Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol, a 2024 FPS built on Unreal Engine, scales in a way that clearly exposes the Intel Arc B580 as the primary bottleneck in this pairing. The Intel Core i7-14700K is more than capable of feeding frames, but the data shows that the GPU’s workload dictates the performance curve across all tested settings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent, which is the classic signature of a GPU-bound scenario. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 153.8 FPS at 1920x1080 to 111.3 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 27.6%. The slide continues to 72.9 FPS at 3840x2160, which represents a 52.6% decline from the 1080p result. This pattern indicates that even at the lowest graphical preset, the pixel throughput demand at 4K overwhelms the graphics card.

The scaling becomes even more pronounced when moving to higher quality presets. At High settings, the average drops from 96.5 FPS at 1080p to 71.6 FPS at 1440p (a 25.8% decrease), and then to 43.1 FPS at 4K (a 55.3% decrease from 1080p). The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic falloff, with the average plummeting from 72.2 FPS at 1080p to 53.1 FPS at 1440p and finally to 32 FPS at 4K. The gap between Low and Ultra settings also widens as resolution increases, suggesting that the game’s visual effects and shading complexity are heavily taxing the GPU’s resources.

The limiting component is unambiguous: the CPU’s role diminishes as resolution climbs, while the GPU’s rendering load becomes the sole determinant of performance. The fact that the 4K Ultra result (32 FPS) is less than half the 1080p Ultra result (72.2 FPS) highlights that the Arc B580’s memory bandwidth and compute throughput are insufficient for high-resolution, high-detail play in this title.

How This Combo Ranks

In the comprehensive benchmark database, this specific pairing of the Core i7-14700K and the Arc B580 achieves a combo rank of 1285 out of 1637 tested combinations. This places it in the lower-middle tier of all system configurations, which is a surprising result given the strength of the individual components. The rank indicates that while this setup can play the game, it does not deliver the high-end experience that the CPU alone might suggest.

The ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU’s performance percentile. The Arc B580 sits in the 66th percentile among all GPUs, which is respectable, but the Core i7-14700K is in the 96th percentile among all CPUs. This disparity means the combination does not reach the top tiers of the database because the graphics card cannot leverage the full potential of the processor. The data shows that combos ranked higher than this one typically pair the i7-14700K with more powerful graphics solutions, whereas this combo’s ceiling is dictated by the B580’s capabilities.

The performance delta between the B580 and its closest rivals in the database is minimal. The AMD Radeon 760M scores 0.1% higher, while the NVIDIA P106-100 is 0.3% ahead. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, a direct competitor, scores 0.7% higher in the aggregate benchmarks. This tight grouping suggests that the Arc B580 is competitive with these cards in general compute, but the measured FPS in Lockdown Protocol reveals that real-world gaming performance can be more variable than synthetic scores imply.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake-R architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process. It features a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, which provides substantial single-thread performance for gaming. The CPU’s cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 33 MB L3 cache, which helps reduce memory latency in game workloads.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU is not the limiting factor at any resolution tested. The benchmark results show that the frame rate scales inversely with resolution, which would not happen if the CPU were struggling to keep up. The i7-14700K’s benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44534 and a single-core score of 6287, indicate it has ample headroom for this title. The PassMark single-thread score of 4472 further confirms its strength in the lightly-threaded tasks that many FPS games rely on.

The data suggests that the CPU’s 28 threads are more than sufficient for Lockdown Protocol’s engine, which likely utilizes fewer than 8 cores for its main simulation. The processor’s high boost clock ensures that the game logic and draw call submission are handled without creating a bottleneck. Even at 1080p Low, where the frame rate reaches 153.8 FPS, the CPU does not appear to be the constraint, as the same CPU is capable of much higher frame rates in other scenarios.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of how the combo performs across the three primary resolutions and four quality presets. At 1080p, the system is capable of delivering playable frame rates at all settings. The Low preset achieves an average of 153.8 FPS, which drops to 109.2 FPS at Medium, 96.5 FPS at High, and 72.2 FPS at Ultra. This shows a clear progression where each step up in quality costs roughly 13-17% performance.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 111.3 FPS for Low, 80.3 FPS for Medium, 71.6 FPS for High, and 53.1 FPS for Ultra. The 1440p results show that the system can still maintain high refresh rates at lower settings, but the Ultra preset falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many gamers consider the minimum for smooth play. The transition from 1080p to 1440p costs between 21.5% and 27.6% performance, depending on the preset.

The 4K results are more challenging for the combo. The Low preset manages an average of 72.9 FPS, which is playable, but Medium drops to 50.2 FPS, High to 43.1 FPS, and Ultra to 32 FPS. None of the higher presets at 4K achieve a 60 FPS average, indicating that this resolution is best suited for the Low or Medium settings with this hardware. The data shows a consistent pattern: the combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K reserved for those willing to compromise on visual fidelity.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 is based on the Xe2-HPG architecture and manufactured on TSMC’s 5 nm process, containing 19,600 million transistors on a 272 mm² die. It features 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units, along with 20 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a base and boost clock of 2670 MHz, which is relatively high for a graphics card in this class.

The memory subsystem consists of 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, providing 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is a significant asset for modern games, but the data shows that it is not enough to maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra. The GPU’s FP32 performance is rated at 13.67 TFLOPS, which places it in the mid-range segment. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3068 and PassMark G3D score of 15748 confirm its position in the market.

The B580’s role as the limiting factor is evident in the scaling data. The GPU’s percentile ranking of 66th among all GPUs is lower than the CPU’s 96th percentile, and this imbalance is reflected in the game’s performance. The 12 GB VRAM is sufficient for the tested settings, but the 192-bit memory bus appears to be a constraint at higher resolutions where bandwidth demand increases. The fact that the 4K Ultra result is 32 FPS, while the 1080p Low result is 153.8 FPS, suggests that the GPU’s compute units are saturated by the pixel and shading workload at elevated resolutions.