Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol is a demanding FPS that scales heavily with resolution, and the Intel Core i5-9400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combo shows a clear bottleneck shift as you move from 1080p to 4K. The data indicates that this pairing is capable of high frame rates at every resolution tested, but the margin between settings narrows dramatically at 1440p and 4K, revealing where the system's limits lie. The RTX 5070 provides a massive performance foundation, but the aging i5-9400 prevents the system from fully stretching its legs at lower resolutions, where the CPU becomes the limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial but not uniform across all settings, which tells a clear story about the system's balance. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 163 FPS average, but this falls to 127 FPS at 4K Low, a 36 FPS reduction, or roughly 22% lower performance. This relatively modest drop for a 4x pixel increase suggests that at Low settings, the CPU is already holding the system back at 1080p; the GPU has headroom to spare, and even at 4K, it can still push out 127 FPS because the graphical load hasn't yet overwhelmed it.

The scaling picture changes when you look at the highest quality preset. At 1080p Ultra, the system hits 123 FPS average, but at 4K Ultra, it drops to 61 FPS, a 50% performance cut. This is a much steeper decline, indicating that as the GPU workload increases with Ultra settings and higher resolutions, the RTX 5070 becomes the primary constraint. The data shows a 62 FPS gap between 1080p Ultra and 4K Ultra, while the gap between 1080p Low and 4K Low is only 36 FPS, confirming that the GPU is the limiting component at high resolutions and high settings, while the CPU limits the lower-resolution, lower-settings scenarios.

Looking at the intermediate resolution, 1440p shows the system operating in a balanced zone. At 1440p High, the average FPS is 123, nearly identical to the 1080p Ultra result of 123 FPS. This suggests that at 1440p, neither component is fully saturated. The GPU has enough power to render the frame, and the CPU can feed it data fast enough to maintain that rate. However, the 4K Medium result of 93 FPS with a minimum of 79 FPS and maximum of 107 FPS shows more variance, indicating that the system is starting to struggle with the combined load of higher resolution and moderate settings.

The scaling pattern is clear: the system loses about 26 FPS going from 1080p High to 1440p High (137 to 123), and another 41 FPS going from 1440p High to 4K High (123 to 82). The total drop from 1080p High to 4K High is 55 FPS, representing a 40% reduction. This is a significant but expected decline for a game like Lockdown Protocol, which pushes both CPU and GPU heavily. The takeaway is that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it delivers consistently high frame rates, but 4K Ultra is only viable if you can accept around 61 FPS average.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor from the Coffee Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. This is a processor from 2018, and its benchmark scores reflect its age relative to modern CPUs. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 6629, and the single-core score is 935, placing it in the 47th percentile of all CPUs tested. Its average benchmark score of 2254 places it nearly exactly between the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (2259, 0.2% faster) and the Intel Core i7-10710U (2248, 0.3% slower), showing that it sits in a crowded mid-range pack.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p with Low settings. The system achieves 163 FPS average, but the fact that this is only 26 FPS higher than the 4K Low result of 127 FPS suggests that the CPU is not the sole bottleneck even at 1080p. However, the difference between 1080p Low and 1080p Ultra is 40 FPS (163 to 123), which is entirely due to GPU load. The CPU's 6 cores and 6 threads are sufficient to maintain high frame rates, but the lack of hyper-threading means it has no spare threads to handle background tasks or the game's physics and AI calculations at the highest settings.

The data indicates that the i5-9400 is a capable but not exceptional partner for the RTX 5070. At 1080p, the CPU can keep up with the GPU's output up to a point. The 137 FPS at 1080p High shows a healthy balance, but the 163 FPS at Low suggests the CPU is near its limit; the GPU could likely push higher if the CPU could feed it faster. This is confirmed by the 1440p High result of 123 FPS, which is only 14 FPS lower than 1080p High, showing that the CPU is starting to become the limiting factor as resolution drops and GPU load lightens relative to the CPU's fixed workload.

The 4K results are more GPU-bound, as expected. The CPU's clock speed of 4.10 GHz boost is modest by modern standards, but it is enough to avoid becoming a hard bottleneck at 4K, where the GPU's rendering load dominates. The overall picture is that this CPU provides a stable foundation, but users should not expect to push 200+ FPS in competitive scenarios; the system's ceiling in this game appears to be the 163 FPS seen at 1080p Low.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is the star of this pairing, and its specifications explain why the system performs as well as it does. It features 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 6144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 80 ROPs, along with 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores. Its boost clock is 2512 MHz, and it is built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. The GPU's compute power is substantial, with an FP32 rating of 30.87 TFLOPS.

In Lockdown Protocol, the RTX 5070's memory capacity and bandwidth are likely key factors in its performance. The game is an FPS with a 2024 release date, and the 12 GB VRAM is sufficient for 4K textures without hitting memory limits, as evidenced by the fact that the system can maintain playable frame rates at 4K Ultra (61 FPS). The 672.0 GB/s bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and geometry data can be fed to the GPU cores without stalling, even at 4K resolution where memory throughput requirements are highest.

The GPU's benchmark scores are impressive. It achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5077, a Geekbench Vulkan score of 178923, and a Passmark G3D score of 29137. Its average benchmark score is 40377, placing it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (40318, 0.1% faster) and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40063, 0.8% slower), showing that it is a top-tier performer in synthetic tests.

The GPU's role in this game is clear from the resolution scaling data. At 4K, the GPU is the primary driver of performance. The drop from 4K Medium (93 FPS) to 4K Ultra (61 FPS) is 32 FPS, which is a direct result of increased GPU load from higher quality settings. The GPU is also responsible for the high frame rates at 1440p, where it easily maintains over 120 FPS at High settings. The RTX 5070's architecture and memory subsystem provide the raw power needed for Lockdown Protocol's complex rendering, and the data shows that it is not the weak link in this combo; instead, it is the CPU that limits the system's maximum potential at lower resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combo ranks 1285 out of 3714 tested combinations in Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the top 35% of all combos, which is a solid result given the CPU's age. The rank reflects the fact that the GPU is powerful enough to compensate for the CPU's limitations in most scenarios, but the CPU's lower benchmark scores prevent the combo from reaching the top tiers where modern high-end CPUs would be paired with this GPU.

The combo's ranking is driven by the GPU's high percentile (82nd) versus the CPU's lower percentile (47th). This imbalance means that the system is effectively leaving GPU performance on the table in CPU-bound scenarios. However, the data shows that this is only a significant issue at 1080p with Low settings, where the CPU is the primary bottleneck. At 1440p and 4K, the combo's rank is likely better than the raw numbers suggest, as the GPU takes over as the limiting factor.

Compared to what the RTX 5070 could achieve with a stronger CPU, this pairing is probably held back by 10-20% in the best-case CPU-bound scenarios. But the measured FPS data shows that the system still delivers playable and often excellent frame rates across all resolutions and settings. The rank of 1285 out of 3714 is respectable, and it indicates that this CPU-GPU pairing is well-matched for high-resolution gaming, where the GPU's power is the dominant factor.

FAQ

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

A: Based on the data, 1440p High provides an excellent balance, delivering 123 FPS average. If you prefer 4K, High settings yield 82 FPS, which is playable, while 4K Medium offers 93 FPS with a minimum of 79 FPS.

Q: How much faster is the system at 1080p Low compared to 4K Ultra?

A: The system achieves 163 FPS at 1080p Low and 61 FPS at 4K Ultra, making the 1080p Low result 102 FPS higher, or approximately 2.7 times faster.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 the bottleneck in this setup?

A: At 1080p with Low settings, yes, the CPU is likely the limiting factor, as evidenced by the relatively small FPS gain from 4K Low (127 FPS) to 1080p Low (163 FPS). At 4K Ultra, the GPU becomes the bottleneck.

Q: What is the GPU's memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The RTX 5070 has 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 672.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This is sufficient for all tested settings and resolutions in Lockdown Protocol.

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

A: It ranks 1285 out of 3714 combos, placing it in the 65th percentile of performance, meaning it outperforms roughly two-thirds of all tested combinations.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1440p Medium?

A: The system delivers 129 FPS average at 1440p Medium, with a minimum of 110 FPS and a maximum of 149 FPS, making it a very smooth experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following table lists all measured FPS data for this combo in Lockdown Protocol:

| Resolution | Settings | Avg FPS | Min FPS | Max FPS |

|------------|----------|---------|---------|---------|

| 3840x2160 (4K) | High | 82 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 (4K) | Low | 127 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 (4K) | Medium | 93 | 79 | 107 |

| 3840x2160 (4K) | Ultra | 61 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 (1440p) | High | 123 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 (1440p) | Low | 147 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 (1440p) | Medium | 129 | 110 | 149 |

| 2560x1440 (1440p) | Ultra | 95 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 (1080p) | High | 137 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 (1080p) | Low | 163 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 (1080p) | Medium | 144 | 122 | 165 |

| 1920x1080 (1080p) | Ultra | 123 | - | - |

The data shows that the system is most consistent at 1440p, where all settings except Ultra stay above 120 FPS. At 1080p, the system exceeds 120 FPS on all settings, with the Medium preset showing a tight range between 122 and 165 FPS. At 4K, only Low and Medium settings are above 90 FPS, while High and Ultra dip to 82 and 61 FPS respectively. The minimum FPS data points, available only for Medium settings, show that the system maintains playable lows at 1080p (122 FPS) and 1440p (110 FPS), but at 4K, the minimum of 79 FPS is still acceptable for most players. The Ultra preset at 4K has no min/max data, but the 61 FPS average suggests it is the most demanding configuration tested.