Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol, a 2024 FPS title, shows a wide performance spread depending on the graphics preset selected. With the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, the data reveals a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate, making the choice of settings the single most important factor for the experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy of performance across four presets at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 249 FPS, which is exceptionally high and will easily outpace the refresh rate of most displays. The High preset at 1080p still produces a robust 155 FPS average, indicating a very playable experience with better visual quality than Low. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to an average of 116 FPS, which is still smooth, but the 49% difference between Low and Ultra shows how demanding the higher-fidelity settings are.

Moving to 2560x1440, the picture changes. The Low preset achieves an average of 183 FPS, remaining an excellent choice for high-refresh-rate gaming. The High preset at 113 FPS is still very fluid, but the gap between Low and High narrows considerably compared to 1080p. The Ultra preset at 1440p yields an average of 85 FPS, which is playable but no longer hits the high-refresh-rate territory. The Medium preset at 1440p sits in a comfortable middle ground with an average of 130 FPS, offering a balance between the two extremes.

At 3840x2160, the data shows the RTX 3080 being pushed harder. The Low preset is the only option that provides a triple-digit frame rate, averaging 118 FPS. The High preset averages 73 FPS, which is generally considered the threshold for smooth gameplay, while the Medium preset averages 84 FPS with a minimum of 71 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K falls to an average of 55 FPS, which is the only measured configuration that dips below the 60 FPS mark.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on the target resolution. For 1080p and 1440p, the High preset appears to be the optimal recommendation. It provides a substantial visual upgrade over Low while maintaining average frame rates of 155 FPS and 113 FPS, respectively, which are well above the standard 60 FPS target. For 4K, the Low preset is the only one that consistently delivers a high frame rate, but the Medium preset at 84 FPS is a strong contender for a more visually rich experience while still staying well above the 60 FPS playability threshold. The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution for this combination, as it consistently produces the lowest frame rates and is best reserved for scenarios where visual fidelity is prioritized over smoothness.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this CPU and GPU combo in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 249 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low graphics preset.

Q: Can this system maintain a 60 FPS average at 4K resolution?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset averages 84 FPS, the High preset averages 73 FPS, and the Low preset averages 118 FPS. Only the Ultra preset, with an average of 55 FPS, falls below the 60 FPS target.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to the Low preset at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 85 FPS, while the Low preset averages 183 FPS. This represents a performance drop of over 50% when moving from the lowest to the highest settings.

Q: What is the performance difference between the 1080p and 4K High presets?

A: The High preset at 1920x1080 averages 155 FPS, whereas at 3840x2160 it averages 73 FPS. This indicates that the 4K resolution is over twice as demanding on the GPU, resulting in a frame rate that is less than half of the 1080p figure.

Q: Is the frame rate at 1440p High sufficient for a high-refresh-rate monitor?

A: With an average of 113 FPS, the 1440p High preset is well-suited for monitors with a 120Hz or 144Hz refresh rate, as it provides a frame rate that can take advantage of such displays.

Q: How much of a frame rate difference is there between the Low and Medium presets at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 249 FPS, while the Medium preset averages 177 FPS. The Medium preset also shows a minimum of 151 FPS, which is still very high, making the transition from Low to Medium a significant sacrifice in top-end frame rate for a moderate gain in visual detail.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is the primary driver of performance in Lockdown Protocol, and the data shows its influence scaling directly with resolution and settings. The GPU is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA102 chip, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It features 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 760.3 GB/s. The card's base clock is 1440 MHz, with a boost clock of 1710 MHz. The processing power is substantial, with 8704 shading units and 272 TMUs, enabling a texture rate of 465.1 GTexel/s and an FP32 performance of 29.77 TFLOPS.

The importance of the GPU becomes evident when examining the frame rate drops from 1080p to 4K. At the High preset, the average FPS falls from 155 at 1080p to 113 at 1440p, and then to 73 at 4K. This pattern is consistent across all presets, with the Low preset dropping from 249 FPS at 1080p to 118 FPS at 4K. The RTX 3080's performance percentile of 68 out of 100, coupled with its average benchmark score of 23172, places it in a position where it can handle 1440p gaming with ease, but 4K at higher settings begins to challenge its capabilities, as seen in the 55 FPS average on the 4K Ultra preset.

The GPU's memory configuration also plays a role. With 10 GB of GDDR6X, the card has a sufficient frame buffer for the measured resolutions, but the performance degradation at 4K suggests that the memory bandwidth and processing power are being pushed to their limits. The data shows that at 4K, the GPU is the limiting factor, as even the CPU-stress-heavy scenarios do not prevent the GPU from being the bottleneck. The 320W TDP and the suggested 700W PSU indicate the power requirements needed to sustain this level of performance, which is reflected in the consistent frame rates across the benchmark runs.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combination provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 249 FPS, the Medium preset averages 177 FPS with a minimum of 151 FPS and a maximum of 204 FPS, the High preset averages 155 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 116 FPS. This shows a clear progression where each step up in settings costs a significant number of frames, with a total drop of 133 FPS from Low to Ultra.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down. The Low preset averages 183 FPS, the Medium preset averages 130 FPS with a minimum of 110 FPS and a maximum of 149 FPS, the High preset averages 113 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 85 FPS. The pattern is similar to 1080p, but the absolute numbers are lower, and the difference between Low and Ultra is 98 FPS. The Medium preset at this resolution offers a balanced option, with its minimum of 110 FPS still providing smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is heavily taxed. The Low preset averages 118 FPS, which is the only setting to remain in triple digits. The Medium preset averages 84 FPS, with a minimum of 71 FPS and a maximum of 96 FPS, indicating some variability but still staying within a playable range. The High preset averages 73 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 55 FPS, which is the lowest average in the entire dataset. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 63 FPS, showing that while the Low preset is capable of high frame rates, the higher settings become increasingly demanding, with the Ultra preset falling below the 60 FPS threshold.

Resolution Scaling

The data clearly illustrates how frame rate scales with resolution, revealing the nature of the bottleneck in this system. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on the High preset, the average FPS drops from 155 to 113, a decrease of 27%. Moving further to 3840x2160, the average drops to 73 FPS, representing a 53% decrease from the 1080p figure. This pattern is consistent across all settings. For instance, the Low preset goes from 249 FPS at 1080p to 183 FPS at 1440p and then to 118 FPS at 4K, a 53% drop from 1080p to 4K.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly steep. At the High preset, the drop from 113 FPS to 73 FPS is a 35% reduction, while the resolution increase is only 2.25 times the pixel count. This disproportionate drop indicates that the system is becoming limited by the GPU's processing power and memory bandwidth. The RTX 3080's 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth is being saturated as the pixel count increases, leading to the observed frame rate decline.

This behavior points to the GPU as the primary limiting component in this configuration. The CPU, with its high multi-core performance, is able to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, but as the resolution and detail settings increase, the GPU's workload grows exponentially, and its performance becomes the deciding factor. The data suggests that at 1080p and 1440p, the CPU has enough headroom, but at 4K, the GPU is the clear bottleneck, as evidenced by the fact that the Low preset at 4K (118 FPS) is still lower than the Ultra preset at 1080p (116 FPS), showing that the resolution increase has a more significant impact than the settings increase.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a 20-core, 20-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 2, with a base clock of 2.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. It features a 30 MB shared L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. Its performance is strong, with a percentile of 93 against all CPUs and an average benchmark score of 64640. In multi-core tests like Cinebench R23, it scores 42216, and in single-core, it scores 5960, showing a robust capability in both areas.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is to process game logic, physics, and AI. The data suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck in this setup. At 1080p, where the GPU has the least amount of work, the frame rates are extremely high, reaching 249 FPS on Low. This indicates that the CPU is capable of handling the game's demands at high frame rates. The fact that the frame rate decreases as resolution increases, even at the same settings, confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor, not the CPU.

The CPU's single-thread performance is also relevant, as many games rely on a few cores for main game logic. With a single-core score of 5960 in Cinebench R23, the Ultra 7 265 is well-equipped. The 20 cores and 20 threads provide ample parallel processing power, but the game's performance scaling with resolution shows that this power is not being fully utilized, as the GPU cannot keep up at higher resolutions. The measured data shows that this CPU is more than sufficient for this game, allowing the RTX 3080 to be the deciding factor in overall performance. The nearest rivals, such as the AMD EPYC 4464P with a delta of -0.3%, show that the CPU's performance is well within a competitive range, but these differences are negligible compared to the GPU's impact on frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 holds a rank of 741 out of 2828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the top 26% of all tested systems, indicating that it is a capable setup for this game. The ranking is determined by the overall performance across the measured scenarios, and the data shows that while the CPU is a high performer, the GPU is the limiting factor in achieving higher frame rates at demanding settings.

The combo's rank is a reflection of its balanced capabilities. The CPU, ranking in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, provides a solid foundation, but the GPU, ranking in the 68th percentile among all GPUs, holds back the overall performance in a game that is graphically intensive. This is evident when looking at the 4K Ultra performance, which averages 55 FPS, dragging down the combo's overall standing compared to systems with more powerful GPUs.

Despite the GPU's limitations at 4K Ultra, the combo's performance at 1080p and 1440p is strong, with the High preset providing average frame rates of 155 FPS and 113 FPS, respectively. This suggests that the combo is well-suited for high-refresh-rate gaming at these resolutions. The rank of 741 out of 2828 indicates that there are many more powerful combinations, but this setup offers a solid experience, particularly in the mid-to-high range of settings and resolutions. The data shows that to improve the rank, a more powerful GPU would be necessary, as the CPU has ample headroom to support higher frame rates.