Lockdown Protocol

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i9-14900K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 ranks 297th out of 1,637 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the top 18.2% of all configurations evaluated. This is a strong result for a high-refresh-rate FPS, though the ranking reflects the game's tendency to reward raw GPU throughput at higher resolutions rather than sheer CPU muscle.

The CPU itself sits at the 97th percentile versus all processors, with an average benchmark score of 79,824. Its nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7413, scores 80,041, a delta of -0.3%, meaning the i9-14900K trails by a hair in aggregate compute. Against the Intel Core i9-14900KF, the delta is 0.7% in favor of the KF variant, while the Core Ultra 7 265KF and 265K sit 0.7% and 0.9% ahead, respectively. These are negligible differences in synthetic workloads, but in a game like Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's 24 cores and 32 threads provide ample headroom for background tasks and frame pacing.

The GPU, meanwhile, lands at the 83rd percentile versus all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 41,687. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 5300, scores 41,610, a delta of 0.2% in favor of the RTX 5070. The NVIDIA Tesla M40 is 0.5% behind, while the RTX 3090 is 0.6% ahead and the Radeon Pro 580X trails by 0.7%. The 5070's position among these older and workstation-oriented parts underscores that its Blackwell architecture is trading on efficiency and feature set more than raw rasterization dominance.

GPU Role

The RTX 5070 brings 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. That memory pool is the defining constraint at 4K Ultra, where average FPS falls to 59.3 — just below the 60 FPS threshold that most competitive FPS players consider playable. The GPU's base clock is 2325 MHz with a boost of 2512 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz or 28 Gbps effective. These clocks are moderate for a 50-series part, but the 5 nm TSMC process and 31,100 million transistors on a 263 mm² die keep power draw at a 250 W TDP.

In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU's role shifts dramatically with settings. At 1080p Low, the 5070 pushes 282.1 FPS, suggesting the CPU is doing heavy lifting to feed the frame pipeline. By 4K Ultra, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as the frame rate collapses to 59.3 FPS. The 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores are present, but this game does not appear to leverage ray tracing or DLSS in a way that changes the scaling pattern — the data shows a straightforward rasterization load.

The 5070's 192 TMUs and 80 ROPs handle texture throughput at 482.3 GTexel/s and pixel fill at 201.0 GPixel/s. Those figures explain why the card scales well from Medium to High but struggles at Ultra, where the 12 GB VRAM buffer may be exceeded by texture packs. The FP32 throughput of 30.87 TFLOPS is identical to FP16, indicating a 1:1 ratio that favors compute-heavy workloads, though Lockdown Protocol is not one of them.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and telling. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 176.1 FPS at 1080p to 125.8 FPS at 1440p, then to 84.6 FPS at 4K. That's a 52% reduction from 1080p to 4K, which indicates the GPU is the primary limiter at higher resolutions. The CPU, with its 6.0 GHz boost clock and 36 MB of shared L3 cache, has enough headroom to avoid becoming the bottleneck until frame rates exceed 280 FPS.

At Low settings, the pattern is more dramatic. The 1080p result of 282.1 FPS drops to 206.8 FPS at 1440p and 136.1 FPS at 4K — a 52% decline from 1080p to 4K, nearly identical to the High setting's scaling. This consistency suggests the game's engine scales resolution uniformly regardless of quality preset, and that the RTX 5070's memory bandwidth is the limiting factor at 4K.

Medium settings show a similar curve: 198.1 FPS at 1080p, 148.7 FPS at 1440p, and 97.8 FPS at 4K. Ultra is the outlier, with 133 FPS at 1080p falling to 93.7 FPS at 1440p and 59.3 FPS at 4K — a 55% drop. The Ultra preset appears to introduce effects that disproportionately tax the GPU, likely shadow quality or post-processing, rather than raw resolution scaling.

The limiting component shifts clearly: at 1080p Low, the 282.1 FPS ceiling is likely CPU-bound, given the i9-14900K's single-thread performance of 7,040 in Cinebench R23. At 4K Ultra, the 59.3 FPS result is firmly GPU-bound, as the 5070's 672.0 GB/s bandwidth cannot sustain the pixel throughput demanded by 8.3 million pixels.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 282.1 FPS average, which is exceptional for competitive play. Medium drops to 198.1 FPS, High to 176.1 FPS, and Ultra to 133 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 84 FPS, indicating that texture filtering or draw distance settings have a significant cost. The drop from High to Ultra is 43.1 FPS, suggesting that Ultra enables effects that heavily tax the GPU's 80 ROPs.

At 2560x1440, the results remain strong for high-refresh monitors. Low settings hit 206.8 FPS, Medium 148.7 FPS, High 125.8 FPS, and Ultra 93.7 FPS. The 1440p Ultra result is notable: 93.7 FPS is still above 60, but the 40.7 FPS gap between 1080p Ultra and 1440p Ultra indicates that resolution scaling is the dominant cost. The High preset at 1440p offers 125.8 FPS, which is a solid sweet spot for 144Hz displays.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes. Low settings produce 136.1 FPS, which is playable on 120Hz 4K panels. Medium yields 97.8 FPS, High 84.6 FPS, and Ultra 59.3 FPS. The Ultra result is borderline for competitive play, and the 25.3 FPS gap between High and Ultra at 4K is the largest across all resolutions. The data indicates that 4K Ultra is the only configuration where the combo falls below the 60 FPS threshold, and it does so decisively.

The settings scaling at each resolution follows a consistent pattern: Low to Medium costs roughly 30% of performance, Medium to High costs another 15-20%, and High to Ultra costs another 25-30%. This suggests that each preset tier adds a uniform load on the GPU, with Ultra being the most demanding tier by a wide margin.

FAQ

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in Lockdown Protocol?

A: It ranks 297th out of 1,637 combos, placing it in the top 18.2% of all tested systems.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 144Hz gaming at 1440p?

A: High settings at 2560x1440 produce 125.8 FPS average, which is above the 120 FPS threshold for most 144Hz monitors. Medium settings yield 148.7 FPS if a higher frame rate is preferred.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the limiting factor at 4K Ultra?

A: The GPU is the clear bottleneck at 3840x2160 Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 59.3. The CPU's 24 cores and 6.0 GHz boost clock are not the constraint at this resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 compare to the RTX 3090 in aggregate benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5070 scores 41,687 on average, while the RTX 3090 scores 41,441. The delta is 0.6% in favor of the 3090, meaning the two cards are virtually identical in synthetic workloads.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: Low settings produce 282.1 FPS, while Ultra produces 133 FPS — a difference of 149.1 FPS, or a 53% reduction from Low to Ultra.

Q: Does the i9-14900K's single-thread performance matter for this game?

A: The CPU's single-thread score of 7,040 in Cinebench R23 is high, and the data shows frame rates above 280 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating the CPU can feed the GPU effectively at lower resolutions.