Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with Intel Core i7-14700F + Intel Arc B570

The Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the Intel Arc B570 lands at rank 2264 out of 2828 tested combinations in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database’s combo leaderboard. This is a measured result, not an estimate, and it reflects a pairing where the GPU’s 65th percentile standing among all GPUs is the dominant constraint, while the CPU’s 91st percentile rank among all processors suggests headroom that the game does not fully exploit. The combination delivers playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p across most settings, but 4K Ultra drops to 30 FPS, which signals a clear hardware boundary for this specific title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 2264 out of 2828 means it sits in the 80th percentile from the bottom, or roughly the 20th percentile from the top. In practical terms, about 564 tested combinations outperform it, while roughly 2,263 combos fall behind. This is not a top-tier pairing for Lockdown Protocol, but it is far from the bottom of the field. The ranking reflects a system that can handle competitive play at lower resolutions but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K with maximum settings.

Looking at the individual components, the Intel Arc B570 holds a 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs in the database. That places it above the median GPU, but well below the high-end cards that dominate the top of the combo leaderboard. The Intel Core i7-14700F, by contrast, holds a 91st percentile ranking among all CPUs, meaning it outperforms 91% of processors in the database on average benchmark score. The delta between the CPU’s percentile and the GPU’s percentile is the key story: the processor is capable of far more than this graphics card can deliver in Lockdown Protocol.

The nearest GPU rivals in the database illustrate the B570’s positioning. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile averages a score of 20,534, which is 0.1% higher than the B570’s 20,556 average benchmark score. The Intel Arc A750 sits 0.1% lower at 20,582, a margin so small it is effectively a tie. The NVIDIA Quadro M4000M trails by 0.4% at 20,480, and the AMD Radeon R9 M390X is 0.5% behind at 20,662. These deltas are all within a fraction of a percent, meaning the B570 occupies a very tight performance cluster. In Lockdown Protocol, this translates to frame rates that are competitive with those cards, but none of them are going to challenge high-refresh-rate 4K gaming.

For the CPU, the nearest rivals show a similar clustering. The Intel Xeon 6505P averages 53,701, which is 0.2% higher than the i7-14700F’s 53,620 average benchmark score. The Intel Xeon Phi 7290 sits 0.3% lower at 53,469, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is 0.6% behind at 53,288, and the AMD EPYC 7313P trails by 0.8% at 53,206. These sub-1% deltas mean the i7-14700F is essentially performance-equivalent to these processors in synthetic benchmarks, though Lockdown Protocol’s gaming workload will favor certain architectural traits over others.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake-R architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process. Its base clock is 2.10 GHz, and it boosts to 5.40 GHz. The chip’s cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory over a dual-channel bus, and it features PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes from the CPU. The TDP is rated at 65 watts, which is modest for a 20-core part, and the processor uses the Intel Socket 1700 platform.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i7-14700F demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance. It scores 35,122 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4,958 in single-core, 14,751 in Cinebench R20 multi-core and 2,082 in single-core, and 3,540 in Cinebench R15 multi-core with 499 in single-core. Geekbench results show 19,620 multi-core and 2,429 single-core. PassMark multi-thread score is 41,317, with single-thread at 4,257. These numbers place the CPU in the 91st percentile overall, with an average benchmark score of 53,620.

For Lockdown Protocol, a 20-core processor is far more than the game likely requires. The game is an FPS title that will primarily stress a handful of threads for game logic, physics, and AI. The i7-14700F’s high boost clock of 5.40 GHz on its performance cores gives it strong single-thread capability, which is what matters most for frame pacing in competitive shooters. The 33 MB of L3 cache helps with data locality, and the dual-channel memory support ensures adequate bandwidth for feeding the GPU.

However, the benchmark results from Lockdown Protocol suggest the CPU is not the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 136 FPS, which is respectable but not exceptional for a CPU with this pedigree. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 30 FPS, and the gap between 1080p Low and 4K Ultra is over 100 FPS. That scaling pattern points to the GPU as the primary bottleneck, with the CPU having ample headroom to push higher frame rates if the graphics card could keep up.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture, codenamed Battlemage, and manufactured on TSMC’s 5 nm process. The chip, designated BMG-G21, contains 19,600 million transistors on a 272 mm² die, with a transistor density of 72.1 million per square millimeter. The GPU has 2,304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units, along with 18 ray tracing cores. Its base and boost clocks are both 2500 MHz, and the memory runs at 2375 MHz, which translates to 19 Gbps effective on a 160-bit bus with 10 GB of GDDR6. Memory bandwidth is 380.0 GB/s.

The B570’s compute capabilities include 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 23.04 TFLOPS of FP16 with a 2:1 ratio. Pixel rate is 200.0 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 360.0 GTexel/s. The card draws up to 150 watts, requires a single 8-pin power connector, and has a suggested PSU rating of 450 watts. It uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface and offers one HDMI 2.1a port and three DisplayPort 2.1 outputs. The card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

In synthetic benchmarks, the B570 scores 2,649 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 83,514 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 96,844 in Geekbench Vulkan. PassMark shows a G3D score of 14,195, a G2D score of 661, and a GPU compute score of 7,281. The average benchmark score is 20,556, placing the GPU in the 65th percentile.

For Lockdown Protocol, the GPU’s 10 GB of VRAM is sufficient at 1080p and 1440p, but 4K Ultra settings may push memory usage higher, though the frame rate drop at 4K is more likely due to raw compute limits than VRAM capacity. The 380 GB/s of bandwidth is moderate, and the 160-bit bus is narrow compared to higher-end cards. The 18 ray tracing cores are present, but Lockdown Protocol’s performance at 4K Ultra suggests the game is not heavily ray-traced, or if it is, the B570 lacks the throughput to handle it at high resolution.

The B570’s nearest rivals in the database show it trading blows with laptop-class GPUs and older desktop parts. The RTX 3070 Mobile is essentially a match, as is the Arc A750. This means the B570 should be viewed as a solid mid-range option for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K being a stretch target rather than a comfortable resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Intel Core i7-14700F and Intel Arc B570 combination delivers its best results. On Low settings, the average frame rate is 136 FPS, which is smooth for competitive play. Medium settings drop to 96 FPS, with a minimum of 82 FPS and a maximum of 111 FPS. High settings yield 84 FPS on average, and Ultra settings produce 63 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 73 FPS, indicating that the GPU’s performance scales significantly with graphical load.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates drop noticeably. Low settings average 100 FPS, which remains playable. Medium settings average 71 FPS, with a minimum of 60 FPS and a maximum of 81 FPS. High settings produce 62 FPS on average, and Ultra settings drop to 46 FPS. The 1440p results show that the combo can handle most settings at this resolution, though Ultra requires a compromise on frame rate.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes dramatically. Low settings average 64 FPS, which is still playable. Medium settings average 46 FPS, with a minimum of 39 FPS and a maximum of 52 FPS. High settings drop to 40 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 30 FPS. The 4K results indicate that the B570 is not a 4K gaming card for this title, at least not at high or ultra settings. Low settings at 4K are the only configuration that approaches a comfortable frame rate.

The measured data shows a consistent pattern: each resolution step up from 1080p to 1440p to 4K costs roughly 30-40% of the frame rate at equivalent settings. For example, High settings go from 84 FPS at 1080p to 62 FPS at 1440p (a 26% drop) and then to 40 FPS at 4K (a 35% drop from 1440p). Low settings go from 136 FPS at 1080p to 100 FPS at 1440p (a 26% drop) and then to 64 FPS at 4K (a 36% drop from 1440p). This scaling is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data reveals the bottleneck clearly. From 1080p to 1440p, the average frame rate across all settings drops by roughly 27-30%. From 1440p to 4K, the drop is steeper, around 35-40%. This nonlinear scaling is typical of a GPU that is becoming increasingly saturated as pixel count rises.

At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 136 FPS at 1080p to 100 FPS at 1440p, a 36 FPS reduction, and then to 64 FPS at 4K, another 36 FPS reduction. The equal absolute drops suggest that the GPU is handling the additional pixel load in a roughly linear fashion at low graphical complexity. At Ultra settings, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 17 FPS (from 63 to 46), and from 1440p to 4K it is 16 FPS (from 46 to 30). The smaller absolute drops at Ultra indicate that the GPU is already heavily loaded at 1080p Ultra, leaving less headroom as resolution increases.

The fact that the CPU is not the limiting factor is evident from the 1080p Low result of 136 FPS. A 20-core, 5.4 GHz processor should be capable of pushing well beyond 136 FPS in an FPS title if the GPU were not holding it back. The 4K Ultra result of 30 FPS is a hard floor that screams GPU limitation. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect frame rates to remain relatively flat across resolutions, but instead they scale down consistently as pixel count increases.

The data suggests that for this combo, 1080p is the sweet spot, with 1440p being playable at Medium settings or lower, and 4K being viable only at Low settings. Players targeting high refresh rates should stick to 1080p, where the combo can exceed 100 FPS at Low and Medium settings. Those with 1440p monitors will need to accept 60-70 FPS at Medium settings or drop to Low for triple-digit frame rates.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The measured data shows 1920x1080 as the strongest resolution, with Low settings averaging 136 FPS and Medium averaging 96 FPS. At 2560x1440, Low settings average 100 FPS, but Ultra drops to 46 FPS. At 3840x2160, only Low settings exceed 60 FPS, averaging 64 FPS, while Ultra falls to 30 FPS.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B570 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The B570’s average benchmark score is 20,556. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile scores 20,534, which is 0.1% higher. The Intel Arc A750 scores 20,582, which is 0.1% lower. The NVIDIA Quadro M4000M is 0.4% lower at 20,480, and the AMD Radeon R9 M390X is 0.5% lower at 20,662. These are all within a fraction of a percent, indicating near-identical performance.

Q: Is the Intel Core i7-14700F holding back the Intel Arc B570?

A: No. The CPU holds a 91st percentile ranking among all CPUs, with a 5.40 GHz boost clock and 20 cores. The GPU holds a 65th percentile ranking. In Lockdown Protocol, frame rates scale significantly with resolution (136 FPS at 1080p Low to 30 FPS at 4K Ultra), which indicates the GPU is the limiting component, not the CPU.

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

A: The measured average is 71 FPS, with a minimum of 60 FPS and a maximum of 81 FPS. This is a playable range for most FPS titles, though competitive players may prefer Low settings at 1440p for the 100 FPS average.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Lockdown Protocol?

A: At 4K Low settings, the average frame rate is 64 FPS, which is playable. At Medium, it drops to 46 FPS, at High to 40 FPS, and at Ultra to 30 FPS. The data indicates that 4K is only viable at Low settings for a smooth experience.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: The combo ranks 2264 out of 2828 tested combinations in Lockdown Protocol. This puts it in the lower half of the database, reflecting the GPU’s mid-range standing rather than the CPU’s high-end capability.