Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX + AMD Radeon 880M

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX paired with the AMD Radeon 880M integrated GPU delivers a playable but constrained experience in Lockdown Protocol, a 2024 FPS title. The combo ranks 2763rd out of 2828 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 2.3% of all systems in the database for this game. The data reveals a system where the integrated Radeon 880M consistently becomes the limiting factor, with the capable 20-core CPU unable to compensate for the GPU's modest throughput. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo reaches 74 FPS average, but every step up in resolution or quality quickly erodes playability, pushing the experience toward slideshow territory at 4K Ultra where the average drops to just 16 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across three resolutions tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lives in this configuration. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS falls from 46 to 34, a 26% drop. The jump from 1440p to 3840x2160 at High is even more punishing, with the average collapsing from 34 to 22 FPS, another 35% reduction. This scaling pattern — where each resolution increase costs roughly a quarter to a third of the remaining performance — is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect the FPS to remain relatively flat as resolution rises, since the processor's work per frame stays constant. Instead, the linear deterioration across all settings presets strongly indicates the Radeon 880M's fill rate and shading capacity are saturated well before the Ultra 7 265HX's 20 threads break a sweat.

Examining the Low preset across resolutions reinforces this conclusion. At 1080p Low, the system produces 74 FPS, but 1440p Low drops to 54 FPS (a 27% decline), and 4K Low falls to 35 FPS (a 35% decline from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across both High and Low presets suggests that the rendering pipeline, not game logic or physics, dominates the frame time budget. Even at the lowest quality settings, where CPU overhead typically becomes more visible, the GPU still cannot maintain 60 FPS at 1080p — it manages 74 FPS only at Low, and that headroom evaporates immediately at higher resolutions. The data implies that any attempt to increase visual fidelity will directly trade away frame rate with no CPU-side relief available.

The Medium preset, which is the only one with recorded min and max FPS values, shows the most complete picture of frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the average is 53 FPS with a min of 45 and max of 61, indicating a reasonably tight frame delivery window. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 39 FPS with a min of 33 and max of 44, maintaining a similar spread. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 25 FPS with a min of 21 and max of 29. The consistent ~15% gap between average and minimum FPS across all three resolutions suggests the Radeon 880M's memory subsystem — which is system-shared and dependent on the platform's DDR5 bandwidth — introduces occasional hitches that scale with pixel count. This points to memory bandwidth as a secondary constraint alongside raw shader throughput.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured rows, the only preset that achieves a consistently playable frame rate is 1080p Low, where the combo averages 74 FPS. This is the sole configuration in the entire dataset that clears the 60 FPS threshold, and it does so with enough margin to absorb minor scene complexity spikes. However, the min FPS data is not recorded for Low settings, so the frame pacing remains unknown — the 53 FPS average at 1080p Medium with a 45 FPS minimum suggests that dropping to Low likely provides similar or better stability, but the lack of min/max data for Low means we cannot confirm this with certainty.

For players who prioritize visual quality over raw frame rate, 1080p Medium at 53 FPS average represents the best compromise between fidelity and smoothness. The recorded min of 45 FPS and max of 61 FPS indicate that the system stays within a 16 FPS band, which is tolerable for a slower-paced FPS title like Lockdown Protocol. Pushing to 1080p High drops the average to 46 FPS, which is still nominally playable but leaves no headroom for demanding scenes. At 1440p, the situation becomes marginal: Low settings produce 54 FPS, which is playable but close to the edge, while Medium drops to 39 FPS and High falls to 34 FPS — both below the typically accepted 40 FPS floor for competitive shooters.

Ultra settings are effectively unusable at every resolution. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 35 FPS; at 1440p Ultra, it falls to 25 FPS; and at 4K Ultra, it bottoms out at 16 FPS. The gap between Medium and Ultra at 1080p is 18 FPS (53 to 35), which is a substantial penalty for visual improvements that may not be noticeable on smaller displays. The data suggests that Ultra presets are designed for discrete GPUs with significantly more shading units and memory bandwidth than the Radeon 880M provides. For this combo, the sensible ceiling is 1080p Medium, with 1080p Low reserved for competitive play where frame rate matters more than image quality.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Lockdown Protocol at 60 FPS?

A: Only at 1080p with Low settings, where the average FPS is 74. At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 53 FPS, and every other configuration falls below 60 FPS.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: 1920x1080 is the only resolution that produces playable frame rates across all settings. At 1440p, only Low settings exceed 50 FPS (54 FPS average), and at 4K, even Low settings only reach 35 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1080p?

A: Ultra averages 35 FPS while High averages 46 FPS, a difference of 11 FPS. The Ultra preset is not recommended since the visual uplift is unlikely to justify an 11 FPS penalty.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data clearly indicates the GPU is the bottleneck. The Radeon 880M's performance falls from 74 FPS at 1080p Low to 22 FPS at 4K High, a 70% reduction, while the Ultra 7 265HX's 20 cores show no signs of being saturated at any resolution.

Q: Does the lack of dedicated VRAM affect performance?

A: The Radeon 880M uses system-shared memory with bandwidth described as "System Dependent." The consistent FPS drops across all settings at higher resolutions suggest that shared memory bandwidth contributes to the performance degradation, though exact VRAM allocation is not measured.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1440p Medium?

A: The average is 39 FPS, with a minimum of 33 FPS and maximum of 44 FPS, based on the measured data. This is below the 40 FPS threshold many players consider the minimum for acceptable gameplay.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX + AMD Radeon 880M combination ranks 2763rd out of 2828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the bottom 2.3% of all systems. This ranking is striking because the CPU component alone performs in the top 7% of all processors — the Ultra 7 265HX holds a 93rd percentile ranking against all CPUs. The GPU, by contrast, sits at the 43rd percentile among all GPUs, which is slightly below average. The massive discrepancy between the CPU's high percentile and the GPU's middling percentile explains the poor overall combo ranking: the system is built around a very strong processor that is completely hamstrung by its integrated graphics.

Looking at the GPU's nearest rivals in the database, the Radeon 880M is essentially tied with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX (0.1% faster), the NVIDIA GeForce MX330 (0.3% slower), and the AMD Radeon HD 8870M (0.3% slower). These are all older discrete mobile GPUs from previous generations, which contextualizes the 880M's performance class — it trades blows with mid-range dedicated graphics from several years ago. The Radeon R9 M375X is 1.3% slower, further confirming that the 880M's performance envelope is firmly in the "older entry-level discrete" category. For a modern integrated GPU, this is respectable, but it is nowhere near sufficient for demanding FPS titles at high resolutions.

The combo's rank of 2763 out of 2828 means that 2762 other system configurations deliver better performance in Lockdown Protocol. This places the system in the 2.3rd percentile of all tested combos, which is a sobering statistic for anyone expecting to play this game at high settings. The data suggests that the Ultra 7 265HX is overkill for this workload — a less powerful CPU paired with even a modest discrete GPU would likely outperform this combo in gaming, since the GPU is the limiting factor in every measured scenario.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 880M is an integrated GPU based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture, built on TSMC's 4 nm process with 34,000 million transistors. It operates at a base clock of 400 MHz and boosts up to 2900 MHz, with 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 16 raster output units. The GPU also includes 12 ray tracing cores, though Lockdown Protocol's measured data does not indicate whether ray tracing is enabled in any of the tested settings. The GPU's FP32 performance is rated at 4.454 TFLOPS, which is modest by modern standards — for context, this is roughly a quarter of what a mid-range discrete GPU from the same era would deliver.

The memory configuration is entirely system-shared, with no dedicated VRAM. The memory type, bus width, and bandwidth are all listed as "System Dependent," meaning the GPU relies on the CPU's dual-channel DDR5 memory subsystem. The Ultra 7 265HX supports dual-channel DDR5 with a theoretical memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, but this bandwidth is shared between the CPU and GPU. In graphically intensive scenes, the GPU's demand for memory bandwidth can starve the CPU or vice versa, potentially explaining the frame pacing issues seen in the Medium preset data.

The GPU's benchmark scores paint a consistent picture of its capabilities. In PassMark G3D, it scores 7615, placing it at the 43rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the GTX 675MX (8427, 0.1% faster) and MX330 (8458, 0.3% faster), which are both discrete GPUs from previous generations. The 880M's DirectX 11 score of 73 and DirectX 12 score of 32 suggest that it performs better in older DirectX 11 titles, which is typical for integrated GPUs. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 40006 is notably higher than the OpenCL score of 31285, indicating that the GPU has better Vulkan driver optimization, which could benefit Lockdown Protocol if it uses Vulkan — though the measured FPS data does not specify the API used.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best performance across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 74 FPS, which is the only configuration in the dataset that exceeds 60 FPS. Medium settings average 53 FPS with a minimum of 45 and maximum of 61, showing a tight frame delivery window. High settings average 46 FPS, and Ultra settings average 35 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a consistent degradation: 74 to 53 (28% drop), 53 to 46 (13% drop), and 46 to 35 (24% drop). The step from Low to Medium is the largest single reduction, suggesting that Medium introduces significant additional GPU workload.

At 2560x1440, performance drops noticeably across all settings. Low settings average 54 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 27% decrease from 1080p Low. Medium settings average 39 FPS with a minimum of 33 and maximum of 44, which is below the 40 FPS threshold for comfortable gameplay. High settings average 34 FPS, and Ultra settings average 25 FPS. The 1440p data shows that only Low settings maintain a playable frame rate, and even that is marginal — 54 FPS leaves little room for demanding scenes or multiplayer chaos.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain playable frame rates regardless of settings. Low settings average 35 FPS, which is a 35% drop from 1440p Low. Medium settings average 25 FPS with a minimum of 21 and maximum of 29, providing a barely interactive experience. High settings average 22 FPS, and Ultra settings average 16 FPS. The 4K data confirms that this resolution is beyond the Radeon 880M's capabilities for this game — even at Low settings, the frame rate is below the 40 FPS threshold, and the Ultra preset produces a slideshow-like experience.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, manufactured on TSMC's 3 nm process with 17,800 million transistors. It features a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a TDP of 55 watts. The CPU includes 30 MB of shared L3 cache, 3 MB of L2 cache per core, and 192 KB of L1 cache per core. It supports dual-channel DDR5 memory with a theoretical bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, and it uses the Intel BGA 2114 socket with PCIe Gen 5 support (20 lanes from the CPU). The processor also includes integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 64 execution units, though the measured FPS data uses the discrete AMD Radeon 880M GPU.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Ultra 7 265HX demonstrates strong performance. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 40642, and its single-core score is 5737. The PassMark multithread score is 47985, with a single-thread score of 4500. These scores place the CPU at the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 63173. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13790F (0.1% faster), AMD Ryzen AI 7 450G (0.2% faster), AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P185 (0.5% faster), and Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX (0.7% faster). This performance profile indicates that the CPU is more than capable of handling the game logic, physics, and rendering overhead of Lockdown Protocol.

However, the measured FPS data reveals that the CPU's power is largely untapped in this configuration. The consistent FPS drops across resolutions — from 74 FPS at 1080p Low to 35 FPS at 4K Low, a 53% reduction — are characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS to remain relatively flat across resolutions, since the CPU's per-frame workload is independent of resolution. The fact that FPS scales inversely with pixel count confirms that the Radeon 880M is the limiting component. The Ultra 7 265HX's 20 threads and 5.30 GHz boost clock are likely idle or lightly loaded during gameplay, meaning the system's gaming performance is entirely constrained by the integrated GPU's 768 shading units and system-shared memory bandwidth.