Lockdown Protocol

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-13400F is a 10-core, 16-thread Raptor Lake-S processor with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. It features a 20 MB shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 cache per core, with a 65W TDP. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU demonstrates strong multi-threaded capability with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22604 and a 3DMark max-threads score of 7307, while single-thread performance is solid at 3191 in Cinebench R23 and 960 in 3DMark single-thread.

For Lockdown Protocol, a fast-paced FPS, the relationship between CPU and GPU load is crucial. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 245 FPS average, which is the highest measured frame rate in the entire dataset. This indicates that at lower resolutions and settings, the CPU is fully capable of feeding the GPU with enough draw calls and game logic updates to reach extremely high frame rates. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 7314 versus the max-threads score of 7307 shows that scaling is essentially flat beyond 16 threads, meaning the 13400F's 10 cores and 16 threads are being fully utilized in threaded workloads without hyperthreading overhead drag.

The benchmark results show that at 1080p Ultra, average FPS drops to 114, while at 1080p Low it reaches 245. This 131 FPS gap at the same resolution is primarily driven by GPU workload changes, but the CPU must also handle increased draw calls and physics calculations at higher settings. The CPU's single-thread performance, represented by a 3DMark single-thread score of 960 and a PassMark single-thread score of 3634, is what keeps frame pacing stable in a genre where reaction time matters. Compared to its nearest rivals, the 13400F posts an average benchmark score of 25292, putting it 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (25201) and statistically tied with the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS (25284).

The CPU's memory support spans both DDR4 and DDR5 with dual-channel configuration, and while the data does not specify which memory type was used in testing, the 20 MB shared L3 cache helps mitigate memory latency in scenarios where the game engine streams assets. The fact that the 13400F maintains 245 FPS at 1080p Low versus 180 FPS at 1440p Low suggests that the CPU headroom is substantial — the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution climbs. The PassMark physics score of 1437 indicates the CPU handles game physics calculations efficiently, which is relevant for a tactical FPS where environmental interactions and projectile calculations occur frequently.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy across settings presets at each resolution. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers 245 FPS average, Medium delivers 174 FPS with a 148-200 FPS range, High delivers 152 FPS, and Ultra delivers 114 FPS. For competitive play on high-refresh-rate monitors, the Low preset at 1080p is the only option that approaches 240Hz-class performance, but the Medium preset at 174 FPS still exceeds 144Hz displays while providing better visual fidelity. The Medium preset's minimum of 148 FPS is particularly notable — it never dips below the 144Hz refresh rate threshold, making it the safest choice for consistent competitive frame delivery.

At 1440p, the picture changes significantly. Low preset produces 180 FPS average, Medium produces 128 FPS with a 109-147 FPS range, High produces 112 FPS, and Ultra produces 84 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p offers the best balance — the 109 FPS minimum is still playable for most competitive titles, and the visual upgrade from 1080p is substantial. However, for players with 144Hz monitors, the Low preset at 180 FPS ensures the display is always saturated, while the Medium preset's 128 FPS average means occasional dips below refresh rate.

At 4K, the data becomes more constrained. Low preset yields 116 FPS, Medium yields 82 FPS with a 70-95 FPS range, High yields 72 FPS, and Ultra yields 54 FPS. At this resolution, the Low preset is the only one that maintains an average above 100 FPS, which is important for smooth gameplay on 4K displays. The Medium preset's 70 FPS minimum is still within the range of acceptable playability for a tactical FPS, but the 54 FPS average at Ultra suggests that preset is only suitable for cinematic play rather than competitive scenarios.

The optimal recommendation depends on the target display refresh rate. For 1080p 240Hz panels, Low preset is mandatory. For 1080p 144Hz panels, Medium preset provides the best visual quality while maintaining a 148 FPS minimum. For 1440p 144Hz panels, Low preset is required to stay above refresh rate, though Medium preset may suffice if the player tolerates occasional dips. For 4K 60Hz displays, Medium preset at 82 FPS average provides headroom above the refresh rate, while High preset at 72 FPS still exceeds 60 FPS and offers better visuals.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The resolution scaling behavior reveals where the bottleneck lies in this pairing. Going from 1080p Low (245 FPS) to 1440p Low (180 FPS) represents a 26.5% FPS reduction, while going from 1440p Low to 4K Low (116 FPS) represents a 35.6% reduction. The non-linear scaling suggests that the GPU is becoming progressively more dominant as pixel count increases. At 1080p Low, the CPU is likely the primary limiter — 245 FPS is high, but the GPU could potentially push further if the CPU could feed it faster.

The High preset scaling tells a similar story: 152 FPS at 1080p drops to 112 FPS at 1440p (26.3% reduction) and then to 72 FPS at 4K (35.7% reduction). The consistency of these percentage drops across presets indicates that resolution scaling is largely independent of the settings preset — the GPU's rendering load scales predictably with pixel count, and the CPU's contribution remains relatively constant. This is evidenced by the fact that the 1080p-to-4K FPS ratio for Low is 245/116 = 2.11, while for High it is 152/72 = 2.11, and for Medium it is 174/82 = 2.12. Nearly identical ratios across presets confirm that resolution scaling is a pure GPU phenomenon in this configuration.

The Medium preset, which has complete min/max data, illustrates the scaling more granularly. At 1080p Medium, the average is 174 FPS with a 148-200 range. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 128 FPS with a 109-147 range. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 82 FPS with a 70-95 range. The minimum FPS values scale from 148 to 109 to 70 — a 26.4% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 35.8% drop from 1440p to 4K, mirroring the average FPS scaling. This consistent behavior indicates that frame time variance scales proportionally with resolution, meaning the GPU is the consistent bottleneck across all measured settings.

The fact that the CPU can deliver 245 FPS at 1080p Low but only 116 FPS at 4K Low strongly suggests that the RX 9070's rendering throughput is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with 644.6 GB/s bandwidth provides ample memory bandwidth for 4K textures, but the raw pixel throughput — reflected in the 322.6 GPixel/s pixel rate — becomes the constraint. The scaling pattern shows that this pairing is well-balanced at 1440p, where neither component is severely underutilized, but at 4K the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, and at 1080p Low the CPU begins to show its limits.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of Intel Core i5-13400F and AMD Radeon RX 9070 ranks 1099 out of 3714 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the 70.4th percentile of all configurations tested for this game. While the rank number itself places this combo in the upper-middle tier, the interpretation requires nuance — the rank is relative to all combos in the database, which includes both much more powerful and much less capable pairings.

The CPU's percentile rank of 77 (vs all CPUs) and the GPU's percentile rank of 69 (vs all GPUs) indicate that this combo pairs a slightly above-average CPU with a modestly above-average GPU. The CPU's average benchmark score of 25292 places it in the company of processors like the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (25365, 0.3% faster) and the Intel Core 5 120 (25362, 0.3% faster), while the GPU's average benchmark score of 23877 puts it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER (24170, 1.2% faster) and the AMD Radeon RX 6800S (24063, 0.8% faster).

The combo's rank of 1099 out of 3714 suggests that in Lockdown Protocol specifically, this pairing performs better than its component percentiles might individually suggest. The CPU's strong single-thread performance (3DMark single-thread score of 960) is likely beneficial for the game's engine, which appears to scale well with the 13400F's capabilities. The combo rank represents a holistic measurement of how well these two components work together in this specific title, accounting for driver overhead, frame pacing, and CPU-GPU synchronization.

Compared to the nearest rival combos in the database, this pairing demonstrates that the 13400F's 10 cores and 16 threads provide sufficient parallel processing for the game's workload. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 7314 versus the 2-thread score of 1880 shows a 3.89x scaling factor, indicating good multi-threading efficiency that translates to consistent frame delivery in demanding scenes. The combo's rank in the 70th percentile of all tested pairs means that 2,615 other combinations are slower in this game, positioning this setup as a solid mid-to-upper tier choice for Lockdown Protocol players who prioritize frame rate consistency.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 utilizes the Navi 48 chip on RDNA 4.0 architecture, fabricated on a 4nm process by TSMC with 53,900 million transistors across a 357 mm² die. It features a base clock of 1330 MHz, a game clock of 2070 MHz, and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with memory running at 2518 MHz (20.1 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus. The 16 GB of GDDR6 memory provides 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial for high-resolution textures in a modern FPS.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 3584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 128 render output units, delivering 36.13 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The 322.6 GPixel/s pixel rate and 564.5 GTexel/s texture rate are directly relevant to Lockdown Protocol's rendering demands. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 54 FPS average, which indicates the GPU is heavily loaded — the pixel rate becomes a constraint when rendering at 3840x2160 with full effects enabled. The 128 ROPs handle the fill rate requirements, but the 54 FPS result suggests that the game's shader complexity at Ultra settings is demanding on the RDNA 4.0 architecture.

The GPU's benchmark results show a PassMark G3D score of 25381 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6290, with a Geekbench OpenCL score of 131539 and Vulkan score of 58705. These synthetic results place the GPU at the 69th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23877. The nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER (24170, 1.2% faster) and AMD Radeon RX 6800S (24063, 0.8% faster), though the RX 9070 outperforms the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (23736, 0.6% slower) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile (23628, 1.1% slower).

In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution increases. At 1080p Low with 245 FPS, the GPU is not fully saturated, but at 4K Ultra with 54 FPS, it is clearly the limiting factor. The 16 GB VRAM capacity ensures that texture memory is never a constraint even at 4K Ultra, which is evidenced by the fact that the game runs at all settings without apparent memory-related stuttering in the measured data. The GPU's support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6 means it is fully compatible with modern game APIs, and the PCIe 5.0 x16 interface provides ample bandwidth for CPU-GPU communication.

The 220W TDP and dual-slot design with 2x 8-pin power connectors indicate this is a power-hungry card, but the performance metrics justify the power draw in the context of Lockdown Protocol's frame rates. The 4K Medium result of 82 FPS average with a 70 FPS minimum shows that the GPU can handle 4K gaming when settings are moderated, while the 1440p Low result of 180 FPS demonstrates that the GPU scales effectively with lower render loads.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings preset for competitive play in Lockdown Protocol?

A: Based on the measured data, 1080p Low delivers 245 FPS average, which is the highest frame rate recorded. For 1440p, the Low preset at 180 FPS is best for high-refresh-rate displays, while 4K Low at 116 FPS is the only 4K preset that exceeds 100 FPS.

Q: How much FPS is lost when going from 1080p to 1440p at High settings?

A: At High settings, 1080p produces 152 FPS average while 1440p produces 112 FPS average, representing a 26.3% reduction. This is consistent with the Medium preset, which drops from 174 FPS at 1080p to 128 FPS at 1440p.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 4K resolution?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K. The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K is nearly identical across all settings presets (approximately 2.11x reduction), which is a characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios. The CPU can deliver 245 FPS at 1080p Low but only 116 FPS at 4K Low.

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

A: This Intel Core i5-13400F + AMD Radeon RX 9070 pairing ranks 1099 out of 3714 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the 70th percentile of all tested configurations for this game.

Q: What is the minimum FPS at 1440p Medium settings?

A: At 1440p Medium, the minimum FPS is 109, with an average of 128 FPS and a maximum of 147 FPS. This represents the most complete FPS data point in the measured results, as it includes all three metrics.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its single-threaded performance?

A: The CPU scores 7314 in 3DMark 16-thread and 7307 in 3DMark max-threads, versus 960 in 3DMark single-thread. This shows a 7.6x scaling from single-thread to full multi-thread utilization, indicating the 10 cores and 16 threads are effectively utilized in Lockdown Protocol's workload.