Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol pairs the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, a combination that produces a wide spread of frame rates depending on resolution and quality settings. The measured data covers 1080p, 1440p, and 4K across Low, Medium, High, and Ultra presets, providing a complete picture of how this system scales under load. Across all twelve tested configurations, the combo ranks 200th out of 1,637 tested combinations, placing it in the top 12.2% of all recorded systems for this FPS title. The results show a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, with CPU headroom becoming apparent only at 1080p Low where the frame rate approaches the practical limits of the pairing.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a 20-core, 20-thread processor built on the Arrow Lake-S architecture using a 3 nm process from TSMC. With a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, this desktop chip offers substantial single-thread performance, which is critical for an FPS title like Lockdown Protocol that relies on rapid frame-to-frame decision-making. The CPU's 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache help keep frequently accessed game data close to the execution units, reducing latency in scenarios where many entities are active on screen.

In the broader benchmark landscape, the 265K scores 50,009 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 7,060 in single-core, placing it at the 97th percentile among all CPUs. Its average benchmark score of 79,102 sits within 0.2% of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF and Intel Core i9-14900KF, and 0.9% behind the Intel Core i9-14900K. This tight grouping indicates that the 265K is not a performance outlier in either direction; it delivers expected flagship-tier throughput. For Lockdown Protocol specifically, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU is rarely the bottleneck — at 4K Ultra the average frame rate is 65.2 FPS, which is likely constrained by the GPU's pixel throughput rather than processor limits.

The PassMark multi-thread score of 58,838 and single-thread score of 4,904 reinforce that this CPU can handle both heavily threaded background tasks and the lightly threaded game loop typical of competitive shooters. Data encryption (48,380) and compression (668,420) scores suggest strong general-purpose capability, but in-game, the processor's role is to feed the Radeon RX 7900 XTX with draw calls and physics updates fast enough to avoid stalling. Given that 1080p Low reaches 301.8 FPS average, the 265K's single-core boost clock of 5.50 GHz is evidently sufficient to keep the GPU saturated even at very high frame rates.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combo achieves in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The maximum recorded average is 301.8 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only measured configuration that exceeds 300 FPS, and it represents the ceiling for this pairing in the tested scenarios.

Q: How does the combo rank relative to other tested systems?

A: The combination ranks 200th out of 1,637 total tested combos for Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the top 12.2% of all recorded systems, indicating strong but not class-leading performance.

Q: What is the performance gap between the CPU and its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K has an average benchmark score of 79,102, which is 0.2% lower than the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF (79,240) and 0.2% lower than the Intel Core i9-14900KF (79,245). The Intel Core i9-14900K is 0.9% higher at 79,824, while the AMD EPYC 7413 leads by 1.2% at 80,041.

Q: Does the GPU outperform its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Radeon RX 7900 XTX has an average score of 44,019, which is 0.4% below the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (44,195) and 2% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (44,900). It is 0.8% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile (43,667) and 1.6% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 (43,313).

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 221.4 FPS average, while Ultra settings drop to 100.5 FPS. This represents a 54.6% reduction in frame rate when moving from the lowest to the highest quality preset at this resolution.

Q: Which resolution shows the smallest relative drop from Low to Ultra?

A: At 4K (3840x2160), Low yields 142.5 FPS and Ultra yields 65.2 FPS, a 54.2% decrease. This is slightly smaller than the 1080p drop (301.8 to 142.3 FPS, a 52.9% decrease) and the 1440p drop (54.6%), showing that the GPU becomes the dominant constraint at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

Examining the measured data across resolutions reveals a clear scaling pattern. At High settings, the average frame rate declines from 189.3 FPS at 1080p to 139 FPS at 1440p, then to 87.2 FPS at 4K. This progression shows a 54.0% reduction from 1080p to 4K, which is consistent with a GPU-bound workload where pixel count increases fourfold. The drop from 1440p to 4K (a 37.3% reduction in frame rate) is steeper than the 1080p to 1440p reduction (26.6%), indicating that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX's 24 GB of GDDR6 memory and 960 GB/s bandwidth are being taxed more heavily as resolution increases.

Low settings tell a similar story but with higher absolute numbers. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 301.8 FPS, dropping to 221.4 FPS at 1440p and 142.5 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop is 26.6%, nearly identical to the High preset's 26.6% reduction, which suggests that the CPU is still keeping pace at both settings. However, the 4K Low frame rate of 142.5 FPS is 52.8% lower than the 1080p value, and this larger drop indicates that even with minimal graphical load, the GPU's shading units (6,144) and ray accelerators (96) become the limiting factor at 4K.

The Medium preset shows 214.1 FPS at 1080p, 160.1 FPS at 1440p, and 102.3 FPS at 4K. The ratio of 4K to 1080p performance here is 0.478, meaning the frame rate nearly halves. Ultra settings produce 142.3 FPS at 1080p, 100.5 FPS at 1440p, and 65.2 FPS at 4K, with a 4K-to-1080p ratio of 0.458. Across all four presets, the 4K frame rate is consistently 45-53% of the 1080p figure, which strongly implies that the RX 7900 XTX's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints rather than the CPU's 20 cores or 30 MB cache.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX achieves a rank of 200 out of 1,637 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol. This places the system in the 87.8th percentile of all recorded configurations, meaning it outperforms roughly 1,437 other tested combos while trailing 199. The ranking is based on the measured FPS data across all resolutions and settings, giving a composite view of performance rather than a single best-case scenario.

This rank is notable given the GPU's synthetic benchmark percentile of 85 among all GPUs and the CPU's 97th percentile among all CPUs. The gap between the CPU's high percentile and the combo's overall rank suggests that Lockdown Protocol does not fully utilize the 265K's multi-threaded capabilities, likely relying more on single-core performance and GPU throughput. The nearest rival CPUs, such as the Core Ultra 7 265KF and Core i9-14900KF, have nearly identical average scores (within 0.2%), so swapping to those parts would not meaningfully change the in-game ranking. Similarly, the GPU's closest competitor, the RTX 4070 Ti, is only 2% higher in average score, which could shift the rank by a few positions but not drastically alter the overall standing.

The rank of 200 also indicates that there are 199 combos that achieve higher measured FPS in this specific game. These are likely to include more powerful GPUs or CPUs with higher boost clocks, but the data does not specify which components those combos use. The 265K's 5.50 GHz boost clock and the RX 7900 XTX's 2,498 MHz boost clock are both high for their respective classes, yet the game's engine may favor different hardware characteristics. Overall, a top-200 finish from 1,637 combos represents a solid, upper-tier result that should handle competitive play at high refresh rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are 301.8 FPS on Low, 214.1 FPS on Medium, 189.3 FPS on High, and 142.3 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 159.5 FPS, with each step up in settings costing approximately 30-60 FPS. The Low preset's 301.8 FPS is the highest recorded value in the entire test suite, suggesting that at this resolution and setting, the system is likely approaching the CPU's frame delivery limit or the game's engine cap.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 221.4 FPS on Low, 160.1 FPS on Medium, 139 FPS on High, and 100.5 FPS on Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across presets: Low loses 80.4 FPS (26.6% reduction), Medium loses 54 FPS (25.2%), High loses 50.3 FPS (26.6%), and Ultra loses 41.8 FPS (29.4%). These similar percentage reductions indicate a uniform scaling factor tied to pixel count rather than settings complexity.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates fall to 142.5 FPS on Low, 102.3 FPS on Medium, 87.2 FPS on High, and 65.2 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low figure of 142.5 FPS is interesting because it is only slightly above the 1080p Ultra value of 142.3 FPS, showing that resolution has a larger impact on performance than the quality preset at the extremes. The Ultra preset at 4K, at 65.2 FPS, is the only measured configuration that falls below the 70 FPS threshold, indicating that this is the most demanding scenario tested.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

For players targeting a 60 FPS minimum experience, the Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that fails to deliver, with an average of 65.2 FPS. All other tested settings and resolutions exceed 87 FPS average, meaning that the system can run the game at Ultra quality without dipping below playable levels in most cases. However, the margin at 4K Ultra is thin, and the data shows that High settings at 4K provide 87.2 FPS, a 33.7% improvement over Ultra, which offers a more comfortable buffer for frame time consistency.

If the goal is maximum frame rate for competitive play, the 1080p Low preset delivers 301.8 FPS average, which is more than double the 1440p Low figure of 221.4 FPS. This suggests that for esports-focused players, dropping to 1080p and Low settings is the optimal choice to maximize refresh rate headroom. The 1440p High preset at 139 FPS is a strong middle ground, offering high visual fidelity while still exceeding the 120 FPS threshold that many high-refresh monitors target.

For balanced visual quality and performance, the 1440p Medium preset at 160.1 FPS appears to be the sweet spot. It provides 13.2% more frame rate than High at the same resolution while sacrificing some graphical detail. At 4K, the Medium preset at 102.3 FPS is the best choice for maintaining a triple-digit frame rate, as High drops to 87.2 FPS and Ultra falls to 65.2 FPS. Given that the combo ranks 200th out of 1,637, the data supports running Medium or High settings at 1440p for the best all-around experience, with 4K reserved for players who prioritize image quality over raw frame rate.