Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol, a 2024 FPS, has been benchmarked with the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four presets reveal how this combination handles the game's demands, and the data provides a clear picture of where the bottleneck lies.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS values show a consistent decline as resolution increases, but the pattern is not uniform across presets. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 120.7 at 1920x1080 to 85.1 at 2560x1440, and then to 55.7 at 3840x2160. The same trend appears at Medium, where 1080p yields 137.0 FPS, 1440p yields 103.0, and 4K yields 65.7. Low settings produce the highest numbers: 160.8 at 1080p, 137.7 at 1440p, and 90.8 at 4K. Ultra settings are the most demanding, with 90.2 at 1080p, 63.5 at 1440p, and 43.8 at 4K.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K is steep for every preset, but the relative drop is larger at higher quality settings. For example, at Ultra, the 4K value (43.8) is less than half of the 1080p value (90.2), while at Low, the 4K value (90.8) remains above the 1080p Ultra value (90.2). This suggests that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at 4K, as the frame rate collapses when the resolution increases. At 1080p, the CPU's capabilities may become more relevant, since the GPU can render frames quickly enough to expose any CPU-side limitations. The fact that 1080p Low reaches 160.8 FPS indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU at that resolution, but the gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p (160.8 vs 90.2) shows that the GPU's shading load still dominates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT ranks 973rd out of 1637 tested combinations in Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the upper-middle tier of the database, outperforming more than half of all tested pairings. The GPU is the stronger component in this pairing, sitting at the 77th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU is at the 50th percentile among all CPUs. This disparity suggests that the CPU may be the weaker link, especially at lower resolutions where the GPU can produce high frame rates.

The CPU's average benchmark score is 2305, which is within 0.2% of the Intel Core i3-10305 and 0.4% of the Intel Xeon E-2134, and 0.6% behind the Intel Core i7-8809G. The GPU's average benchmark score is 33721, which is 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A5000. These scores align with the percentile rankings and reinforce the notion that the GPU is the more capable component in this combo.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT brings 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 384.0 GB/s. Its base clock is 2321 MHz, the game clock is 2424 MHz, and the boost clock reaches 2581 MHz. The memory operates at 2000 MHz, which translates to 16 Gbps effective. These specifications are well-suited for a modern FPS like Lockdown Protocol, and the 12 GB frame buffer provides ample capacity for high-resolution textures.

The GPU's benchmark results reflect its 77th percentile standing. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 2435, while Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores are 100730 and 108032, respectively. Passmark G3D yields 19786, and the GPU compute score is 9336. These numbers indicate a solid mid-to-high-end GPU, but the measured frame rates in Lockdown Protocol show that even this hardware struggles at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS is 43.8. The 4K Medium preset, at 65.7 FPS, is the highest 4K setting that maintains an average above 60 FPS, suggesting that the GPU's shading throughput is the limiting factor at that resolution.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with High settings?

A: The average FPS is 120.7.

Q: What is the combo's rank among tested combinations?

A: It ranks 973rd out of 1637.

Q: What is the GPU's memory size and bus width?

A: The GPU has 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus.

Q: What is the CPU's boost clock?

A: The boost clock is 4.10 GHz.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the GPU?

A: The launch MSRP is 479 USD.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The L3 cache is 9 MB shared, and the memory bandwidth is 42.7 GB/s over a dual-channel DDR4 interface. These specifications place the CPU at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2305.

In Cinebench R23, the CPU scores 7969 in multi-core and 1125 in single-core. The single-core score is particularly relevant for gaming, as many FPS titles rely on strong per-thread performance. The lack of hyperthreading (6 threads for 6 cores) may limit performance in heavily threaded scenarios, but Lockdown Protocol's measured frame rates suggest that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 160.8 FPS, which is the highest measured value, indicating that the CPU can feed the GPU at that setting. However, at 4K, the GPU's load dominates, and the CPU's role diminishes. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-10305 (0.2% higher average score) and the Intel Core i7-8809G (0.6% lower), which places the i5-9400 in a competitive but not outstanding position.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal preset depends on the target resolution and frame rate. For a 60 FPS average, the highest preset that maintains that threshold at each resolution is: 4K Medium (65.7 FPS), 1440p Ultra (63.5 FPS), and 1080p Ultra (90.2 FPS). At 1080p, even Ultra exceeds 90 FPS, so any preset is viable, but Ultra offers the best visual quality without sacrificing smoothness. At 1440p, Ultra is the highest preset above 60 FPS, though High (85.1 FPS) provides a larger margin for competitive play. At 4K, Medium is the only preset above 60 FPS; High (55.7) and Ultra (43.8) fall below that threshold, while Low (90.8) sacrifices too much visual fidelity. The data suggests that Medium at 4K is the best balance of quality and performance, while Ultra at 1440p and 1080p are also strong choices for users with high-refresh displays.