Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with Intel Core Ultra 5 235 + AMD Radeon RX 9060

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 produces a mid-pack result in Lockdown Protocol, landing at rank 1647 out of 2828 tested combinations. This places the combo in the 58th percentile of all tested systems, suggesting a configuration that can handle the game comfortably at most settings, with clear trade-offs emerging at the extremes of resolution and quality presets. The data reveals a system that is consistently playable at 1080p and 1440p, but which begins to strain at 4K when visual fidelity is pushed to its limits.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear picture of which settings preset delivers the optimal balance between visual quality and frame rate for this specific CPU-GPU pairing. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 175 FPS average, which is dramatically higher than the 124 FPS seen at Medium and the 109 FPS at High. However, the jump from Low to Medium costs 51 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High costs only 15 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to 81 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS threshold but represents a significant 43 FPS loss compared to High.

For 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. Low delivers 128 FPS, Medium drops to 91 FPS, High to 80 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 60 FPS. The Medium preset shows a minimum FPS of 77 and a maximum of 105, indicating frame times that remain stable even during demanding scenes. The gap between 1080p and 1440p at the same preset is substantial: High loses 29 FPS when moving from 1080p to 1440p, while Low loses 47 FPS. This suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, with the CPU having more headroom to spare.

At 4K, the picture becomes more constrained. Medium at 3840x2160 averages 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 and maximum of 68, which is technically playable but with noticeable dips. High at 4K averages 51 FPS, while Ultra falls to 39 FPS, which is below the playability threshold for most competitive FPS scenarios. Low at 4K reaches 83 FPS, but this preset sacrifices too much visual quality to be recommended for a game that relies on visual clarity for enemy detection.

The data suggests that Medium at 1440p offers the best overall experience: 91 FPS average with a 77 FPS minimum, providing a smooth and responsive experience while maintaining moderate visual fidelity. For users with 1080p displays, High at 109 FPS is the sweet spot, offering a large quality improvement over Medium for only a 15 FPS penalty. At 4K, Medium at 59 FPS is the only preset that keeps the average above 55 FPS, but the 50 FPS minimum suggests occasional stutter during intense firefights. The High preset at 4K is borderline at 51 FPS, and Ultra at 39 FPS is simply too demanding for this combination.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's boost clock is rated at 2990 MHz, with a game clock of 2400 MHz and a base clock of 1700 MHz. These specifications place the RX 9060 in the 59th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 16014. Its closest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which scores 16129, a delta of -0.7 percent. The RX 9060 also sits just 1 percent ahead of the AMD Radeon R9 370X and AMD Radeon RX 7700, which score 15862 and 15852 respectively.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is a critical factor at higher resolutions. In Lockdown Protocol, the 4K Ultra preset averages only 39 FPS, which is 12 FPS lower than 4K High at 51 FPS and 20 FPS lower than 4K Medium at 59 FPS. The steep drop from Medium to Ultra at 4K suggests that the VRAM capacity is being taxed, with the GPU potentially spilling over into system memory or reducing texture quality to compensate. At 1440p, the difference between High and Ultra is 20 FPS (80 versus 60), while at 1080p the difference between High and Ultra is 28 FPS (109 versus 81). This pattern indicates the GPU's memory bandwidth and capacity become progressively more limiting as resolution increases.

The RX 9060's FP32 performance is rated at 21.43 TFLOPS, with a texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s. These figures translate to strong rasterization performance for a card in this class, but the 128-bit memory bus and 8 GB capacity are modest by modern standards. The GPU's 1792 shading units and 64 ROPs provide enough compute throughput for the game's rendering workload, but the memory subsystem appears to be the constraining factor when settings are pushed beyond Medium at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data from 1080p to 4K reveals how the limiting component shifts as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 175 FPS, which is 92 FPS higher than 1440p Low at 128 FPS and 92 FPS higher than 4K Low at 83 FPS. The nearly identical drop from 1080p to 1440p and from 1440p to 4K at Low settings (47 and 45 FPS respectively) suggests a scaling pattern that is consistent with GPU-bound performance. The CPU, with its 14 cores and 14 threads, has ample headroom at these frame rates.

At Medium settings, the scaling shows a different pattern. 1080p Medium averages 124 FPS, 1440p Medium drops to 91 FPS (a 33 FPS loss), and 4K Medium falls to 59 FPS (a 32 FPS loss). The consistent 32-33 FPS drop per resolution step indicates that the GPU is the bottleneck at Medium settings, with the CPU not being a limiting factor. The same pattern holds at High settings: 109 FPS at 1080p, 80 FPS at 1440p (29 FPS loss), and 51 FPS at 4K (29 FPS loss). Ultra settings show a similar trend with 81 FPS at 1080p, 60 FPS at 1440p (21 FPS loss), and 39 FPS at 4K (21 FPS loss).

The fact that the FPS drop per resolution step is nearly identical across Medium, High, and Ultra settings suggests that the GPU's rendering pipeline is the primary constraint at all quality levels. If the CPU were a bottleneck at lower resolutions, we would expect to see diminishing FPS losses as resolution increases — but the data shows a linear scaling pattern. This indicates that the RX 9060 is the limiting component in this configuration, and the Core Ultra 5 235 is providing sufficient CPU performance to avoid becoming a constraint.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS values show a wide spread across settings. Low averages 175 FPS, which is the highest result in the entire dataset. Medium averages 124 FPS with a minimum of 106 and maximum of 143, indicating stable frame times with a 37 FPS range. High averages 109 FPS, and Ultra averages 81 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a total reduction of 94 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium at 51 FPS. The High to Ultra drop of 28 FPS is the second-largest step, while the Medium to High drop of 15 FPS is the smallest.

At 2560x1440, the scaling continues but with smaller absolute values. Low averages 128 FPS, Medium averages 91 FPS with a 77 FPS minimum and 105 FPS maximum, High averages 80 FPS, and Ultra averages 60 FPS. The total spread from Low to Ultra is 68 FPS, which is 26 FPS narrower than at 1080p. The Medium preset at 1440p shows a particularly interesting frame time distribution: the 28 FPS range between minimum and maximum (77 to 105) suggests occasional dips during complex scenes, but the 91 FPS average remains well above playability thresholds.

At 3840x2160, the results become more constrained. Low averages 83 FPS, Medium averages 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 and maximum of 68, High averages 51 FPS, and Ultra averages 39 FPS. The total spread from Low to Ultra is 44 FPS, indicating that the GPU is running at or near its limits at this resolution. The Medium preset's 50 FPS minimum is the only 4K result that stays above 45 FPS, while the Ultra preset's 39 FPS average is the only result below 40 FPS. The data shows that 4K Ultra is not a viable preset for this combination, while 4K Medium is borderline playable with occasional frame dips.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and AMD Radeon RX 9060 ranks 1647 out of 2828 tested combinations in Lockdown Protocol. This places the combo in the 58th percentile of all tested systems, which is a solid mid-pack result. The CPU itself holds the 89th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 46062. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 at 46030 (0.1 percent ahead), the Intel Core i9-13900HX at 46098 (0.1 percent behind), and the AMD EPYC 4364P at 45970 (0.2 percent ahead).

The GPU's rank is lower than the CPU's, sitting in the 59th percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 16014. This discrepancy between CPU and GPU percentiles suggests that the Core Ultra 5 235 is a stronger component relative to its peers than the RX 9060 is relative to its peers. The combination's overall rank of 1647 out of 2828 is pulled down by the GPU's relatively modest standing, even though the CPU is performing well above average.

The ranking data implies that this combination is well-balanced for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where the CPU's strong single-thread and multi-thread performance can be fully utilized. However, at 4K, the GPU's limitations become the defining factor, and the combination's rank reflects this constraint. For users considering this pairing, the data suggests that the CPU has headroom for future GPU upgrades without becoming a bottleneck, while the GPU is the component that limits the system's high-resolution performance.

FAQ

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

A: The highest average FPS is 175, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low settings preset. This is 51 FPS higher than the Medium preset at the same resolution, which averages 124 FPS.

Q: Is 4K Ultra playable with this CPU-GPU combination?

A: No, 4K Ultra averages 39 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered necessary for smooth FPS gameplay. The 4K Medium preset averages 59 FPS, but its 50 FPS minimum suggests occasional dips below playability.

Q: How does the RX 9060 compare to its nearest GPU rival?

A: The RX 9060 has an average benchmark score of 16014, which is 0.7 percent lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti at 16129. It is 1 percent higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7700 at 15852.

Q: What is the CPU's percentile ranking among all processors?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 holds the 89th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 46062. Its closest rival is the Intel Core i9-13900HX, which scores 46098, a 0.1 percent difference.

Q: Which settings preset shows the smallest FPS difference between 1080p and 1440p?

A: The Ultra preset shows the smallest difference, with 81 FPS at 1080p and 60 FPS at 1440p, a 21 FPS drop. This is smaller than the 29 FPS drop for High settings and the 47 FPS drop for Low settings.

Q: Does the CPU become a bottleneck at any resolution in this game?

A: No, the data shows consistent FPS drops per resolution step at all settings presets, indicating the GPU is the limiting component. The CPU's 14 cores and 14 threads provide sufficient performance to avoid becoming a constraint.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a TDP of 65 watts. The processor's cache configuration includes 192 KB of L1 cache per core, 3 MB of L2 cache per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. Its memory support includes DDR5 with dual-channel operation, providing a memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's performance is sufficient to avoid becoming a bottleneck at any tested resolution or settings preset. The benchmark data supports this conclusion: the FPS drops from 1080p to 1440p and from 1440p to 4K are nearly identical at each settings level, regardless of whether the absolute FPS is high (as at Low settings) or low (as at Ultra settings). If the CPU were limiting performance, we would expect to see smaller FPS drops at higher resolutions, where the GPU's workload increases and the CPU has more time to prepare frames.

The Core Ultra 5 235's multi-threaded performance is demonstrated by its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14769 and its Passmark multithread score of 37816. Its single-thread performance, measured by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2085 and a Passmark single-thread score of 4516, is also strong. These scores place the CPU in the 89th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 46062. The CPU's nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 at 46030 (0.1 percent ahead), the Intel Core i9-13900HX at 46098 (0.1 percent behind), and the AMD EPYC 4364P at 45970 (0.2 percent ahead).

For Lockdown Protocol specifically, the CPU's 14 cores and 24 MB of L3 cache provide ample parallel processing capability for game logic, physics, and AI computations. The 5.00 GHz boost clock ensures strong single-thread performance for frame rendering and input processing. The data shows that at 1080p Low, where the GPU is least stressed, the system achieves 175 FPS — a result that indicates the CPU can feed the GPU with frames at very high rates. Even at 4K Ultra, where the GPU averages only 39 FPS, the CPU is not the limiting factor, as the linear FPS scaling across resolutions confirms. This suggests the Core Ultra 5 235 has headroom for more powerful GPUs in future upgrades, while the RX 9060 remains the performance ceiling for this particular configuration.