Lockdown Protocol

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 delivers a robust 1080p experience in Lockdown Protocol, but the performance curve reveals a system that scales predictably with resolution. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 243.8 FPS, which drops to 174.2 FPS at Medium, 150.1 FPS at High, and 116.2 FPS at Ultra. This spread shows that even at the highest settings, the CPU and GPU combination keeps frame rates well above the 100 FPS threshold for competitive play. Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers compress slightly: Low settings yield 180 FPS, Medium delivers 125.8 FPS, High hits 111.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 83.6 FPS. The transition from High to Ultra at 1440p represents a 24.8% performance hit, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects tax the GPU more heavily than the CPU.

At 3840x2160, the scaling becomes more pronounced. Low settings manage 114.8 FPS, Medium drops to 85.9 FPS, High settles at 74.4 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 53 FPS. The jump from 1080p Low to 4K Low costs 52.9% of the frame rate, while the same resolution change at Ultra costs 54.4%. This consistency suggests that the rendering load scales nearly linearly with pixel count, which points to the GPU as the primary limiter at higher resolutions. However, the fact that 4K Low still exceeds 100 FPS indicates that the CPU is not holding the system back in less demanding scenarios. The 4K Ultra result of 53 FPS is playable but not ideal for a fast-paced FPS, suggesting that users targeting 4K should stick to High or Medium presets.

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

The measured data shows a clear pattern: frame rates decline by roughly half when moving from 1080p to 4K across all settings. At Low settings, the system goes from 243.8 FPS at 1080p to 180 FPS at 1440p, then to 114.8 FPS at 4K. This represents a 26.2% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 36.2% further drop to 4K. The Medium preset follows a similar trajectory: 174.2 FPS at 1080p, 125.8 FPS at 1440p, and 85.9 FPS at 4K. The High preset yields 150.1 FPS at 1080p, 111.2 FPS at 1440p, and 74.4 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings show the steepest absolute decline, from 116.2 FPS at 1080p to 83.6 FPS at 1440p and finally 53 FPS at 4K.

The uniformity of these drops—roughly 45-55% from 1080p to 4K regardless of preset—indicates that the rendering pipeline is the bottleneck. If the CPU were limiting, the high-resolution frames would show less variation because the CPU workload remains constant while pixel count rises. Instead, the consistent proportional decline points to the Radeon RX 9070's rasterization throughput as the constraining factor at higher resolutions. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 644.6 GB/s bandwidth provides ample headroom for texture data, so the limitation is compute-bound rather than memory-bound. At 1080p, the CPU's 20 cores and 30 MB of shared L3 cache keep up easily, as evidenced by the 243.8 FPS Low result, which is high enough to suggest the GPU is still doing most of the work even at that resolution.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Radeon RX 9070 operates with a base clock of 1330 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with a game clock rated at 2070 MHz. These clocks, combined with 3584 shading units and 128 ROPs, produce a pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s. For a game like Lockdown Protocol, which is an FPS with likely dynamic lighting and particle effects, these specifications translate directly into the measured frame rates. The 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for any of the tested presets; even at 4K Ultra, the game would not come close to exhausting this capacity, given that the GPU's memory bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s easily handles the data transfer demands.

The FP32 compute rating of 36.13 TFLOPS and FP16 of 72.25 TFLOPS (2:1) positions this GPU as a mid-to-high-range part, and the benchmark results align with that placement. The GPU's percentile ranking of 79 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 34780, places it near the NVIDIA A2 (which scores 34866, a 0.2% difference) and slightly ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro GV100 (34677, 0.3% behind). The fact that the RX 9070 outperforms the Quadro GV100 by 0.3% in synthetic benchmarks yet delivers playable 4K frame rates in Lockdown Protocol suggests the game engines leverage the newer RDNA 4.0 architecture efficiently. The DirectX 12 Ultimate support and Vulkan 1.4 compatibility mean the GPU can handle modern rendering paths, which is reflected in the 4K High result of 74.4 FPS—a respectable number for a demanding resolution.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

In the database of tested combinations, this pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and AMD Radeon RX 9070 ranks 535th out of 1637 combos for Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the 67th percentile, meaning roughly one-third of tested combos perform better, and two-thirds perform worse. The CPU itself holds a 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79102. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF (which scores 79240, a 0.2% delta) and the Intel Core i9-14900KF (79245, 0.2% delta), showing that the 265K is essentially performance-equivalent to those parts in synthetic tests.

The GPU's 79th percentile ranking is lower than the CPU's, which drags the overall combo ranking down. The GPU's nearest rival, the NVIDIA A2, scores nearly identically (34866 vs 34780), but the RX 9070's real-world gaming performance in Lockdown Protocol appears to be higher than what that synthetic score suggests, given the 4K results. The rank of 535 out of 1637 indicates that while this is not a top-tier combo, it is solidly above average. The CPU's high single-thread score of 7060 in Cinebench R23 and multi-thread score of 50009 suggest that it can feed the GPU effectively, but the combo ranking shows that the GPU's mid-range positioning is the limiting factor for overall performance in this title.

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

For 1080p users, the data shows that High settings at 150.1 FPS provide an excellent balance of visual quality and performance, while Ultra at 116.2 FPS remains highly playable. The difference between High and Ultra is 33.9 FPS, which is noticeable but not critical for competitive play. At 1440p, High settings at 111.2 FPS are the sweet spot, as Medium at 125.8 FPS offers a 13.1% improvement but with reduced visual fidelity; Ultra at 83.6 FPS dips below the 90 FPS threshold that many FPS players prefer. For 4K, the choice is clearer: High at 74.4 FPS is the only preset that stays above 60 FPS, while Medium at 85.9 FPS and Low at 114.8 FPS sacrifice too much visual quality for the frame rate gain. Ultra at 53 FPS is playable but not recommended for a game requiring quick reflexes.

Given the measured results, the best experience per preset is High settings across all resolutions. At 1080p High, the combo delivers 150.1 FPS, which is smooth on high-refresh monitors. At 1440p High, 111.2 FPS is excellent for fast-paced action. At 4K High, 74.4 FPS is playable, though users with 120Hz+ displays might prefer dropping to Medium for the 85.9 FPS result. The Ultra preset is only recommended for 1080p, where 116.2 FPS remains competitive. The Low preset is unnecessary at 1080p and 1440p given the headroom, but serves as a fallback for 4K users who prioritize frame rate over visuals.

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

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low settings produce 243.8 FPS, Medium produces 174.2 FPS, High produces 150.1 FPS, and Ultra produces 116.2 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 69.6 FPS (28.5% drop), between Medium and High is 24.1 FPS (13.8% drop), and between High and Ultra is 33.9 FPS (22.6% drop). These figures show that the most significant performance hit occurs when moving from Low to Medium, suggesting that Medium enables effects that heavily tax the GPU.

At 2560x1440, the values are 180 FPS at Low, 125.8 FPS at Medium, 111.2 FPS at High, and 83.6 FPS at Ultra. Here, the Low to Medium drop is 54.2 FPS (30.1%), the Medium to High drop is 14.6 FPS (11.6%), and the High to Ultra drop is 27.6 FPS (24.8%). The smaller Medium-to-High delta at 1440p compared to 1080p indicates that the GPU's shading units handle the extra resolution better at that setting step, but the Ultra penalty remains substantial. At 3840x2160, the results are 114.8 FPS at Low, 85.9 FPS at Medium, 74.4 FPS at High, and 53 FPS at Ultra. The Low-to-Medium drop is 28.9 FPS (25.2%), Medium-to-High is 11.5 FPS (11.8%), and High-to-Ultra is 21.4 FPS (28.8%). This shows that at 4K, the High-to-Ultra transition is the most punishing relative to its starting point, reinforcing the recommendation to avoid Ultra at that resolution.