Lockdown Protocol

The Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with an 8 GB AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT produces a wide range of results across Lockdown Protocol, from a hard-to-quench 193 FPS at 1080p Low to just 42 FPS at 4K Ultra. The combo sits at position 1897 out of 3714 tested combinations, placing it almost exactly in the middle of this game's hardware field. The CPU is clearly not the bottleneck at any resolution tested, and the GPU's 8 GB frame buffer and 4K 128‑bit memory interface appear to be the dominant factor in how the game scales.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate for this CPU/GPU combo at 1080p with High settings?

A: The average FPS at 1080p High is 120.

Q: How many cores and threads does the i5‑12600KF have?

A: It has 10 cores and 16 threads.

Q: What is the GPU’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score?

A: The RX 9060 XT scores 4093 in that benchmark, which places it in the 24th percentile of all GPUs tested.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory configuration?

A: The card has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128‑bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 322.3 GB/s.

Q: What is the CPU’s multi‑core score in Cinebench R23?

A: The i5‑12600KF achieves 23391 points in the Cinebench R23 multi‑core test.

Q: What is the combo’s rank in Lockdown Protocol among all tested combos?

A: ⣋t's ranked 1897 out of 3714 combos.

Q: Does the card support DirectX 12 Ultimate?

A: Yes, the GPU is DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) compatible.

GPU Role

The RX 9060 XT uses an RDNA 4.0 architecture built on TSMC's 4 nm process. Its base clock runs at 1700 MHz, its game clock at 2530 MHz, and the boost reaches 3130 MHz. The 8 GB GDDR6 memory operates at an effective 20.1 Gbps, though the 128-bit bus limits total bandwidth to 322.3 GB/s. With 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, the GPU's raw fill rates are 200.3 GPixel/s and 400.6 GTexel/s.

In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU is the performance bottleneck at every resolution above 1080p. At 4K Ultra the average frame rate collapses to 42 FPS, and even at 4K Medium it only reaches 65 FPS with a minimum of 55. That pattern is typical of a card that is constrained by its fillrate and video memory rather than the CPU. The 8 GB frame buffer is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p under all presets, but at 4K the card's ROP count and bandwidth are not enough to maintain 60 FPS at the highest presets. The 4K Low preset still requires memory to handle the full 8 GB, and the measured 91 FPS suggests the GPU can still handle a full 4K scene when pressure is reduce.

The GPU's benchmark results put it in the 24th percentile of all GPUs, which is notably low for a modern part. Its closest rivals in synthetic tests are the Intel HD Graphics 630 (score 4075, delta −0.4%), NVIDIA Quadro K2100M (4151, −1.4%), GeForce GT 755M (4033, +1.5%), and AMD Radeon R5 M330 (4170, −1.8%). The gaps to those ancient or integrated parts are a 0.4% to 1.8% d 90. This suggests that the RX 9060 XT, despite its modern architecture, has a very hard time in a pure compute-bound test. However, in a game like Lockdown Protocol, which is heavy on raster performance and has low GPU requirements at 1080p, the card can still produce high frame rates.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS is reported for three resolutions and four presets. From 1080p to 1440p to 4K, every preset shows a predictable decline:

• Low: 193 → 141 → 91
• Medium: 137 → 100 → 65
• High: 120 → 88 → 57
• Ultra: 90 → 66 → 42

This is a classic GPU-limited curve. At 1080p, the GPU is underworked and the 12600KF feeds it easily; the frame rate even reaches 193 FPS at Low. Raising the resolution triples the number of pixels, and the GPU’s pixel fill rate becomes the limiting factor. The difference between 4 medium and 4K High is only 8 FPS (65 vs 57), and the gap between 1440p Ultra and 4K Ultra is 24 FPS (66 vs 42), meaning the memory bandwidth is not sufficient to scale gracefully. The 128-bit bus delivers only 322.3 GB/s, and at 4K the card is effectively constrained by memory throughput rather than raw shader performance.

That the CPU role is almost negligible at resolutions above 1080p. At 1080p Low, the system is likely CPU-limited? Not necessarily, because the GPU is still capable of nearly 200 FPS. The i5‑12600KF has 10 cores and 16 threads, boosting a single-thread to 4.90 GHz, so it can easily feed the GPU at those speeds. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, as the drop is page from the resolution increase.

How This Combo Ranks

This exact combination – i5‑12600KF with an RX 9060 XT 8GB – is ranked 1897th out of 3714 tested combos within Lockdown Protocol. That is just past the median (a perfect median would be 1857), meaning slightly more than half of the tested combos performed better. The rank is driven almost entirely by the GPU's modest 24th percentile in synthetic tests. The CPU throws its weight to the 79th percentile of all CPUs, but the deal factors the devil.

Comparing to the CPU's nearest rivals, the i5‑12600KF has an average benchmark score of 27783. Its nearest competing chips are the Intel Core i9-10900K (score 27872, -0.3% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE (27799, +0.2%), the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (27887, -0.2%), and the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (27896, -0.3%). So the 12600KF is within half a point of four other chips that have similar multi-threaded compute. However, the in-game perf is determined by that the CPU rarely breaks a sweat, so this rank for the combo is purely a measure of the GPU's capability.

The RX 9060 XT's percentile is 24, meaning about 76% of GPUs in the database achieve a higher Steel Nomad score. It's a low-end entry at this point in the RX 9000 series, but its 8GB VRAM is enough for 1440p gaming at medium presets.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full data set is as follows (avg FPS, min/max only for Medium):

4K (3840×2160)

• Low: 91 avg
• Medium: 65 avg (min 55, max 75)
• High: 57 avg
• Ultra: 42 avg

1440p (2560×1440)

• Low: 141 avg
• Medium: 100 avg (min 85, max 116)
• High: 88 avg
• Ultra: 66 avg

1080p (1920×1080)

• Low: 193 avg
• Medium: 137 avg (min 116, max 158)
• High: 120 avg
• Ultra: 90 avg

These numbers illustrate that the only settings that reaches a tight 60 FPS at 4K are Low (91) and Medium (65) – though Medium's minimum drops to below 60 at 55. At 1440p, all presets are playable: even Ultra is 66, with Micro drops on Ultra not given. At 1080p, all presets exceed 90 FPS, making the card exceptionally spry for a 24th percentile GPU. The minimum and maximum values for Medium, the only setting with min/max data, show a near 20-FPS swing at each resolution: at 4K the range is (55–75), at 1440p (85–116), and at 1080p (116–158) – a variance of roughly 20% of the average.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured rows, the data suggests that this combo is best used at 1440p with a Medium preset. Why? At 1440p Medium the average is 100 FPS with a minimum of 85, which ensures a smooth plot – it's the last preset that retains an FPS floor above 60 without huge external variance. 1440p High and Ultra give 88 and 66 respectively, but they demand lower frame rates. At 4K, only Low (91 avg) or Medium (65 avg) can hold any sort of steady frame, but 4K Medium's minimum of 55 falls below the commonly required 60 FPS for a non-competitive session. For a competitive FPS title, many would target 1080p Medium or High; the frame rates of 137 (medium) and 120 (high) are both above 100 and liquid, while Ultra at 1080p still manages 90.

If the user demands 4K, the only valid row is 4K Low, yielding 91 FPS – which is generous, but the drop to Medium sacrifices 26 FPS. If visual quality is priority, 4K Medium is the upper bound, but turn on the risk of dips below 60 on extreme asset loads.

CPU Role

The i5‑12600KF is a 10-core, 16-thread Alder Lake chip with a 125W TDP. Its base clock is 3.62 GHz, boost up to 4.90 GHz. It has 20 MB of L3 cache, and the CPU's single-thread score in Geekbench is 2157, while the multicore score is 12137. In Cinebench R23, it produces 23391 multi-core and 3302 single-core. Its 3DMark 16-thread test gives 7956, while the max-thread test is 7952. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory with dual-channel. The CPU's 80% percentile (79) is a solid multi-threaded workhorse, matching the scores of the Intel i9-10900K and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D within a 0.3% margin.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU takes a back seat. At 1080p Low, the GPU can manage 193 FPS, and a weaker CPU could conceivably limit that, but the 12600KF's single-thread rating of 3302 on Cinebench is high enough to feed 193 frames. The game is primarily limited by pixel shader and ROP throughput at high resolutions, not thread allocation. The CPU’s 10-core 16-thread layout is more than enough for a FPS title that massively uses more than 8 threads, so the CPU never becomes a limiting factor in these tests. That is supported by the fact that the combo's rank (1897/3714) is almost identical to what the GPU’s 24ugera percentile would predict; the CPU is not the differentiator. If we were testing a CPU-limited title, the i5‑12600KF would likely be near the top 20% of combos, but here it is middle-of-the-pack due to the GPU.

The data also shows that the CPU’s high L3 (20 MB shared) keeps scenes fluid, as every preset drops in FPS is directly correlated with the resolution/video settings, not with CPU frequency. In short, the i5‑12600KF is a strong partner that never becomes a bottleneck, but the RX 9060 XT’s memory width and ROP count determine the eventual frame rates.