visual fidelity. At 1920x1080, all settings produce playable frame rates, but the differences are stark. Low settings yield 175 FPS average, Medium 125 FPS, High 109 FPS, and Ultra 82 FPS. For competitive play, Low settings provide a 40% advantage over Medium and a 60.5% advantage over High, making it the clear choice for esports-focused players who need maximum responsiveness.

At 2560x1440, the picture shifts. Low settings produce 129 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh monitors, while Medium delivers 91 FPS and High 80 FPS. The 18.9% gap between Medium and High is smaller than at 1080p, suggesting diminishing returns from higher settings as resolution increases. Ultra at 1440p drops to 60 FPS, which is borderline for smooth gameplay — playable but not ideal for a fast-paced FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p, with its min FPS of 78 and max FPS of 105, offers the best balance of visual quality and performance stability.

At 3840x2160, the recommendations change dramatically. Ultra settings are essentially unplayable at 39 FPS, and High (51 FPS) is marginal. Medium settings at 59 FPS with a min of 50 and max of 68 are the only viable option for 4K, but even this requires a tolerance for sub-60 FPS dips. Low settings at 83 FPS are the only preset that provides comfortable headroom above 60 FPS. For 4K users, the data suggests that Low or Medium settings are necessary, and the 62.7% performance gap between High and Low at this resolution indicates that the GPU's shading and memory resources are the limiting factor, not the CPU.

How This Combo Ranks

This configuration ranks 2165 out of 3714 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the 58.3rd percentile of all tested systems. This means roughly 58% of tested combos perform better, while 42% perform worse. Given that the GPU sits at the 65th percentile among all GPUs and the CPU at the 68th percentile among all CPUs, the combo's game-specific ranking is lower than either component's individual percentile, suggesting that Lockdown Protocol is particularly demanding on the combination of these two parts.

The gap between component percentiles and game rank implies that the game's engine may not scale well with this specific hardware configuration. The i5-10400F's 6 cores and 12 threads, while adequate for most titles, may not provide enough parallelism for Lockdown Protocol's more demanding scenes, even though the GPU has headroom at lower resolutions. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 175 FPS, which is excellent, but the drop to 82 FPS at 1080p Ultra — a 53.1% reduction — suggests that the GPU becomes the bottleneck when settings increase, even at the lowest resolution.

The combo's rank is influenced by the fact that many modern CPUs offer higher single-thread performance than the i5-10400F's 688 3DMark single-thread score and 1451 Cinebench R23 single-core score. These scores place the CPU at the 68th percentile, but in a game like Lockdown Protocol where frame times matter, the 4.30 GHz boost clock may not be sufficient to feed the GPU efficiently in all scenarios. The nearest rivals in CPU performance — the Intel Xeon 6756E (14163 avg score, 0.2% delta), Intel Core 7 160UL (14232, -0.3%), AMD EPYC 7552 (14115, 0.5%), and AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (14277, -0.6%) — all have similar aggregate scores, but their core counts and architectures differ significantly, which could affect game-specific performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process node. Its 2.90 GHz base clock and 4.30 GHz boost clock provide a 48.3% frequency headroom for burst workloads, which is beneficial for single-threaded game logic. The 12 MB shared L3 cache is moderate by modern standards, but the per-core L1 (64 KB) and L2 (256 KB) caches are typical for this generation.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role varies by resolution. At 1080p Low settings, the 175 FPS average suggests the CPU can feed the GPU sufficiently, but the 53.1% drop to 82 FPS at Ultra settings indicates that either the CPU cannot maintain frame pacing at higher settings or the GPU becomes the bottleneck. The 3DMark scores provide context: 4748 in the 16-thread test and 4735 in the max-thread test show that scaling beyond 8 threads (3929) is minimal, meaning the CPU's 12 threads do not provide significant additional performance in synthetic tests. This suggests that Lockdown Protocol likely uses fewer than 8 threads effectively, and the CPU's single-thread performance (688 in 3DMark single-thread, 1451 in Cinebench R23 single-core) is the more relevant metric.

The memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s over a dual-channel DDR4 bus is a potential limitation. At 1080p with high frame rates, the CPU must feed data to the GPU quickly, and 42.7 GB/s may be insufficient in scenes with many entities or complex physics. The Passmark data compression score of 185944 and integer math score of 41471 indicate decent computational throughput, but the 35 score in find prime numbers and 696 in physics suggest that certain workloads are not well-optimized for this CPU. In a game like Lockdown Protocol, which likely involves physics calculations and AI, the physics score of 696 could indicate a bottleneck in complex scenes, even if average FPS remains acceptable.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are: Low 175, Medium 125, High 109, and Ultra 82. The Medium preset has a recorded minimum of 106 FPS and maximum of 143 FPS, providing a 37 FPS range that indicates some frame time variance. The gap between Low and Medium is 40%, while the gap between High and Ultra is 24.8%, showing that the performance cost of Ultra over High is smaller than the cost of Medium over Low.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 129, Medium 91, High 80, and Ultra 60. The Medium preset ranges from 78 to 105 FPS, a 27 FPS spread. The drop from Low to Medium is 29.5%, from Medium to High is 12.1%, and from High to Ultra is 25%. This non-linear scaling suggests that certain settings (possibly shadows or reflections) have disproportionate costs at 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 83, Medium 59, High 51, and Ultra 39. The Medium preset ranges from 50 to 68 FPS, a tight 18 FPS spread that indicates consistent but borderline performance. The drop from Low to Medium is 28.9%, from Medium to High is 13.6%, and from High to Ultra is 23.5%. The 4K Ultra result of 39 FPS is 52.4% lower than the 4K Low result, emphasizing the GPU's limitations at this resolution.

Comparing across resolutions at the same settings reveals the CPU-GPU balance. At Low settings, the 175 FPS at 1080p drops to 129 FPS at 1440p (-26.3%) and 83 FPS at 4K (-35.7% from 1440p). At Ultra settings, the 82 FPS at 1080p drops to 60 FPS at 1440p (-26.8%) and 39 FPS at 4K (-35% from 1440p). The consistent percentage drops across settings suggest that resolution scaling is primarily GPU-bound, and the CPU's contribution to frame rate is relatively constant regardless of resolution.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Lockdown Protocol at 1440p with high refresh rates?

A: Yes, at 1440p Low settings the combo achieves 129 FPS average, and at Medium settings 91 FPS. However, at High settings the average drops to 80 FPS, and at Ultra it falls to 60 FPS, so high refresh rates (120+ Hz) require Low or Medium settings.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with the RTX 2070 SUPER and i5-10400F?

A: At 4K, only Low settings (83 FPS) and Medium settings (59 FPS) are playable. High settings (51 FPS) and Ultra (39 FPS) fall below 60 FPS, making them unsuitable for a competitive FPS. The GPU's 8 GB memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth limit performance at this resolution.

Q: How does the i5-10400F's CPU performance affect this game?

A: The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads with a 4.30 GHz boost clock are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming, as evidenced by 175 FPS at 1080p Low. However, the single-thread score of 688 in 3DMark and 1451 in Cinebench R23 suggest it may struggle in CPU-heavy scenes, and the 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth could be a limiting factor at high frame rates.

Q: What settings should I use for competitive play?

A: For maximum frame rates, use Low settings at 1080p (175 FPS) or 1440p (129 FPS). If visual quality is important, Medium settings at 1440p (91 FPS with 78 min) provide a good balance, while 1080p Medium (125 FPS) is also viable for high-refresh monitors.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: This combo ranks 2165 out of 3714 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the lower-middle range. The GPU's 65th percentile and CPU's 68th percentile among all parts do not translate to a higher game-specific rank, indicating the game is demanding on this hardware pairing.

Q: Is the RTX 2070 SUPER or the i5-10400F the bottleneck in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, where performance drops significantly regardless of CPU load. At 1080p, the CPU's limitations may surface in certain scenes, but the 109 FPS High and 82 FPS Ultra results suggest the GPU is still the limiting factor at higher settings.