Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol places heavy demands on both processor and graphics hardware, and the measured results for the Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 show a system that is consistently capable of high frame rates, though the balance between CPU and GPU shifts predictably as resolution changes. The data indicates that this combination sits in the 85th percentile of all tested combos for this game, placing it well above the median experience while leaving headroom for even faster configurations.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound behavior at higher resolutions. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 308 FPS, which drops to 276 FPS at 1440p—a 10.4% reduction—and then falls further to 178 FPS at 4K, representing a 42.2% decline from the 1080p figure. This scaling curve is steep, indicating that the RTX 5090 is the primary driver of performance at 4K, while the CPU has more room to stretch its legs at lower resolutions.

The Ultra preset shows a similar trend but with lower absolute numbers. At 1080p Ultra, the system hits 175 FPS, which drops to 128 FPS at 1440p (26.9% reduction) and then to 83 FPS at 4K (52.6% reduction from 1080p). The percentage drop from 1440p to 4K is 35.2% for Ultra, compared to 35.5% for Low, suggesting that the GPU workload scales almost identically regardless of preset—a sign that resolution is the dominant factor in performance degradation, not the visual complexity of the settings.

The Medium preset provides the only complete min/max data across all resolutions, which helps illustrate variance. At 1080p Medium, the average is 268 FPS with a minimum of 227 and maximum of 308. Moving to 1440p Medium, the average drops to 196 FPS with a min of 167 and max of 226. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 127 FPS with min of 108 and max of 146. The spread between min and max FPS narrows from 81 FPS at 1080p to 59 FPS at 1440p and then to 38 FPS at 4K, indicating that frame pacing becomes more consistent as the GPU becomes the bottleneck.

This scaling behavior suggests that at 1080p, the Core i5-12600KF is partially limiting performance, as the jump from Low to Medium only reduces FPS by 13.0% (308 to 268), while the jump from Medium to High reduces it by 12.7% (268 to 234). At 4K, the same preset transitions show much larger drops: Low to Medium is 28.7% (178 to 127), and Medium to High is 12.6% (127 to 111). The smaller relative differences at 1080p indicate CPU headroom is being exhausted, while at 4K the GPU is clearly the limiting component.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture part built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, featuring 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial for handling high-resolution textures in Lockdown Protocol. The GPU’s boost clock is 2407 MHz, with a base clock of 2017 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective).

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5090 posts a Passmark G3D score of 39650 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 376728, placing it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 79842 is nearly identical to the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79605, deltaPct 0.3%) and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78940, deltaPct 1.1%), while slightly ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80959, deltaPct -1.4%). This indicates the RTX 5090 is operating near the top of its class, with rival cards within a 1.1% margin.

The GPU’s 21760 shading units and 680 TMUs contribute to a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s. These specifications translate directly to the measured FPS in Lockdown Protocol, where the GPU’s raw compute power allows for 308 FPS at 1080p Low and 83 FPS at 4K Ultra. The 32 GB VRAM capacity is far beyond what this game likely requires, but the bandwidth ensures that even at 4K with high-detail assets, memory throughput is not a bottleneck.

The 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance is what drives the high frame rates at 1440p and 4K. The data shows that at 1440p High, the combo achieves 171 FPS, which is 73.1% of the 1080p High result (234 FPS). This scaling is nearly linear with pixel count (1440p has 77.8% of 1080p pixels), confirming that the GPU is the primary constraint at these resolutions. The RTX 5090’s dual-slot design and 575 W TDP require a 950 W suggested PSU, but those power figures do not directly influence the frame rate data.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF is a 10-core, 16-thread Alder Lake-S processor with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. It features a hybrid architecture with 80 KB L1 cache per core, 1.25 MB L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus, and its PCIe Gen 4 interface with 20 lanes provides adequate bandwidth for the RTX 5090.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-12600KF achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23391 and a single-core score of 3302. Its Passmark multithread score is 27575, with a single-thread score of 3925. The 3DMark 16-thread score is 7956, while the 2-thread score is 1995, showing strong scaling across threads. The processor’s average benchmark score of 27799 places it in the 79th percentile of all CPUs, with its nearest rivals being the Intel Core i9-10900K (27872, deltaPct -0.3%) and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (27896, deltaPct -0.3%), both of which are within a 0.3% margin.

The CPU’s role in Lockdown Protocol is most evident at 1080p, where the frame rates are highest. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 308 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for this game’s simulation and draw-call processing. The difference between 1080p Low (308 FPS) and 1440p Low (276 FPS) is only 10.4%, suggesting that the CPU can still feed the GPU enough data at 1440p, but the gap widens at 4K (178 FPS), where the GPU’s rendering workload dominates.

The boost clock of 4.90 GHz is crucial for maintaining high single-thread performance, which many FPS games rely on for game logic and physics. The Cinebench R20 single-core score of 1386 and Geekbench single-core score of 2157 both indicate strong per-core performance. However, the data shows that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at 4K, as the FPS drop from 1440p to 4K is consistent across all presets (around 35%), which is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all presets. Low settings produce 308 FPS, Medium produces 268 FPS (with min 227, max 308), High produces 234 FPS, and Ultra produces 175 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra represents a 43.2% reduction in FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset adds significant rendering complexity that even this CPU-GPU combo must process.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain highly playable. Low settings yield 276 FPS, Medium yields 196 FPS (min 167, max 226), High yields 171 FPS, and Ultra yields 128 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 53.6%, which is steeper than at 1080p, showing that the GPU is working harder to fill the additional pixels with higher-quality effects.

At 3840x2160, the performance is still strong but notably lower. Low settings achieve 178 FPS, Medium achieves 127 FPS (min 108, max 146), High achieves 111 FPS, and Ultra achieves 83 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that drops below 100 FPS, which may be a consideration for players with high-refresh-rate 4K displays. The Medium preset’s min FPS of 108 at 4K indicates that even in demanding scenes, the system maintains playable frame rates.

Comparing settings across resolutions, the Medium preset shows the most consistent relative performance. At 1080p Medium, the average is 268 FPS, which is 87.0% of the Low preset’s 308 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average is 196 FPS (71.0% of Low’s 276 FPS), and at 4K Medium, the average is 127 FPS (71.3% of Low’s 178 FPS). This suggests that Medium settings provide a balanced load between CPU and GPU, with the GPU becoming more dominant as resolution increases.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 holds a rank of 85 out of 3714 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the top 2.3% of all configurations. This high ranking is driven primarily by the GPU’s exceptional performance, as the CPU’s 79th percentile ranking is lower than the GPU’s 92nd percentile, yet the combo still achieves near-top-tier results.

The combo’s ranking suggests that while the i5-12600KF is not the fastest CPU available, it does not meaningfully hold back the RTX 5090 in this game at typical gaming resolutions. The data shows that at 1080p, the CPU may introduce some limitation, but the overall frame rates remain high enough that the combo outperforms the vast majority of tested systems. The 85th percentile ranking also indicates that there are 3,629 other combos that score lower, many of which likely feature weaker GPUs or CPUs with lower single-thread performance.

The nearest CPU rivals to the i5-12600KF, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (deltaPct -0.3%) and Intel Core i9-10900K (deltaPct -0.3%), have nearly identical average benchmark scores, suggesting that swapping to these CPUs would not drastically change the combo’s ranking in this game. Similarly, the RTX 5090’s nearest GPU rivals are within a 1.4% margin, so the combination’s rank is stable within a narrow band of similar hardware.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 308, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: Does this combo maintain above 60 FPS at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 83, which is above 60 FPS.

Q: How much does the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K on High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 234 at 1080p to 171 at 1440p and then to 111 at 4K, representing a 52.6% reduction from 1080p to 4K.

Q: Which preset shows the smallest performance difference between 1080p and 4K?

A: The Low preset shows the smallest absolute difference, with 308 FPS at 1080p and 178 FPS at 4K, a 130 FPS gap. In percentage terms, Low drops 42.2%, while Medium drops 52.6%.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 85th out of 3,714 tested combos, placing it in the 85th percentile.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to limit performance at 4K?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, as FPS drops consistently across all presets when moving from 1440p to 4K, with reductions of 35.5% on Low and 35.2% on Ultra.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting the highest possible refresh rates at 1080p, the Low preset at 308 FPS is the clear choice, though the Medium preset at 268 FPS offers a 13.0% reduction in FPS for likely improved visual quality. The High preset at 234 FPS still provides a smooth experience for 240 Hz displays, while Ultra at 175 FPS is suitable for 165 Hz monitors.

At 1440p, the Medium preset at 196 FPS is the best balance for high-refresh-rate displays, as it stays above 144 FPS while providing more visual fidelity than Low (276 FPS). The High preset at 171 FPS is also viable for 144 Hz or 165 Hz monitors, but Ultra at 128 FPS may be preferred for slower panels where visual quality takes priority.

At 4K, the High preset at 111 FPS is the recommended choice for 120 Hz displays, as it delivers a smooth experience without the significant drop of Ultra (83 FPS). The Medium preset at 127 FPS is even better for 120 Hz panels, offering a 14.4% improvement over High. Players with 60 Hz 4K displays can safely use Ultra at 83 FPS, which provides maximum visual quality while staying well above the 60 FPS threshold.

The data shows that the Medium preset offers the most consistent performance across all resolutions, with the smallest relative drops when moving from 1080p to 1440p (26.9%) and from 1440p to 4K (35.2%). For most users, Medium at 1440p or High at 4K provides the best combination of frame rate and visual fidelity, given the measured results.