Lockdown Protocol

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER lands at rank 2014 out of 2828 tested combinations in Lockdown Protocol. This places the combo in the 29th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly seven out of every ten tested configurations deliver higher frame rates in this FPS title. The ranking reflects a pairing where the GPU's age and mid-range positioning constrain overall performance more than the CPU's capabilities.

Looking at the individual components, the RTX 2060 SUPER sits at the 62nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18093. Its nearest rivals in synthetic testing include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile (scoring 18159, a 0.4% advantage), the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 (18189, 0.5% ahead), and the AMD Radeon RX 460 (18373, 1.5% ahead). The tight clustering of these scores—all within 1.6% of each other—indicates the 2060 SUPER is performing exactly where its silicon should be, neither overachieving nor underperforming relative to direct competitors.

Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 5 245 demonstrates stronger relative standing. Its average benchmark score of 48995 places it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs. The nearest rivals reveal a remarkably tight grouping: the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49196, 0.4% ahead), AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228, 0.5% ahead), Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48698, 0.6% behind), and Intel Core i5-14600K (48618, 0.8% behind). This CPU is competing with—and slightly trailing—processors that cost significantly more in many cases, but the delta is so small that real-world gaming differences would be negligible.

The fundamental takeaway from the combo ranking is clear: the RTX 2060 SUPER is the limiting factor in this pairing for Lockdown Protocol. The CPU has ample headroom to push higher frame rates, but the GPU's Turing architecture and 8 GB of VRAM cap what the system can deliver. Benchmark results indicate that upgrading the GPU while keeping the same CPU would yield substantial gains, whereas upgrading the CPU alone would produce minimal improvement in this specific game.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a clear hierarchy of playable settings across all three resolutions. At 1080p, the most demanding setting tested, Ultra, delivers an average of 74 FPS. This is perfectly playable for a fast-paced FPS, though competitive players might prefer higher refresh rates. The Medium preset at 1080p jumps to 113 FPS average with a minimum of 96 FPS, which provides excellent smoothness without sacrificing too much visual fidelity. Low settings reach 159 FPS average, making this the choice for esports-focused play where frame rate trumps visuals.

At 1440p, the picture changes meaningfully. Ultra drops to 54 FPS average, which is borderline for a competitive shooter. High settings at 1440p yield 72 FPS average, providing a good balance between visual quality and responsiveness. Medium at 1440p delivers 83 FPS average with a minimum of 70 FPS, which remains comfortably playable. Low at 1440p hits 117 FPS average, making it the recommended preset for players who prioritize smoothness over detail at this resolution.

At 4K, the RTX 2060 SUPER begins to struggle. Ultra settings produce just 35 FPS average, which is too low for a competitive FPS. High settings reach 47 FPS average, still below the ideal threshold for twitch-based gameplay. Medium at 4K manages 53 FPS average with a minimum of 45 FPS, which is playable but far from ideal. Only Low settings at 4K achieve a respectable 75 FPS average, making it the only viable preset for serious play at this resolution.

The data suggests that Medium settings provide the best overall experience across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium offers 113 FPS with a minimum of 96 FPS, ensuring frame times stay consistently smooth. At 1440p, Medium's 83 FPS average remains well within acceptable territory. Even at 4K, Medium's 53 FPS average with a 45 FPS minimum is more tolerable than the alternatives. High settings offer marginal visual improvements but cost 14 FPS at 1080p, 11 FPS at 1440p, and 6 FPS at 4K compared to Medium. For a game where reaction time matters, the consistency of Medium makes it the recommended preset.

Resolution Scaling

Examining the FPS progression from 1080p to 4K reveals how this combo scales under increasing resolution load. At Low settings, average FPS drops from 159 at 1080p to 117 at 1440p (a 26.4% reduction) and then to 75 at 4K (a 52.8% reduction from 1080p). At High settings, the progression goes from 99 at 1080p to 72 at 1440p (27.3% drop) and 47 at 4K (52.5% drop). Medium settings show similar scaling: 113 to 83 (26.5% drop) to 53 (53.1% drop). Ultra settings follow the pattern: 74 to 54 (27.0% drop) to 35 (52.7% drop).

This consistent scaling pattern—roughly a quarter reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a further quarter reduction from 1440p to 4K—indicates that the GPU is the dominant bottleneck across all settings. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see larger FPS drops at lower resolutions where the CPU must feed more frames per second. Instead, the proportional scaling matches what we would expect from a GPU-bound scenario, where pixel throughput dictates performance.

The RTX 2060 SUPER's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes increasingly stressed as resolution increases. At 4K, the higher pixel count demands more memory bandwidth and capacity, and the data shows this pressure clearly. The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens at higher resolutions in absolute terms—at 1080p, Ultra is 85 FPS below Low; at 1440p, the gap is 63 FPS; at 4K, it narrows to 40 FPS. This narrowing gap suggests that at 4K, even Low settings are pushing the GPU near its limits, leaving less headroom for visual enhancements.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range is playable. Low settings deliver 159 FPS average, making this the highest frame rate measured in the entire test suite. Medium produces 113 FPS average with a minimum of 96 FPS and a maximum of 130 FPS, offering excellent consistency. High settings achieve 99 FPS average, still comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra rounds out the 1080p results at 74 FPS average, which remains playable but represents a 53.5% reduction from Low settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance drops noticeably but remains respectable. Low settings produce 117 FPS average, which is still excellent for competitive play. Medium delivers 83 FPS average with a minimum of 70 FPS and a maximum of 95 FPS, maintaining good frame time consistency. High reaches 72 FPS average, which is adequate for most players. Ultra drops to 54 FPS average, making it marginal for a fast-paced FPS where consistent 60+ FPS is preferable.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 2060 SUPER shows its age. Low settings achieve 75 FPS average, which is the only truly comfortable option at this resolution. Medium manages 53 FPS average with a minimum of 45 FPS and a maximum of 62 FPS, producing noticeable frame pacing issues during intense scenes. High drops to 47 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 35 FPS average. These lower numbers indicate that 4K gaming with this GPU requires significant settings compromises.

The Medium preset at each resolution provides the most complete data, with all three metrics recorded: at 1080p, 113 average with 96 minimum and 130 maximum; at 1440p, 83 average with 70 minimum and 95 maximum; at 4K, 53 average with 45 minimum and 62 maximum. The minimum frame rates show that this combo maintains playable lows even in demanding moments, with the 4K Medium minimum of 45 FPS being the only sub-60 minimum recorded across all Medium presets.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is built on the TU106 chip using TSMC's 12 nm process, with 10,800 million transistors on a 445 mm² die. Its base clock runs at 1470 MHz, boosting to 1650 MHz. The memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth with memory clocks at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The GPU features 2176 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, 64 ROPs, 34 RT cores, and 272 tensor cores, producing 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 14.36 TFLOPS of FP16 performance.

In Lockdown Protocol, the GPU's role is clearly dominant based on the scaling data. The consistent FPS reductions across resolution increases point to pixel throughput being the primary constraint. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is adequate for 1080p and 1440p at these settings, but 4K textures and effects can pressure the memory subsystem. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, while respectable for the era, becomes a limiting factor at higher resolutions where more data must be moved per frame.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 62 means it outperforms a majority of all GPUs, but its nearest rivals highlight its position in the hierarchy. The RTX 3060 Mobile (0.4% ahead), Radeon Pro 5700 (0.5% ahead), Radeon RX 460 (1.5% ahead), and Arc A770M (1.6% ahead) all cluster within 2% of its performance. This tight grouping indicates that the 2060 SUPER is precisely where it should be for its class—no surprises, no overperformance, just consistent mid-range capability.

The measured FPS data shows the GPU's behavior under load. At 1080p Low, the 159 FPS average indicates the GPU can still deliver high frame rates when visual effects are minimized. However, the drop to 74 FPS at 1080p Ultra demonstrates the cost of enabling full visual features. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows from 85 FPS at 1080p to 40 FPS at 4K, showing that at 4K, even Low settings saturate the GPU's capabilities.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 represents the Arrow Lake architecture on TSMC's 3 nm process, with 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die. It features 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support includes DDR5 with dual-channel configuration and 102.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The CPU supports PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes and includes integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 64 execution units.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the resolution scaling patterns. However, the CPU's capabilities ensure it is not a bottleneck at any tested setting. The 14-core, 14-thread configuration with 5.10 GHz boost clock provides ample processing power for game logic, physics, and AI calculations. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache helps maintain low latency access to frequently used data, which benefits frame pacing.

The CPU's benchmark results confirm its strength. In Cinebench R23, it scores 32924 in multi-core and 4648 in single-core. PassMark tests show 38706 in multithread and 4394 in single-thread performance. These scores place it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals within 0.8% in either direction. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (0.4% ahead), Ryzen 9 7900 (0.5% ahead), Xeon Gold 5318H (0.6% behind), and Core i5-14600K (0.8% behind) all demonstrate that this CPU competes at the high end of desktop processors.

The fact that FPS scales so predictably with resolution—rather than remaining flat or showing CPU-related stutters—indicates the Core Ultra 5 245 has sufficient headroom to feed the RTX 2060 SUPER at all times. Even at 1080p Low with 159 FPS average, the CPU is not the limiting factor. This suggests that in Lockdown Protocol, the combo is GPU-bound across the entire tested spectrum, and the CPU's 90th percentile performance provides a solid foundation for future GPU upgrades without requiring a platform change.