Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with Intel Core i5-12400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

Lockdown Protocol presents an interesting scaling pattern for this combination of an Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. The measured frames per second drop from 270.5 at 1080p Low to 82.5 at 4K Ultra, a 69.5% reduction that highlights the GPU's dominance at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the gap between Low and Ultra is 98.2 FPS, while at 4K that same gap narrows to 95.6 FPS, suggesting the CPU begins to exert more influence at lower resolution settings.

Resolution Scaling

The 4K High preset delivers 109 FPS, which is 54.6% lower than the 1080p High result of 228.4 FPS. This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth are being fully utilized. Moving from 1440p High (165.7 FPS) to 4K High (109 FPS) represents a 34.2% performance drop, which aligns with the pixel count increase of 2.25x — though the actual FPS reduction is less severe, indicating some headroom remains in the rendering pipeline.

The scaling from Medium to Ultra at 4K is particularly telling: 123.7 FPS at Medium drops to 82.5 FPS at Ultra, a 33.3% penalty. At 1080p, the same settings transition costs 27.7% (238.4 to 172.3 FPS). This disproportionate penalty at higher resolutions confirms that Lockdown Protocol's Ultra preset introduces effects that scale super-linearly with pixel count, likely heavy post-processing or shadow quality features that tax the GPU's 176 ROPs.

At 1080p Low, the system reaches 270.5 FPS, which is close to the practical ceiling for many displays. The delta between 1080p Low and 1440p Low is 21.5 FPS (270.5 to 249), while the delta between 1440p Low and 4K Low is 70.9 FPS (249 to 178.1). This non-linear scaling suggests that at lower settings, the CPU (6 cores, 12 threads, boosting to 4.40 GHz) becomes a limiting factor at 1080p, allowing the GPU to show more of its potential as resolution increases.

Settings Recommendations

For 4K displays, the Medium preset at 123.7 FPS offers the best balance between visual fidelity and frame rate, sitting comfortably above the 109 FPS High preset while avoiding the 33.5 FPS penalty that Ultra imposes (82.5 FPS). The data indicates that High at 4K (109 FPS) is viable for 60Hz displays but falls short of 120Hz refresh rates, making Medium the recommended choice for high-refresh 4K panels.

At 1440p, the High preset delivers 165.7 FPS, which is sufficient for most 144Hz monitors. The Ultra preset at 127.9 FPS remains playable but sacrifices 22.8% performance compared to High. For competitive play, Low at 249 FPS fully utilizes 240Hz displays, though the visual trade-off may not be worth the 83.3 FPS gain over High for most users. The 1080p results show High (228.4 FPS) and Medium (238.4 FPS) both exceed 200 FPS, with Low reaching 270.5 FPS — the latter being the only setting that approaches 280Hz display capabilities.

The RTX 4090's 24 GB GDDR6X memory is unlikely to be a constraint at any tested setting, given Lockdown Protocol's modest VRAM requirements. The 82.58 TFLOPS compute capacity means that even at 4K Ultra, the 82.5 FPS result is likely limited by the game engine's draw call overhead rather than raw GPU throughput, given the CPU's 18 MB L3 cache and 2.50 GHz base clock.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F's benchmark profile shows a strong single-threaded performance with a 3dmark_single_thread score of 909 and Cinebench R23 single-core of 2332. This translates to effective frame pacing in Lockdown Protocol, a genre that typically relies on single-threaded game logic. The 6-core, 12-thread configuration achieves a 3dmark_max_threads score of 5912, which is only 0.3% higher than the 2-thread score of 1699 scaled up, indicating diminishing returns from additional threads.

Comparing to its nearest rivals, the Core i5-12400F sits within 1.3% of the AMD EPYC 7773X (avgScore 18979) and 0.7% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (19364), while being 0.1% behind the Intel Core i7-8700K (19210). This clustering around 19200 average benchmark score suggests that the CPU is not a differentiator in Lockdown Protocol's performance envelope — the GPU dominates the frame time budget.

The 1080p Low result of 270.5 FPS versus the 4K Low result of 178.1 FPS shows a 92.4 FPS gap, which is fully attributable to GPU load. However, at 1080p, the difference between Low (270.5) and Ultra (172.3) is 98.2 FPS, while at 4K the same settings gap is 95.6 FPS. This near-constant delta across resolutions indicates that the CPU is handling the settings' CPU-side cost (like draw calls and physics) consistently, while the GPU absorbs the resolution scaling. The 2.50 GHz base clock, boosting to 4.40 GHz, provides sufficient single-thread headroom for the game's FPS logic, as evidenced by the 909 single-thread 3dmark score placing in the 77th percentile of all CPUs.

FAQ

Q: Does the Core i5-12400F bottleneck the RTX 4090 in Lockdown Protocol?

A: Benchmark results show the 1080p Low frame rate of 270.5 FPS versus 1440p Low at 249 FPS, a difference of only 21.5 FPS. This small gap at low settings suggests the CPU is nearing its limit around 270 FPS, but at higher settings and resolutions, the GPU becomes the primary constraint, as evidenced by the 4K Ultra result of 82.5 FPS.

Q: What is the best resolution for a 144Hz monitor with this combination?

A: At 1440p High, the system achieves 165.7 FPS, which exceeds 144Hz. Even the 4K Medium preset at 123.7 FPS is within reach, though it falls short of 144Hz. The 1440p Ultra preset at 127.9 FPS is also viable for 120Hz displays.

Q: How much performance is lost by enabling Ultra settings over High?

A: At 1080p, Ultra (172.3 FPS) is 24.6% slower than High (228.4 FPS). At 1440p, the penalty is 22.8% (127.9 vs 165.7 FPS). At 4K, the gap widens to 24.3% (82.5 vs 109 FPS). The consistent penalty across resolutions indicates a uniform settings cost.

Q: Is the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM necessary for this game?

A: Lockdown Protocol does not appear to be VRAM-limited at any tested setting, as the performance scaling follows compute patterns rather than memory capacity constraints. The GPU's 1.01 TB/s bandwidth is more relevant, given the smooth scaling from 1080p to 4K.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its nearest rival for gaming?

A: The Core i5-12400F (avgScore 19221) is 0.1% faster than the Intel Core i7-8700K (19210) and 0.3% faster than the Intel Core i5-1335U (19167), but 0.7% slower than the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (19364). These margins are negligible for Lockdown Protocol, where GPU load dominates.

Q: Can this system achieve 240 FPS in Lockdown Protocol?

A: At 1080p Low, the system reaches 270.5 FPS, comfortably exceeding 240 FPS. At 1080p High, it achieves 228.4 FPS, which is just below 240. For 240Hz displays, only the Low preset at 1080p is sufficient, while Medium (238.4) narrowly misses the target.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090's benchmark profile shows a passmark_g3d score of 38194 and a 3dmark_steel_nomad_dx12 score of 9223, placing it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the database are all professional or workstation cards — the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (avgScore 66733, 0.4% higher), Tesla P40 (66127, 0.5% lower), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 (67097, 0.9% higher), and NVIDIA Quadro P6000 (67320, 1.3% higher). This grouping underscores the RTX 4090's compute-oriented design, with 16,384 shading units and 512 tensor cores.

In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU's 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 443.5 GPixel/s pixel rate drive the measured frame rates. The 4K Ultra result of 82.5 FPS represents a 69.5% drop from 1080p Low (270.5 FPS), which is consistent with the 4x pixel count increase. The 24 GB GDDR6X memory, running at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective speed, provides 1.01 TB/s bandwidth — sufficient for the game's texture streaming at all tested settings.

The RTX 4090's 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores are not directly benchmarked in Lockdown Protocol's measured settings, but the game's FPS scaling from Medium to Ultra (123.7 to 82.5 at 4K) suggests that ray-traced effects or AI-enhanced features are active in the Ultra preset. The 5 nm TSMC process and 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die generate significant thermal output (450 W TDP), requiring the triple-slot cooler and 850 W suggested PSU. The GPU's PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, with 1.29 TB/s theoretical bandwidth, pairs well with the CPU's Gen 5, 20 Lanes support, though the game's data shows no PCIe bottleneck at any resolution.

The RTX 4090's end-of-life production status and 91st percentile ranking mean it will remain a top-tier option for Lockdown Protocol at 4K, but the measured data shows that even this flagship GPU cannot maintain 100 FPS at 4K Ultra, indicating the game's Ultra preset is designed for future hardware generations.