Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol is a fast-paced FPS that stresses both the CPU and GPU, and the measured results for the Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti show a combination that is capable of delivering high frame rates across all tested settings. The data indicates that this pairing performs best at 2560x1440, where it can balance visual fidelity with very high refresh rates, though 1920x1080 offers the absolute highest frame counts. The benchmark results, measured across four settings presets and three resolutions, provide a clear picture of how this hardware stack scales and where its limitations lie.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience in Lockdown Protocol, the measured data points to the Medium preset as the optimal choice at both 2560x1440 and 3840x2160. At 2560x1440, the Medium preset delivers an average of 155 FPS, which is 42 FPS higher than the High preset’s 118 FPS and exactly 42 FPS higher than the Ultra preset’s 113 FPS. This substantial gap between Medium and the higher presets suggests that the transition from Medium to High or Ultra introduces a significant performance cost that is not justified by the modest graphical improvements typical of those steps. The Medium preset at this resolution also shows a minimum FPS of 132 and a maximum of 179, indicating a stable frame time distribution that should feel smooth in fast-paced gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset again emerges as the strongest recommendation, with an average of 91 FPS. This is a 21 FPS improvement over High’s 70 FPS and a 25 FPS improvement over Ultra’s 66 FPS. The jump to High and Ultra at 4K brings the average below the 75 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for a responsive competitive shooter, making Medium the only preset that consistently holds above 90 FPS. The minimum FPS of 78 at 4K Medium is also respectable, showing that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate does not collapse.

At 1920x1080, the situation is different. The Medium preset produces an average of 198 FPS, but the Low preset pushes that to 219 FPS, and even Ultra maintains 164 FPS. Here, the recommendation shifts to High, which delivers 172 FPS and offers a better balance between visual quality and performance, as the CPU and GPU have enough headroom that the preset choice matters less for raw smoothness. However, for players with a 240 Hz display, the Low preset’s 219 FPS is the only measured setting that approaches that refresh rate ceiling, so competitive players may prefer it despite the visual trade-off.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate measured for this CPU and GPU combination in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 219 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low settings preset.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra preset compare to the 1440p Ultra preset in terms of average FPS?

A: The 4K Ultra preset yields an average of 66 FPS, while the 1440p Ultra preset yields an average of 113 FPS, representing a 47 FPS difference (a 71% drop) when moving from 1440p to 4K at the same settings.

Q: Does the Medium preset at 1440p provide a higher minimum FPS than the Medium preset at 1080p?

A: No. The Medium preset at 1920x1080 has a minimum FPS of 168, which is higher than the 132 minimum FPS recorded at 2560x1440 with the same settings.

Q: What is the measured average FPS for the High preset at 2560x1440?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 produces an average FPS of 118, with no minimum or maximum values recorded in the data.

Q: How many total combinations were tested for the rank of this CPU-GPU pairing?

A: This pairing ranks 779th out of 3714 tested combinations in Lockdown Protocol, indicating it sits in the top 21% of all tested systems.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and predictable pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At the Low preset, the average frame rate drops from 219 FPS at 1080p to 193 FPS at 1440p, a 26 FPS decrease (11.9%), and then further down to 120 FPS at 4K, a 73 FPS decrease from 1440p (37.8%). This steepening decline at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor at 4K, as the pixel throughput demand grows faster than the CPU’s ability to feed frames.

The Medium preset tells a similar story: 198 FPS at 1080p, 155 FPS at 1440p, and 91 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is 21.7%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 41.3%. This pattern—where the 1440p to 4K transition costs roughly twice as much as the 1080p to 1440p transition—is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, since the number of pixels scales by 1.78 times from 1080p to 1440p and by 2.25 times from 1440p to 4K.

At the High preset, the scaling is even more pronounced: 172 FPS at 1080p, 118 FPS at 1440p, and 70 FPS at 4K. The 1440p to 4K drop of 48 FPS (40.7%) is nearly identical to the Medium preset’s relative decline, reinforcing that the GPU is the bottleneck at 4K. The Ultra preset follows the same trajectory with 164 FPS, 113 FPS, and 66 FPS across the three resolutions. The consistency of these drops across all presets suggests that the CPU (the i7-14700K with its 20 cores and 28 threads) provides sufficient headroom even at 1080p, where frame rates exceed 200 FPS, meaning the GPU’s rendering capacity is the limiting factor for higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested hardware combinations for Lockdown Protocol, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti achieves a rank of 779 out of 3714 total combinations. This places the combo in the 79th percentile, meaning it outperforms roughly four out of every five tested systems in this game. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU’s strong multi-threaded capabilities and the GPU’s high-end rasterization performance, resulting in frame rates that are well above average for most presets.

The CPU’s benchmark percentile of 94 versus all CPUs indicates that the i7-14700K is a top-tier processor, and its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks, such as the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (with a deltaPct of -0.2) and the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (deltaPct of -0.7), are very close in overall score. This suggests that the CPU is not a weak link in the system. The GPU’s percentile of 84 versus all GPUs is also strong, with its nearest rivals including the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (deltaPct of -0.8) and the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (deltaPct of -1.3), showing that the RTX 4070 Ti is competitive with higher-tier mobile parts and professional workstation cards in raw compute.

Given that the combo ranks 779th out of 3714, it is clear that while the i7-14700K and RTX 4070 Ti are individually high performers, there are many systems with even more powerful GPUs or more optimized pairings that achieve higher frame rates in this specific title. The rank is not a reflection of poor performance but rather a measure of the competitive landscape, where over 700 combinations deliver better results, likely including those with the RTX 4090 or other top-tier Ada Lovelace parts.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its L3 cache is 33 MB shared, and it supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration. In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU’s role is to handle game logic, physics, and AI, which are typically not as demanding as the GPU’s rendering tasks, but they still require strong single-thread and multi-thread performance.

The benchmark results show that at 1080p, the CPU is not a bottleneck, as the frame rates exceed 200 FPS on the Low preset and 198 FPS on Medium. The fact that the average FPS does not scale dramatically between Low and Medium at 1080p (219 vs 198) but drops more noticeably at higher resolutions indicates that the CPU can keep up with the GPU’s output at lower pixel counts. The i7-14700K’s single-core performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2160 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2569, is strong enough to drive high frame rates in a game that likely has a single main thread.

The multi-threaded capabilities, shown by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 33440.5 and a Passmark multithread score of 52392, may help in loading scenes and handling background tasks, but the game’s frame rate is not heavily dependent on all 28 threads being utilized. The CPU’s 94th percentile ranking versus all CPUs confirms that it is a high-end part, and its synthetic benchmark scores are nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (deltaPct of -0.2) and the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (deltaPct of -0.7), suggesting that in CPU-bound scenarios, this chip is competitive with the best consumer processors available.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 164 at Ultra to 219 at Low. The Medium preset records an average of 198 FPS with a minimum of 168 and a maximum of 228, while the High preset averages 172 FPS. The Low preset at 1080p is the only configuration to exceed 210 FPS, and the High preset’s 172 FPS is 8 FPS higher than Ultra’s 164 FPS, showing a diminishing return as settings increase.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS ranges from 113 at Ultra to 193 at Low. The Medium preset averages 155 FPS with a minimum of 132 and a maximum of 179, while the High preset averages 118 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 37 FPS, which is larger than the 26 FPS gap between Low and Medium, indicating that the High preset introduces a significant performance penalty. The Ultra preset’s 113 FPS is only 5 FPS lower than High, suggesting that the jump from High to Ultra is less punishing than from Medium to High.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 66 at Ultra to 120 at Low. The Medium preset averages 91 FPS with a minimum of 78 and a maximum of 105, while the High preset averages 70 FPS. The Low preset’s 120 FPS is 29 FPS higher than Medium’s 91 FPS, making Low the only preset that maintains a playable frame rate above 100 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset’s 66 FPS is the lowest measured average across all configurations, and both High and Ultra fall below the 72 FPS threshold that is commonly cited for smooth 60 Hz displays with V-Sync.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is a high-end graphics card based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, featuring 7680 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operation units. It has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The GPU’s base clock is 2310 MHz with a boost clock of 2610 MHz, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6.

In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU’s role is dominant at higher resolutions, as evidenced by the performance scaling. The RTX 4070 Ti’s 84th percentile ranking versus all GPUs places it in the upper tier, and its Passmark G3D score of 31624 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5024 indicate strong rasterization performance. The GPU’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (deltaPct of -0.8) and the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (deltaPct of -1.3), showing that it is slightly slower than a high-end mobile part but comparable to a professional workstation card.

The VRAM capacity of 12 GB is sufficient for Lockdown Protocol at all tested settings, as the game does not appear to exceed this allocation based on the stable frame rates. The memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s is critical for high-resolution textures, and the measured data shows that at 4K, the GPU is the limiting factor, as the frame rates drop significantly compared to 1080p. The GPU’s FP32 performance of 40.09 TFLOPS and texture rate of 626.4 GTexel/s are strong indicators of its ability to handle complex shading and texture work, which is why the Medium preset at 4K can still achieve 91 FPS, but the Ultra preset’s additional effects push it down to 66 FPS.