Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol is a demanding FPS that stresses both GPU and CPU, and the measured data for the Intel Core i5-9400 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 shows a pairing that is heavily bottlenecked by the processor. The RTX 5090 is an exceptionally powerful card, but the 6-core/6-thread i5-9400 from 2018 holds it back at every resolution, though the degree of limitation varies significantly with settings. The data suggests that to get the most out of this GPU, users must accept lower graphical presets to shift the bottleneck, but even then, the CPU prevents the system from reaching its full potential.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results clearly indicate that the Low preset is the only way to achieve high refresh rates with this combination. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 161.5 FPS, which is 26.6 FPS higher than the High preset’s 134.9 FPS. The gap widens further at 4K, where Low produces 126.9 FPS compared to High’s 106.5 FPS, a difference of 20.4 FPS. This pattern shows that the game’s higher presets are heavily taxing the CPU, dragging down the entire system.

For users with 1080p or 1440p displays, the Medium preset offers a reasonable middle ground, delivering 143.7 FPS and 130.4 FPS respectively. However, the performance drop from Low to Medium is significant, suggesting that the CPU is already struggling with the increased draw calls and physics calculations. The High preset is playable but leaves substantial performance on the table, while the Ultra preset is the worst choice, yielding the lowest frame rates at all resolutions—122.8 FPS at 1080p, 111.4 FPS at 1440p, and just 83.4 FPS at 4K. Given that the Ultra preset’s visual gains are typically marginal over High in FPS titles, the performance cost here is prohibitive. The verdict is clear: Low is the optimal choice for competitive play, while Medium is acceptable for a more balanced visual experience if frame rates above 130 FPS are not required.

FAQ

Q: Why does the Low preset perform so much better than Ultra?

A: The measured FPS data shows a consistent drop as settings increase. At 1080p, Low averages 161.5 FPS, while Ultra averages 122.8 FPS, a 38.7 FPS difference. This indicates that higher presets increase CPU workload (draw calls, AI, physics), and the i5-9400’s 6 cores and 6 threads become the limiting factor, as the RTX 5090 is far more capable than needed for this game’s graphics.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 being fully utilized in this system?

A: No. The data shows that the RTX 5090, which ranks in the 94th percentile of all GPUs and has a Passmark G3D score of 39650, is bottlenecked by the CPU. Evidence is the relatively small performance delta between 1080p and 4K; for instance, at High settings, 1080p yields 134.9 FPS, while 4K yields 106.5 FPS, a drop of only 28.4 FPS (21%). A GPU-bound system would show a much larger drop, indicating the CPU is capping the frame rate.

Q: What is the best resolution to play at with this combo?

A: For the smoothest experience, 1080p with the Low preset is the best, delivering 161.5 FPS. If you prefer higher visual fidelity, 1440p with the Medium preset is a viable option at 130.4 FPS. The data shows that 4K is playable, but only with Low settings (126.9 FPS) or Medium (110.1 FPS), which undermines the purpose of the high-resolution display.

Q: How does the i5-9400 compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i3-10305, scores 2300, putting the i5-9400 just 0.2% ahead. It is also 0.4% faster than the Intel Xeon E-2134 (2295) and 0.6% slower than the Intel Core i7-8809G (2319). This shows the CPU is competitively positioned, but its age is apparent in game performance.

Q: Does the RTX 5090’s massive 32 GB VRAM matter for this game?

A: At these measured settings and resolutions, the RTX 5090’s 32 GB of GDDR7 memory is not a limiting factor. The bottleneck is clearly the CPU, not memory capacity or bandwidth. The card’s 1.79 TB/s bandwidth is far beyond what Lockdown Protocol requires, but it does not compensate for the processor’s limitations.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the most powerful GPU in this pairing, with a 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs. Its raw compute capabilities are staggering: 104.8 TFLOPS FP32, 21,760 shading units, and 680 tensor cores. The card’s 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides a massive 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU’s role is to render the scene at the target resolution, and its performance is so high that it is never the primary constraint in the measured data. For example, at 4K Ultra, the card still manages 83.4 FPS, which is a respectable result for a 4K Ultra setting, but the CPU limits it from going higher.

The clock speeds of 2017 MHz base and 2407 MHz boost are high, but they are effectively wasted in this configuration. The evidence is the frame rate scaling: moving from 1080p High (134.9 FPS) to 4K High (106.5 FPS) only drops performance by 28.4 FPS. If the GPU were the bottleneck, the 4K result would be dramatically lower, often less than half of the 1080p result. Instead, the GPU is waiting on the CPU to feed it data. The RTX 5090’s performance is best utilized at 4K, where it can do more work per frame, but even there, the CPU prevents it from reaching its full potential. The data suggests that this GPU is overkill for this CPU and game combination, as the processor cannot keep up with the card’s immense rendering speed.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the performance hierarchy is clear. The Low preset delivers the highest average at 161.5 FPS. The Medium preset follows at 143.7 FPS, a 17.8 FPS drop, showing the CPU’s sensitivity to increased settings. High produces 134.9 FPS, and Ultra brings up the rear with 122.8 FPS. The total spread from Low to Ultra is 38.7 FPS, which is substantial.

Moving to 2560x1440, the same pattern repeats. Low is the fastest at 149 FPS. Medium drops to 130.4 FPS, a 18.6 FPS difference. High is next at 124.1 FPS, and Ultra is again the slowest at 111.4 FPS. The spread here is 37.6 FPS. Interestingly, the 1440p Low result (149 FPS) is only 12.5 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result (161.5 FPS), indicating the CPU is still the main limiter.

At 3840x2160, the GPU starts to become more relevant. Low yields 126.9 FPS, while Medium yields 110.1 FPS. High drops to 106.5 FPS, and Ultra falls to 83.4 FPS. The spread is now 43.5 FPS, larger than at lower resolutions, suggesting the GPU’s workload is increasing. However, the fact that Low at 4K (126.9 FPS) is still faster than High at 1080p (134.9 FPS) by a small margin shows the CPU is still the primary bottleneck, as the resolution increase has less impact than the settings increase.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a surprising pattern in resolution scaling. From 1080p to 4K at the Low preset, the FPS drops from 161.5 to 126.9, a 34.6 FPS decrease (21.4%). At the High preset, the drop is from 134.9 to 106.5, a 28.4 FPS decrease (21.1%). At Ultra, the drop is from 122.8 to 83.4, a 39.4 FPS decrease (32.1%). These percentages are relatively small compared to what would be expected if the GPU were the sole limiting factor. A GPU-bound system would typically see a 50% or more drop in FPS when moving from 1080p to 4K due to the 4x increase in pixel count.

The modest scaling indicates that the CPU is the primary constraint. The i5-9400’s 6 cores and 6 threads are likely saturated by the game’s logic at all resolutions, meaning the frame rate is capped at a level the CPU can sustain. The GPU only becomes more of a factor at 4K Ultra, where the pixel load is highest, causing the larger FPS drop. This analysis shows that the system is CPU-limited in almost all scenarios, and the RTX 5090’s power is only partially utilized until the resolution and settings are cranked to the maximum, at which point the GPU finally begins to share the load.

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 9 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 7969 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1125 in single-core, placing it in the 50th percentile of all CPUs. Its average benchmark score of 2305 is nearly identical to its closest rival, the Intel Core i3-10305 (2300), which is a newer but lower-tier part.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU’s role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw calls. The measured data shows that it is the bottleneck. The most compelling evidence is the high FPS on the Low preset. At 1080p Low, the system produces 161.5 FPS. This is likely close to the CPU’s maximum frame rate ceiling for this game. When the resolution is increased to 4K Low, the FPS only drops to 126.9, which is a 21.4% decrease, far less than the 4x increase in pixels. This indicates the CPU is still the limiting factor, as the GPU is able to handle the extra resolution load without a proportional FPS hit. However, the CPU’s limitations are also shown by the fact that the RTX 5090, which is in the 94th percentile of GPUs, cannot push past 161.5 FPS in this game. This is a low result for such a powerful card, confirming that the 2018-era CPU is holding back the system.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 543rd out of 1637 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the 33rd percentile of all tested systems, meaning it performs better than a third of them. Given the extreme power of the RTX 5090, this ranking is disappointingly low. The GPU alone ranks in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, while the CPU ranks in the 50th percentile. The massive gap between the two components’ capabilities is the primary reason for this middling rank.

The ranking suggests that many other combinations, likely with more balanced CPUs, outperform this system despite having weaker GPUs. For example, a system with a more modern 8-core CPU and a mid-range GPU would likely achieve a higher rank in this game, as the CPU would not bottleneck as severely. The data shows that the RTX 5090 is a wasted resource in this pairing, as it is constrained by a processor that is simply too old and lacks the thread count to feed the GPU effectively. The 543rd rank is a clear indicator that this is an unbalanced build for Lockdown Protocol, and users would see better overall performance from a more matched CPU-GPU pairing, even if the GPU is less powerful on paper.