Lockdown Protocol

The Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti represents a significant bottleneck scenario in Lockdown Protocol, where the GPU's age and limited 4 GB VRAM constrain performance far below what the modern CPU can deliver. The measured data shows this combination ranks 3661st out of 3714 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 1.4% of all configurations, a result driven almost entirely by the graphics card's position in the 25th percentile of all GPUs. The following analysis breaks down the specific frame rates, scaling behavior, and component roles based strictly on the measured results.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves in Lockdown Protocol at 1920x1080?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 61 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next best result is 44 FPS at Medium settings, followed by 38 FPS at High and 29 FPS at Ultra for the same resolution.

Q: How does the GTX 1050 Ti compare to its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon R5 M330?

A: The GTX 1050 Ti has an average benchmark score of 4193, which is 0.6% higher than the AMD Radeon R5 M330’s average score of 4170. The GTX 1050 Ti also sits just 1% above the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M and 1.1% below the NVIDIA Quadro K3000M in the benchmark database.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested configurations in this game?

A: The combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti ranks 3661st out of 3714 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the 3661 position with only 53 configurations performing worse.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p Low and 4K Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the average FPS is 61. At 3840x2160 with Low settings, the average FPS drops to 29. This represents a 52.5% reduction in average frame rate when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same Low preset.

Q: Does the CPU's single-core performance influence the results more than its multi-core performance?

A: The benchmark data shows the CPU achieves a single-core Cinebench R23 score of 3055 and a multi-core score of 21645, with a Geekbench single-core score of 2058. However, the measured FPS patterns across resolutions indicate the GPU is the limiting factor, as frame rates drop dramatically with increased resolution, a classic sign of GPU-bound performance.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for Medium settings at 2560x1440?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the minimum FPS is 27, with an average of 32 FPS and a maximum of 37 FPS. This is the only resolution besides 1080p Medium where min/max values are recorded in the measured data.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is the primary performance limiter in this configuration. The GPU features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 112.1 GB/s of bandwidth, with base and boost clocks of 1291 MHz and 1392 MHz respectively. Its Pascal architecture, built on a 14 nm process, provides 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units, yielding a FP32 performance of 2.138 TFLOPS. The GPU’s 25th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 4193, places it firmly in the entry-level category.

In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU’s 4 GB VRAM capacity becomes a critical constraint at higher resolutions. The measured frame rates show a clear collapse when moving from 1080p to 4K: at High settings, the average FPS falls from 38 at 1920x1080 to 28 at 2560x1440 and further to 18 at 3840x2160. This pattern indicates that the GPU’s memory bandwidth of 112.1 GB/s is insufficient to feed the framebuffer at 4K resolutions, and the 4 GB capacity likely forces texture swapping that degrades performance. The Ultra preset at 3840x2160 produces only 14 FPS average, which is barely playable for any action-oriented game.

The GPU’s compute capabilities, reflected in a Passmark G3D score of 6340 and a DirectX 12 score of 26, suggest it was designed for 1080p gaming at modest settings. The measured data confirms this: the only setting that achieves over 60 FPS is 1080p Low. At 1440p, even Low settings drop to 45 FPS, and at 4K, every preset falls below 30 FPS. The GPU’s texture rate of 66.82 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 44.54 GPixel/s are simply inadequate for the pixel throughput required at higher resolutions in a modern FPS title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 3661 out of 3714 tested combinations places this system in the bottom 1.4% of all configurations tested in Lockdown Protocol. This ranking reflects the extreme imbalance between the CPU and GPU: the Intel Core i5-14400F sits in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 32279, while the GTX 1050 Ti languishes in the 25th percentile of all GPUs. The data indicates that the CPU is capable of far higher frame rates than the GPU can deliver, making the graphics card the sole determinant of this poor ranking.

To contextualize the GPU’s performance, it scores nearly identically to the AMD Radeon R5 M330 (0.6% higher) and the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M (1% higher), both of which are integrated or mobile-class solutions from older generations. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 4193 is less than 13% of the CPU’s average score of 32279, highlighting the massive performance gap between the two components. This disparity means that even the CPU’s strong multi-threaded capabilities—evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21645—cannot compensate for the GPU’s limitations in a graphics-intensive title like Lockdown Protocol.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers average frame rates of 61 FPS on Low, 44 FPS on Medium, 38 FPS on High, and 29 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset includes recorded minimum and maximum values of 37 and 50 FPS respectively, indicating some frame time variance but generally stable performance. The 1080p Low result is the only configuration across all tested settings that reaches the 60 FPS threshold, suggesting that this resolution and preset combination is the practical ceiling for smooth gameplay.

Moving to 2560x1440, the average frame rates drop to 45 FPS on Low, 32 FPS on Medium, 28 FPS on High, and 21 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at this resolution shows a minimum of 27 FPS and a maximum of 37 FPS, demonstrating tighter frame pacing than the 1080p Medium result. The 1440p results indicate that the GPU is already struggling to maintain 30 FPS on higher presets, with High and Ultra falling below that threshold.

At 3840x2160, performance becomes marginal across the board: Low averages 29 FPS, Medium averages 21 FPS with a min/max of 18/24 FPS, High averages 18 FPS, and Ultra averages 14 FPS. None of these results approach playable frame rates for a fast-paced FPS, and the 4K Ultra result of 14 FPS is effectively a slideshow. The data shows that 4K resolution is not viable with this GPU in this game, regardless of settings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound pattern. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 61 at 1920x1080 to 45 at 2560x1440 (a 26.2% decrease) and then to 29 at 3840x2160 (a 52.5% decrease from 1080p). At High settings, the progression is 38 FPS at 1080p, 28 FPS at 1440p (26.3% decrease), and 18 FPS at 4K (52.6% decrease). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings indicates that the GPU’s pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors, not the CPU or game logic.

The scaling behavior suggests that the GPU’s 112.1 GB/s memory bandwidth becomes saturated as resolution increases, since the framebuffer size quadruples from 1080p to 4K while the bandwidth remains constant. The fact that the FPS roughly halves when pixel count quadruples (from 2.07 million pixels at 1080p to 8.29 million at 4K) indicates that the GPU is operating near its fill-rate limits rather than being compute-bound. This is consistent with the GPU’s relatively low pixel rate of 44.54 GPixel/s, which cannot sustain the pixel shader workload at 4K in a modern FPS.

The resolution scaling also shows that the CPU is not contributing to the bottleneck, as the frame rate drops are proportional to pixel count increases rather than being flat or CPU-limited. If the CPU were the constraint, the 4K results would be much closer to the 1080p results, since the CPU workload per frame remains roughly constant regardless of resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel mode, and its 65 W TDP reflects a power-efficient design for a desktop part. The processor’s 83rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32279, places it well above the median, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U and Intel Core i9-11900, which are within 0.2% of its average score.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU’s strong multi-threaded performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21645 and a Passmark multithread score of 25470, provides ample headroom for game logic, physics, and AI computations. The single-core performance, with a Geekbench single-core score of 2058 and a Passmark single-thread score of 3701, is more than sufficient for the primary game thread. However, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU’s capabilities are severely underutilized due to the GPU bottleneck. At 1080p Low, where the GPU is least stressed, the combo achieves 61 FPS, which is still below what the CPU could theoretically support given its benchmark scores.

The CPU’s 10 cores and 16 threads would be advantageous for background tasks or streaming while gaming, but the GTX 1050 Ti’s 4 GB VRAM and 2.138 TFLOPS of FP32 performance create a hard ceiling that no amount of CPU power can overcome. The data suggests that pairing this CPU with a significantly more powerful GPU would unlock far higher frame rates, but with the current GPU, the CPU’s role is reduced to ensuring that it never becomes the limiting factor, which it does not at any resolution or setting tested.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the only configuration that provides a consistently playable experience in Lockdown Protocol is 1920x1080 with Low settings, which averages 61 FPS. This is the sole preset and resolution combination that exceeds the 60 FPS threshold, making it the recommended choice for smooth gameplay. The 1080p Medium preset, averaging 44 FPS, is a viable alternative for users who prioritize visual quality over frame rate, but the 37 FPS minimum may cause noticeable stuttering in fast-paced firefights.

At 1440p, the Low preset at 45 FPS is the only option that approaches playability, but the 27 FPS minimum at Medium settings indicates that even this resolution strains the GPU significantly. For users with 1440p monitors, the data suggests that dropping to 1080p is necessary for a stable experience, as the 4K results are uniformly below 30 FPS across all presets. The 4K Low result of 29 FPS is technically the best 4K option, but it falls short of the 30 FPS minimum typically considered acceptable for an FPS.

The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution, as it produces 29 FPS at 1080p, 21 FPS at 1440p, and 14 FPS at 4K, all of which are below playable thresholds. The High preset offers a middle ground at 1080p (38 FPS) but drops to 18 FPS at 4K, making it unsuitable for higher resolutions. Overall, the measured data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming at Low to Medium settings, with 1080p Low being the only configuration that delivers a truly smooth experience.