Lockdown Protocol

The Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER delivers a performance profile that lands in the lower tier of tested combinations for Lockdown Protocol. The combo ranks 1452 out of 1637 tested configurations, placing it in the 89th percentile from the bottom—a result that reflects the GPU's mid-range standing rather than the CPU's capability. The data shows a system where the graphics card is the clear limiting factor, as evidenced by the scaling patterns across resolutions and settings. The CPU, which sits in the 84th percentile against all processors with an average benchmark score of 27827, is never the bottleneck in this pairing. Instead, the GTX 1660 SUPER, with its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 192-bit bus, governs the frame rates, producing playable but not exceptional results at 1080p and struggling to maintain smooth performance at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the i5-12600KF and GTX 1660 SUPER places this system in the lower 11% of all tested combos for Lockdown Protocol, with a rank of 1452 out of 1637. This positioning is notable because the CPU alone performs far better than this ranking suggests. The i5-12600KF achieves an average benchmark score of 27827, placing it in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals—including the Intel Core i9-10900K and Intel Core i7-13700H—show negligible performance differences, with deltaPct values between -0.2% and 0.4%. The GPU tells a different story. The GTX 1660 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 14286, sitting in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals—the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 and Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics—are within 0.7% of its score, indicating a tightly grouped mid-range performance band. The gap between the CPU's high percentile and the GPU's mid-level percentile is the core insight: in Lockdown Protocol, the i5-12600KF is capable of driving far more frames than the GTX 1660 SUPER can render. This mismatch explains why the combo rank is low—the system's ceiling is set by the graphics card, not the processor. For context, the CPU's multi-threaded scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multicore result of 23444 and a Passmark multithread score of 27575, are strong, but they are irrelevant to the final frame rates in this GPU-limited scenario.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-12600KF or the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER the bottleneck in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The data indicates the GTX 1660 SUPER is the limiting component. The CPU scores in the 84th percentile against all processors, while the GPU sits in the 55th percentile. Moreover, the GPU's nearest rivals are within 0.7% of its performance, showing it is the weaker link in this pairing.

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this system?

A: The highest average frame rate achieved is 123.4 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. For a balance of visual quality and performance, 1920x1080 at High settings yields 78.5 FPS, while 2560x1440 at Medium produces 66.3 FPS, both of which are playable.

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

A: The combo ranks 1452 out of 1637 tested combos for Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the lower tier of systems, which is consistent with the GPU's mid-range standing relative to all GPUs tested.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Lockdown Protocol?

A: At 3840x2160, the highest average FPS is 57.3 at Low settings, but at Ultra settings it drops to 27.7 FPS. The 4K results are generally below the smooth 60 FPS threshold except at the lowest settings, making it only marginally viable for 4K play.

Q: What is the difference in performance between the GTX 1660 SUPER and its closest rivals?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 14286, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 and 0.5% lower than the AMD Radeon Vega 11. Its performance is statistically tied with the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics, which is 0.2% behind.

Q: Does the CPU's high single-thread performance help in this game?

A: The i5-12600KF has a strong single-thread score of 3925 in Passmark and 1016 in 3DMark single-thread tests. However, because the GPU is the bottleneck, these CPU strengths do not translate into higher frame rates in Lockdown Protocol.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that is heavily GPU-bound. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the average FPS is 78.5. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings, the average drops to 54.7 FPS, a reduction of approximately 30%. At 3840x2160, the average falls to 37.1 FPS, which is a 53% reduction from the 1080p result. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a graphics card that is reaching its limits as pixel count increases. The GTX 1660 SUPER's 6 GB of VRAM and 336.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth are adequate for 1080p but become strained at higher resolutions. The CPU's performance does not change with resolution, so the consistent FPS drops are directly attributable to GPU load. At Low settings, the trend is similar but with higher absolute values: 123.4 FPS at 1080p, 89.5 FPS at 1440p, and 57.3 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is about 54%, nearly identical to the High settings drop. This consistency suggests that the GPU's compute and memory resources, not the game's visual complexity, are the primary constraint. The i5-12600KF, with its 10 cores and 16 threads, is not the limiting factor in any resolution scenario, as evidenced by the fact that FPS scales down predictably with resolution while CPU load remains constant.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the GTX 1660 SUPER delivers its best results. Low settings produce an average of 123.4 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. Medium settings yield 85.6 FPS, High settings drop to 78.5 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 54.8 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is significant, with a 68.6 FPS difference, indicating that the GPU's shading units and texture units are heavily taxed by higher quality presets. At 2560x1440, the performance scales down proportionally. Low settings average 89.5 FPS, Medium averages 66.3 FPS, High averages 54.7 FPS, and Ultra averages 42.8 FPS. The frame rate at 1440p Ultra (42.8 FPS) is close to the 4K High result (37.1 FPS), showing that resolution and settings interact to produce similar GPU loads. At 3840x2160, the results are the weakest. Low settings average 57.3 FPS, which is just above playable, but Medium drops to 42.3 FPS, High to 37.1 FPS, and Ultra to 27.7 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is less than half the 1080p Low result, underscoring the GPU's limitations at high pixel counts. The data shows a smooth, logical progression: for each resolution, the FPS decreases as settings increase from Low to Ultra, and for each setting level, the FPS decreases as resolution increases. The largest single drop occurs between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings, where the average falls by 33.9 FPS, demonstrating that the GTX 1660 SUPER's memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s is a limiting factor when pixel throughput increases.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER plays the decisive role in this combo's Lockdown Protocol performance, and its specifications explain the measured results. The GPU has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is sufficient for 1080p gaming but becomes a constraint at higher resolutions, where the frame buffer demands more data throughput. The GPU's base clock is 1530 MHz with a boost clock of 1785 MHz, and its 1408 shading units produce a fill rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s. These figures place the GTX 1660 SUPER in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14286. The nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, scores 14389, which is 0.7% higher, showing just how tight the competition is at this performance tier. In Lockdown Protocol specifically, the GPU's 6 GB VRAM is not the primary issue—even at 4K, the game's memory footprint likely fits within 6 GB—but the compute throughput is insufficient for high frame rates at Ultra settings. The FP32 performance of 5.027 TFLOPS is modest by modern standards, and the 48 ROPs limit the pixel fill rate. The fact that the GTX 1660 SUPER's performance is statistically indistinguishable from integrated graphics solutions like the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (0.2% difference) and AMD's Vega 11 (0.5% difference) in synthetic benchmarks highlights its mid-range classification. In practical terms, the GPU delivers playable frame rates at 1080p medium-to-high settings, but it cannot sustain 60 FPS at 1440p High or above, and 4K gaming is only viable at Low settings. The CPU's strong single-thread performance, with a Passmark single-thread score of 3925, does not compensate for this GPU limitation, as the frame rates are consistently capped by the graphics card's rendering capabilities.