Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol is an Unreal-based FPS that scales aggressively with both GPU and CPU, and this specific pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 produces a top-tier result. The data places this combo at rank 67 out of 2828 tested configurations, putting it in the 97th percentile of all systems measured for this title. The benchmark rows show a wide spread of performance across four presets and three resolutions, with average frame rates ranging from a low of 81 FPS at 4K Ultra to a high of 355 FPS at 1080p Low. The RTX 4090’s massive 24 GB GDDR6X buffer and 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth are the dominant factors at higher resolutions, while the CPU’s 14 cores and 5.00 GHz boost clock become increasingly relevant as resolution drops and frame rates climb past the 300 FPS mark.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows reveal a clear hierarchy across the four presets, with the gap between Low and Ultra widening as resolution increases. At 1920x1080, the spread from Low to Ultra is 184 FPS (355 down to 171), while at 3840x2160, the spread shrinks to 93 FPS (174 down to 81). This indicates that the game’s Ultra preset imposes a heavy GPU load that scales with pixel count, while the Low preset is more evenly balanced between CPU and GPU work.

For competitive play, the Medium preset at 1080p is the standout choice. It delivers 261 FPS average with a minimum of 222 FPS and a maximum of 301 FPS, all while providing a visual uplift over Low that is substantial in a fast-paced FPS. The 222 FPS minimum is the only measured minimum below 300 FPS at this resolution, but it still clears any 240 Hz display’s refresh window comfortably. Pushing to High at 1080p drops the average to 228 FPS, which is still excellent but loses the headroom that Medium provides for consistent frame pacing on high-refresh panels.

At 2560x1440, Medium again proves optimal, delivering 192 FPS average with a 163 FPS minimum and 220 FPS maximum. This sits well above the 144 Hz threshold and even approaches 165 Hz class monitors. High at 1440p drops to 167 FPS average, which is still playable but leaves less margin for demanding scenes. The Ultra preset at 1440p produces 125 FPS average, which is fine for 120 Hz displays but not ideal for competitive shooters where response time matters.

For 4K gaming, the data suggests a different approach. Medium at 3840x2160 yields 124 FPS average with a 105 FPS minimum and 142 FPS maximum, which is the only 4K preset that maintains a triple-digit average. High at 4K drops to 108 FPS, and Ultra falls to 81 FPS, which is below the 90 FPS threshold many players consider minimum for smooth motion. The Low preset at 4K produces 174 FPS, but the visual sacrifice is significant for a game that relies on situational awareness. The recommendation is to use Medium at 4K for the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate, as the 105 FPS minimum ensures no noticeable stutter during intense firefights.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the primary driver of performance in Lockdown Protocol, particularly at higher resolutions. Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory is far beyond what this game requires, but the 1.01 TB/s bandwidth and 384-bit bus width ensure that texture streaming and asset loading never become bottlenecks. The GPU’s 16384 shading units and 512 texture mapping units process the game’s geometry and effects with substantial headroom, as evidenced by the 108 FPS average at 4K High.

The clock behavior is notable: the base clock of 2235 MHz and boost clock of 2520 MHz are relatively modest for a flagship, but the Ada Lovelace architecture’s efficiency compensates. The 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the theoretical ceiling, and the measured results show the GPU scaling predictably with resolution. From 1080p High (228 FPS) to 4K High (108 FPS), the drop is 52.6%, which aligns with the 300% increase in pixel count—indicating the GPU is fully utilized at every step.

The RTX 4090’s position in the benchmark database is interesting: it ranks in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 60347. Its nearest rivals include workstation cards like the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (61896, -2.5% delta) and the Intel Arc Pro A60 (60326, 0% delta), which shows that the 4090’s gaming-oriented design still competes with professional hardware in raw compute. However, in Lockdown Protocol specifically, the 4090’s gaming features—such as the 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores—provide advantages that synthetic benchmarks do not fully capture. The data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where the 81 FPS average is the lowest of any preset, confirming that the game’s Ultra settings push even this flagship to its limits.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 bottlenecking the RTX 4090 in Lockdown Protocol?

A: At 1080p Low, the system reaches 355 FPS, and at 1080p High it hits 228 FPS. The CPU’s 5.00 GHz boost clock and 14 cores are sufficient to feed the GPU at these rates, as the frame drops from Low to High are consistent with GPU workload increases rather than CPU stalls. The 1080p Ultra preset at 171 FPS further confirms that the CPU is not the limiting factor until frame rates exceed 350 FPS.

Q: How much VRAM does Lockdown Protocol need, and does the 4090’s 24 GB help?

A: The measured data does not include VRAM usage, but the RTX 4090’s 24 GB buffer is never a constraint. The 1.01 TB/s bandwidth ensures that even at 4K Ultra, texture streaming is smooth. The game’s performance drops from 4K High (108 FPS) to 4K Ultra (81 FPS) are attributable to compute load, not memory capacity, as the 24 GB would accommodate any texture pack the game can load.

Q: Should I use the Ultra preset at any resolution with this combo?

A: The Ultra preset only produces a 171 FPS average at 1080p, which is playable but not optimal for competitive play. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 125 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 81 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p (192 FPS) and Medium at 4K (124 FPS) both outperform Ultra at higher resolutions, suggesting that Ultra’s visual gains are not worth the frame rate cost.

Q: What is the best preset for a 240 Hz monitor?

A: At 1080p, the Medium preset delivers 261 FPS average with a 222 FPS minimum, which is the only measured preset that consistently exceeds 240 Hz. The Low preset hits 355 FPS average, but the visual quality loss is severe. For 1440p 240 Hz displays, no preset reaches that target; the Medium preset at 192 FPS is the closest.

Q: How does this combo compare to other configurations in the database?

A: This combo ranks 67th out of 2828 tested, placing it in the top 2.4% of all systems. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 46062 is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (46030, 0.1% delta) and the Intel Core i9-13900HX (46098, -0.1% delta), meaning the CPU is not a differentiator. The GPU’s average score of 60347 is within 0.3% of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (60140), but the 4090’s gaming optimizations show in the measured FPS.

Q: Does the game favor CPU or GPU more at 1080p?

A: The 1080p results show a 184 FPS spread from Low to Ultra, which is the largest gap across all resolutions. This suggests that at 1080p, the GPU is still the primary bottleneck, but the CPU’s 14 cores are working harder to maintain frame rates above 300 FPS. The 355 FPS Low preset indicates that the CPU can handle high frame rates, but the GPU’s workload at Ultra (171 FPS) is still the limiting factor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a full spectrum of performance. The Low preset averages 355 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset. Medium reduces this to 261 FPS average, with a minimum of 222 FPS and a maximum of 301 FPS, providing a stable competitive experience. High drops to 228 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 171 FPS. The 1080p Medium row is the only one across all resolutions that includes a measured minimum above 200 FPS, confirming its suitability for high-refresh gaming.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. Low averages 270 FPS, which is still excellent but 24% lower than 1080p Low. Medium averages 192 FPS, with a minimum of 163 FPS and a maximum of 220 FPS. High drops to 167 FPS, and Ultra to 125 FPS. The 1440p Medium row’s 163 FPS minimum is the only measured minimum below 200 FPS at this resolution, but it still clears 144 Hz monitors with headroom.

At 3840x2160, the GPU’s workload becomes the dominant factor. Low averages 174 FPS, which is surprisingly high for 4K, but the visual quality is minimal. Medium averages 124 FPS, with a minimum of 105 FPS and a maximum of 142 FPS. High drops to 108 FPS, and Ultra to 81 FPS. The 4K Medium row is the only 4K preset with a minimum above 100 FPS, making it the only viable option for smooth 4K play. The Ultra preset at 81 FPS is below the 90 FPS threshold for many players, and the 105 FPS minimum of Medium is a significant improvement.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows that Lockdown Protocol scales predictably with resolution, but the rate of scaling varies by preset. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS drops by 24.1% for Low (355 to 270), 26.4% for Medium (261 to 192), 26.8% for High (228 to 167), and 26.9% for Ultra (171 to 125). This consistent ~26% drop across all presets indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor when moving from 1080p to 1440p, as the 78% increase in pixel count is partially offset by the CPU’s ability to maintain frame rates.

From 1440p to 4K, the scaling becomes more aggressive. Low drops by 35.6% (270 to 174), Medium by 35.4% (192 to 124), High by 35.3% (167 to 108), and Ultra by 35.2% (125 to 81). This ~35% drop across all presets is consistent with the 125% increase in pixel count from 1440p to 4K, but the fact that all presets drop by nearly the same percentage is revealing. It suggests that at 4K, the GPU is fully saturated regardless of settings, and the CPU’s role has diminished to the point where it is no longer a factor.

The overall scaling from 1080p Low (355 FPS) to 4K Low (174 FPS) is a 51.0% reduction, while from 1080p Ultra (171 FPS) to 4K Ultra (81 FPS) is a 52.6% reduction. This narrow range of 51-53% across all presets indicates that the limiting component shifts from GPU at higher settings to a more balanced CPU/GPU split at lower settings, but the GPU remains the dominant constraint throughout. The fact that 4K Medium (124 FPS) outperforms 1440p Ultra (125 FPS) by a negligible margin further confirms that the GPU is the bottleneck at both resolutions, and the CPU’s 14 cores are not holding back performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process from TSMC. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 5.00 GHz boost clock are the key specifications for gaming performance. The benchmark data shows a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14769 and a single-core score of 2085, which places it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 46062.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p Low, where the system reaches 355 FPS. This high frame rate requires the CPU to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations at a rate that exceeds 5.9 ms per frame. The 14 cores, while not hyperthreaded, provide sufficient parallel throughput for the game’s multi-threaded rendering pipeline. The PassMark multithread score of 37816 and single-thread score of 4516 suggest that the CPU has balanced performance for both lightly-threaded and heavily-threaded workloads.

Comparing to its nearest rivals, the Core Ultra 5 235’s average score of 46062 is within 0.1% of the Intel Core i9-13900HX (46098) and within 0.2% of the AMD EPYC 4364P (45970). This means that in Lockdown Protocol, the CPU choice is not a significant factor when paired with the RTX 4090, as the GPU’s performance dominates at all resolutions above 1080p Low. The data shows that at 4K Medium, the system achieves 124 FPS, which is 65% higher than the 4K Ultra result (81 FPS), and this difference is entirely attributable to GPU workload, not CPU capabilities.

The CPU’s 5.00 GHz boost clock is particularly relevant at 1080p, where the 355 FPS Low preset demonstrates that the processor can handle high IPC demands. However, the lack of hyperthreading (14 threads for 14 cores) may limit performance in scenarios with heavy background tasks, but the measured data shows no such issues in this game. The Cinebench R15 single-core score of 210 and R20 single-core score of 875 indicate strong per-thread performance, which is crucial for the game’s main thread that handles input and game logic. Overall, the Core Ultra 5 235 is more than sufficient for Lockdown Protocol at any resolution, and the GPU is the clear bottleneck in this pairing.