Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with Intel Core i5-9400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D

This pairing of a 2018-era six-core Intel processor with the flagship Blackwell GPU creates one of the most lopsided configurations in the database. The RTX 5090 D ranks in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 77,712, while the Core i5-9400 sits at the 47th percentile with an average CPU score of 2,254. This combination ranks 804th out of 2,828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the upper-middle tier of system configurations despite the extreme hardware mismatch.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The best result is 163 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next closest is 147 FPS at 2560x1440 on Low, then 144 FPS at 1080p on Medium.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 5090 D compared to its nearest rival in average GPU benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 5090 D scores 77,712 on average. The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT scores 76,904, which is 1.1% lower, while the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT scores 78,940, which is 1.6% higher. The NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB is 2.1% higher at 79,396.

Q: Does the Core i5-9400 bottleneck the RTX 5090 D in this game?

A: The data suggests yes. Moving from 1080p Low (163 FPS) to 4K Low (127 FPS) costs only 22% performance, which is a smaller drop than expected if the GPU were the sole limiting factor. The CPU's six cores and six threads with a 4.10 GHz boost clock appear to cap frame rates at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank in Lockdown Protocol?

A: It ranks 804th out of 2,828 tested combinations, placing it in roughly the 72nd percentile of all combos tested in this game.

Q: How does the Core i5-9400 compare to its nearest CPU rival?

A: The Intel Core i7-1068NG7 scores 2,259 on average, which is 0.2% higher than the i5-9400's 2,254. The AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 scores 2,246, which is 0.4% lower. The Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2,264, which is 0.4% higher.

Q: What is the only settings preset where min FPS data is available?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with min and max FPS recorded across all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the range is 122 to 165 FPS; at 1440p Medium, it is 110 to 149 FPS; at 4K Medium, it is 95 to 129 FPS.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090 D brings overwhelming graphics resources to Lockdown Protocol. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus delivers 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is far beyond what a competitive FPS title can utilize at mainstream resolutions. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2017 MHz with a boost of 2407 MHz, and the memory runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed. These specifications translate to 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and a 92nd-percentile rank among all GPUs.

In Lockdown Protocol specifically, the GPU's massive headroom becomes apparent in the measured FPS data. At 1080p High, the combo produces 137 FPS, but at 1080p Low it reaches 163 FPS. The 26 FPS difference between Low and High at the same resolution suggests the GPU is not the primary constraint, as a fully GPU-bound scenario would typically show a larger spread between settings presets. The RTX 5090 D's nearest rivals in average benchmark score are all within roughly 2% of its 77,712 score, yet those rivals are mobile or datacenter parts with vastly different characteristics, underscoring how the 5090 D's raw compute is being held back elsewhere in this system.

The GPU's 176 ROPs and 1,636.8 GTexel/s texture rate provide ample pixel-pushing capability even at 4K. At 3840x2160 High, the combo still delivers 107 FPS, which is only 22% lower than the 1080p High result of 137 FPS. This relatively modest scaling penalty indicates that the RTX 5090 D has enough bandwidth and processing power to handle 4K rendering without collapsing, even when paired with an older six-core CPU.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the balance of CPU and GPU limitation. At Low settings, the progression goes from 163 FPS at 1080p to 147 FPS at 1440p to 127 FPS at 4K. This represents a 22% total reduction from 1080p to 4K, which is remarkably shallow for a resolution jump that increases pixel count by over 4x. A purely GPU-bound system would typically see a much steeper decline at 4K, often approaching 50% or more. The fact that this combo only loses 36 FPS across the entire resolution range suggests the CPU is capping performance at lower resolutions.

The Medium preset tells a similar story. At 1080p Medium, the average is 144 FPS with a min of 122 and max of 165. At 1440p Medium, it drops to 129 FPS with a range of 110 to 149. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 112 FPS with a min of 95 and max of 129. The min FPS values also scale down proportionally, maintaining roughly the same gap between min and average across resolutions. This consistency implies that frame pacing issues are not introduced by higher resolutions; instead, the entire performance envelope shifts downward gradually.

At High settings, the resolution scaling is even more compressed: 137 FPS at 1080p, 123 FPS at 1440p, and 107 FPS at 4K. The 30 FPS gap between 1080p High and 4K High is the smallest absolute difference among all presets. This suggests that as settings increase, the GPU workload grows, but the CPU bottleneck still prevents the GPU from stretching its legs at 1080p. The Ultra preset shows the same pattern with 123 FPS at 1080p, 111 FPS at 1440p, and 88 FPS at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 163 FPS on average, which is the best result in the entire dataset. Medium settings yield 144 FPS with a minimum of 122 and maximum of 165. High settings drop to 137 FPS, and Ultra settings bring the average down to 123 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 40 FPS, indicating that the CPU is the limiting factor even at the lowest settings, since the GPU has massive headroom to render more frames if the processor could feed it.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but steps down noticeably. Low settings produce 147 FPS, which is 16 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result. Medium settings average 129 FPS with a range of 110 to 149. High settings deliver 123 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 111 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 36 FPS, slightly narrower than at 1080p, suggesting the GPU is beginning to take on more of the workload as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the combo still maintains playable frame rates across all presets. Low settings average 127 FPS, Medium averages 112 FPS with a minimum of 95 and maximum of 129, High settings deliver 107 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 88 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that falls below 90 FPS, which remains comfortably playable for competitive FPS gaming. The 39 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is nearly identical to the 1080p spread, reinforcing that the CPU bottleneck persists even at the highest resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 804th out of 2,828 tested combinations in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the 72nd percentile of all tested systems. This is a surprisingly strong showing given that the CPU is a six-core, six-thread part from 2018 with a 47th-percentile rank among all CPUs. The RTX 5090 D's 92nd-percentile GPU ranking clearly carries the system, but the CPU's limitations prevent it from reaching the top tiers of the combo leaderboard.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score provide context for its performance ceiling. The Intel Core i7-1068NG7 scores 2,259, which is 0.2% higher, and the Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2,264, which is 0.4% higher. The AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 scores 2,246, which is 0.4% lower. These deltas are all within 1%, meaning the i5-9400 is effectively tied with its immediate competitors. The GPU's nearest rivals show a slightly wider spread: the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT is 1.1% lower, while the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB is 2.4% higher.

The gap between the GPU's 92nd-percentile ranking and the combo's 72nd-percentile ranking quantifies the CPU bottleneck. If the GPU were paired with a more capable processor, the combo rank would likely improve substantially. However, the measured data shows that even with this constraint, the system delivers competitive frame rates in Lockdown Protocol across all tested resolutions and settings.

Settings Recommendations

The Medium preset offers the best balance of performance and visual quality based on the measured data. At 1080p Medium, the combo produces 144 FPS with a minimum of 122 and maximum of 165. This provides a high average frame rate while maintaining smooth minimums that prevent noticeable stutters. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 129 FPS with a range of 110 to 149, still well above the threshold for competitive play.

For players prioritizing maximum frame rates, the Low preset at 1080p delivers 163 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. This comes at the cost of visual fidelity, but for a competitive FPS title, the extra 19 FPS over Medium could be meaningful. At 1440p Low, the 147 FPS result is also excellent, and even 4K Low maintains 127 FPS.

The High preset does not offer compelling value in this dataset. At 1080p High, the average is 137 FPS, which is only 7 FPS lower than Medium but likely represents a significant visual upgrade. However, at 1440p High, the 123 FPS average is only 6 FPS lower than Medium, and at 4K High, the 107 FPS average is 5 FPS lower. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, with 4K Ultra dropping to 88 FPS, which may introduce noticeable frame pacing issues despite being nominally playable.

The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for this combo. The min FPS values available only for Medium show that the 95 FPS floor at 4K is acceptable, while the 122 FPS floor at 1080p is excellent. Players with high-refresh-rate monitors should consider Low at 1080p or 1440p to maximize frame rates, while those prioritizing visual quality can safely use High settings without dropping below 107 FPS at 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor from the Coffee Lake architecture, built on Intel's 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with 9 MB of shared L3 cache and 256 KB of L2 cache per core. Its 65 W TDP and Intel Socket 1151 compatibility mark it as a mainstream desktop part from 2018. The CPU's benchmark results include a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 6,629 and a single-core score of 935, along with a Geekbench multi-core score of 5,141.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role appears to be the primary constraint on performance. The measured FPS data shows that the combo cannot exceed 163 FPS even at 1080p Low, which is a resolution and settings combination that should heavily favor the GPU. The RTX 5090 D is capable of far higher frame rates in less CPU-bound scenarios, as evidenced by its 92nd-percentile GPU ranking and 77,712 average benchmark score. The CPU's 47th-percentile ranking and 2,254 average benchmark score suggest it is the weaker link in this pairing.

The CPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores all fall within 0.4% of its performance, indicating that the i5-9400 is firmly in the midrange of processor performance. Its six cores and six threads lack the multi-threading capabilities of competing parts, which can limit performance in games that scale well beyond six threads. Lockdown Protocol appears to be sensitive to CPU performance, as the resolution scaling analysis shows only a 22% FPS drop from 1080p to 4K, which is characteristic of a CPU-limited system.

The 4.10 GHz boost clock provides decent single-thread performance, but the aging architecture and lack of hyper-threading hold back the system's overall potential. The data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the combo maintains 88 FPS, which suggests the CPU can keep up with the GPU's rendering demands at higher resolutions where the GPU is more heavily loaded. However, at lower resolutions, the CPU's limitations become the deciding factor, preventing the RTX 5090 D from demonstrating its full capabilities.