Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with Intel Core i5-10400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER

The measured frame rates for this combination reveal a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but shows signs of CPU limitation at 1080p. Across all four tested settings presets, the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER delivers playable performance at every resolution, with the gap between Low and Ultra presets widening dramatically as resolution increases. The data indicates a 6-core, 12-thread Comet Lake processor paired with a high-end Ada Lovelace GPU creates a balanced experience at 1440p and 4K, while 1080p performance suggests the CPU begins to constrain the GPU's output at lower internal resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial but not uniform across presets. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 199.9 at 1920x1080 to 143.6 at 3840x2160, a reduction of 56.3 FPS or roughly 28%. At High settings, the drop is steeper: 169.0 FPS at 1080p down to 91.2 FPS at 4K, representing a 77.8 FPS decline or about 46%. This pattern confirms that higher quality presets place additional load on the GPU, making resolution scaling more punishing.

The Medium preset shows a similar trajectory to High, with 175.7 FPS at 1080p dropping to 102.7 FPS at 4K — a 73.0 FPS reduction. Ultra settings exhibit the largest absolute drop: from 142.7 FPS at 1080p to 65.6 FPS at 4K, a difference of 77.1 FPS. Notably, the 4K Ultra result is the only measured configuration that falls below 70 FPS, indicating that this preset pushes the GPU to its limits at maximum resolution.

The scaling behavior between 1440p and 4K is particularly telling. At High settings, moving from 2560x1440 (137.6 FPS) to 3840x2160 (91.2 FPS) costs 46.4 FPS, while the same resolution jump at Low settings only costs 37.1 FPS (180.7 to 143.6). This suggests that at Low settings, the CPU is increasingly becoming a limiting factor at 1440p, as the GPU has spare capacity that cannot be fully utilized. The relatively small 19.2 FPS difference between 1080p Low (199.9) and 1440p Low (180.7) reinforces this interpretation — the i5-10400F's single-thread performance, measured at 688 in 3DMark single-thread and 1453 in Cinebench R23 single-core, appears to cap frame generation around the 200 FPS mark.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data shows that the High preset offers the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. At 1080p, High delivers 169.0 FPS, which is 30.7 FPS higher than Ultra (142.7) while still maintaining a 6.7 FPS advantage over Medium at 4K. The jump from Medium to High at 1440p is modest (137.6 vs 159.1 FPS — actually High is 21.5 FPS lower), but at 4K, High outperforms Medium by only 11.5 FPS (91.2 vs 102.7). This indicates diminishing returns for the visual quality step from High to Ultra, which costs 25.6 FPS at 4K (91.2 to 65.6).

For players targeting 60+ FPS at 4K, the data supports using High settings as the optimal choice. The 91.2 FPS average provides comfortable headroom above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra at 4K, at 65.6 FPS, is technically playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. At 1440p, both High (137.6 FPS) and Medium (159.1 FPS) exceed the refresh rate of common 144Hz monitors, making the choice between them purely visual. The Low preset at 1440p (180.7 FPS) approaches the 200 FPS territory where the CPU's 3DMark max-thread score of 4735 suggests it may begin to bottleneck.

The Medium preset appears redundant at 1080p, delivering 175.7 FPS compared to High's 169.0 FPS — a mere 6.7 FPS difference that likely corresponds to a small visual quality reduction. At 4K, Medium's 102.7 FPS is the best non-Low option, but the 11.5 FPS improvement over High may not justify the visual compromise. The Ultra preset is only recommended for 1080p usage, where its 142.7 FPS remains well above playable thresholds.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F provides 6 cores and 12 threads with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. This Comet Lake processor, built on Intel's 14 nm process, demonstrates a significant gap between its single-thread and multi-thread capabilities in synthetic benchmarks. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 10297 versus a single-core score of 1453 indicates roughly 7x scaling across 12 threads, which is typical for a 6-core/12-thread part with hyperthreading.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's influence is most visible at 1080p with Low settings, where the 199.9 FPS average appears constrained by the processor rather than the GPU. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1350 and 4-thread score of 2560 suggest that the game's primary thread load is modest, but the ceiling of roughly 200 FPS at 1080p Low points to per-core performance limits. The Geekbench single-core score of 1454 and Passmark single-thread score of 2541 are representative of a mid-range 10th-generation part, which explains why frame rates plateau around 200 FPS even with the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER's considerable compute capability.

The CPU's 73rd percentile ranking among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 14168, places it in the upper-midrange tier. Its nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7552, scores 14115 (0.4% lower), while the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C scores 14277 (0.8% higher). This tight clustering indicates that the i5-10400F delivers performance comparable to a much higher-core-count server chip in aggregate benchmarks, but for gaming, the 4.30 GHz boost clock is the more relevant metric. The 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth provide adequate data feeding for the GPU, though the dual-channel DDR4 interface may become a constraint in CPU-limited scenarios.

FAQ

Q: Is this CPU-GPU combination balanced for Lockdown Protocol?

A: The data shows balanced performance at 1440p and 4K, where the GPU is the primary bottleneck. At 1080p, frame rates plateau around 199.9 FPS on Low settings, suggesting the CPU limits performance.

Q: What is the best resolution for this system?

A: 2560x1440 offers the most consistent experience, with all presets exceeding 100 FPS. The 137.6 FPS High preset at 1440p provides a strong balance of visual quality and smoothness.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Yes, all presets except Ultra exceed 60 FPS at 3840x2160. Low delivers 143.6 FPS, Medium 102.7 FPS, and High 91.2 FPS. Ultra at 65.6 FPS barely clears the threshold.

Q: How does the i5-10400F compare to its closest rivals?

A: The i5-10400F's average benchmark score of 14168 is 0.4% higher than the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115) and 1.1% higher than the Intel Core i5-8500 (14332). It trails the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C by 0.8%.

Q: What preset offers the largest FPS improvement over Ultra?

A: At 4K, dropping from Ultra to High improves average FPS by 25.6 (65.6 to 91.2). At 1440p, the same change yields a 34.9 FPS improvement, and at 1080p, 26.3 FPS.

Q: Does the CPU's 6-core configuration matter for this game?

A: The 6-core/12-thread configuration appears sufficient, as the game shows heavy GPU scaling from Low to Ultra. The CPU's 3DMark 16-thread score of 4748 indicates ample multi-thread headroom.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, built on the AD103 chip with Ada Lovelace architecture, provides the computational backbone for Lockdown Protocol's rendering. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 672.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for 4K textures. The GPU's 8448 shading units and 264 texture mapping units, running at a boost clock of 2610 MHz, produce 44.10 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and a texture rate of 689.0 GTexel/s.

The GPU's 86th percentile ranking among all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 48704, places it firmly in the high-end segment. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA CMP 50HX, scores 49071 (0.7% higher), while the RTX A2000 scores 47915 (1.6% lower). The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5569 and Passmark G3D score of 31811 demonstrate strong DirectX 12 performance, which aligns with the game's modern rendering requirements.

The measured frame rates reveal that the GPU's performance ceiling is only fully realized at 4K with Ultra settings, where the 65.6 FPS result represents a genuine GPU-bound scenario. At lower resolutions and settings, the GPU's 250.6 GPixel/s pixel rate and 96 ROPs are underutilized. The 4K Low result of 143.6 FPS suggests the GPU is operating well below its capacity, with the CPU preventing higher output. The GPU's 285 W TDP and triple-slot cooler design indicate a high-power part, and the data confirms it delivers the expected scaling as resolution increases, with the 1080p to 4K drop at High settings (169.0 to 91.2 FPS) aligning with the 4x pixel count increase.