Lockdown Protocol

The Intel Core i5-12400 and Intel Arc B580 combination in Lockdown Protocol presents a compelling case study in balance, but the data reveals that the optimal experience depends heavily on your target resolution. The measured results show a clear hierarchy across presets, with the GPU’s 12 GB of VRAM and the CPU’s 6-core/12-thread configuration interacting in ways that reward specific settings choices.

Settings Recommendations

At 1080p, the Low preset delivers the highest average frame rate at 153.7 FPS, making it the clear choice for competitive play where responsiveness trumps visual fidelity. This is a massive jump over the next fastest preset, Medium, which produces 110.2 FPS — a 43.5 FPS difference that translates to a roughly 39% performance advantage. The High preset at 94.7 FPS and Ultra at 72.9 FPS are progressively slower, with Ultra falling below the 75 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for smooth motion in a fast-paced FPS.

Moving to 1440p, the pattern shifts slightly. Low remains the top performer at 111.6 FPS, but Medium at 77.8 FPS and High at 69 FPS are both very playable. Ultra at 53 FPS is noticeably less fluid, suggesting that the GPU’s shading resources are becoming a constraint at this resolution with the highest settings. For a balanced experience at 1440p, Medium is the sweet spot: it offers a 13.9% improvement over High while maintaining a frame rate that comfortably exceeds 60 FPS.

At 4K, the situation changes dramatically. Low is the only preset that breaks the 60 FPS barrier, hitting 72.7 FPS. Medium drops to 52.7 FPS, High to 44.9 FPS, and Ultra to a barely playable 34.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 4K is 20 FPS, which is significant, but the visual downgrade from Medium to Low may be too steep for some players. If 4K is your target, the data strongly suggests sticking with Low to maintain a competitive frame rate, as the CPU’s 3DMark single-thread score of 910 and the GPU’s PassMark G3D score of 15748 indicate that neither component is struggling at this resolution — the settings themselves are the bottleneck.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580’s memory subsystem is a defining feature in these results. With 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus delivering 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth, the GPU has ample headroom for texture-heavy scenes. The base and boost clocks are both locked at 2670 MHz, which is a relatively high operating point, and the 2560 shading units working at that clock produce a pixel rate of 213.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 427.2 GTexel/s. These figures explain why the GPU can push 153.7 FPS at 1080p Low — the fp32 throughput of 13.67 TFLOPS is more than sufficient for the game’s demands at lower settings.

The GPU’s benchmark scores contextualize its position. Its PassMark G3D score of 15748 places it in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 23021 puts it in a close race with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, which scores 23181 (a delta of -0.7%). This near-parity means that in Lockdown Protocol, the B580’s performance is essentially equivalent to a well-known mid-range competitor. The 20 RT cores and 80 ROPs also contribute to the GPU’s ability to handle the game’s visual effects, though the data does not isolate ray tracing performance specifically.

The GPU’s memory clock of 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective) is worth noting because it directly feeds the 456.0 GB/s bandwidth. This bandwidth becomes critical at 4K Ultra, where the 34.6 FPS result suggests that the GPU is being pushed to its limits. However, the fact that 4K Low produces 72.7 FPS — more than double the Ultra figure — indicates that the GPU is not memory-bandwidth-starved even at high resolutions; it’s the shading load that causes the drop.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear trend of diminishing returns as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop varies by preset. At Low, the transition from 1080p (153.7 FPS) to 1440p (111.6 FPS) is a 27.4% reduction, and then to 4K (72.7 FPS) is a further 34.9% reduction from 1440p. This indicates that at Low settings, the CPU remains a significant factor — the i5-12400’s 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, are able to feed the GPU at 1080p, but the GPU becomes more limiting as pixel count climbs.

At High, the scaling is steeper. 1080p delivers 94.7 FPS, 1440p drops to 69 FPS (a 27.1% decrease), and 4K falls to 44.9 FPS (a 34.9% decrease from 1440p). The relative consistency of these percentage drops across presets is notable — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra all show roughly a 27-28% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 34-35% drop from 1440p to 4K. This uniformity suggests that the limiting component is consistent across settings: the GPU’s rendering throughput scales predictably with resolution, and the CPU’s 3DMark max-threads score of 5890 is sufficient to avoid becoming a bottleneck at any tested configuration.

The key insight is that at 4K Ultra, the 34.6 FPS result is nearly identical to the 34.6 FPS at 4K Ultra — this is not a typo, but rather a sign that the GPU is hitting a hard performance ceiling. The Arc B580’s 13.67 TFLOPS of fp32 compute is simply not enough to maintain high frame rates at 4K with maximum settings, regardless of the CPU’s capabilities. Conversely, at 1080p Low, the 153.7 FPS result shows that the combo is capable of very high frame rates when the GPU is not overburdened.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 1080p gaming with this combo?

A: The Low preset delivers the highest average frame rate at 153.7 FPS, which is 43.5 FPS higher than Medium (110.2 FPS) and 80.8 FPS higher than Ultra (72.9 FPS). For maximum responsiveness, Low is the clear choice.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, which produce 72.7 FPS. Medium drops to 52.7 FPS, High to 44.9 FPS, and Ultra to 34.6 FPS, making the higher presets less suitable for smooth play at 4K.

Q: How does the Arc B580 compare to the RTX 4060 in this game?

A: The B580’s average benchmark score is 23021, while the RTX 4060 scores 23181, a delta of -0.7%. In practical terms, performance is nearly identical, so settings recommendations would be the same for both cards.

Q: Is the i5-12400 a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data does not indicate a CPU bottleneck at 1080p. The CPU’s 3DMark single-thread score of 910 and 16-thread score of 5873 suggest it can keep up with the GPU, as evidenced by the 153.7 FPS result at Low settings.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1440p Medium?

A: The measured average FPS at 1440p Medium is 77.8 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and only 33.8 FPS lower than the 1440p Low result of 111.6 FPS.

Q: Why does the FPS drop so much from 1080p to 4K?

A: The drop is consistent across presets, with a roughly 27-28% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a further 34-35% reduction from 1440p to 4K. This indicates the GPU’s rendering throughput is the limiting factor, as its compute rate of 13.67 TFLOPS scales predictably with pixel count.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-12400 + Intel Arc B580 combination ranks 1284 out of 1637 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database. This ranking is somewhat surprising given the individual component scores — the CPU’s average benchmark score of 19850 puts it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, and the GPU’s average of 23021 puts it in the 66th percentile. However, the game-specific results show that this pairing does not punch above its weight class in this particular title.

The CPU’s nearest rivals provide context for its performance. The Intel Core i7-9700 scores 19831 (a delta of 0.1% against the i5-12400), while the Intel Core i7-8700 scores 19894 (a delta of -0.2%). The AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX scores 19928 (a delta of -0.4%), and the Intel Core i5-11600K scores 19771 (a delta of 0.4%). These deltas are all within a fraction of a percent, meaning the i5-12400’s compute performance is effectively identical to these rivals in synthetic benchmarks. Yet in Lockdown Protocol, the combo’s rank suggests that the game is not particularly well-optimized for this specific CPU-GPU pairing, or that other combos in the database simply have higher-performing components.

The GPU’s rival comparison is similarly tight. The AMD Radeon 760M scores 22999 (a delta of 0.1%), the NVIDIA P106-100 scores 22950 (a delta of 0.3%), and the RTX 4060 Mobile scores 22729 (a delta of 1.3%). The RTX 4060 desktop, at 23181, is the only rival that beats the B580, and only by 0.7%. Given this near-parity, the B580’s 12 GB of VRAM and 456.0 GB/s bandwidth should give it an edge in texture-heavy scenarios, but the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (34.6 FPS) suggests that the game is more compute-bound than memory-bound, which limits the GPU’s advantage.

The rank of 1284 out of 1637 means that 353 combos perform worse, but it also means that 1283 combos perform better. This places the i5-12400 + B580 in a position where it is outclassed by the majority of tested systems, likely due to the relatively modest CPU and GPU specifications compared to higher-end options. For players building a system specifically for Lockdown Protocol, the data suggests that this combo is adequate for 1080p and 1440p play at lower settings, but it will not deliver top-tier performance at higher resolutions or presets. The 65W TDP of the CPU and 190W TDP of the GPU make it an efficient pairing, but efficiency does not translate directly to frame rate in this game’s measured results.