Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus + AMD Radeon RX 570

The pairing of Intel's 24-core Core Ultra 7 270K Plus with AMD's Polaris-era Radeon RX 570 produces a striking imbalance in Lockdown Protocol, a 2024 FPS title. The measured data reveals a system where the CPU's immense compute headroom is consistently capped by a GPU that, while still functional at lower resolutions, struggles to maintain playable frames at higher settings. The benchmark results show a clear pattern: this combo ranks near the bottom of all tested configurations, at position 2723 out of 2828, which places it in the bottom 4% of all combos. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS rows to explain what settings, resolutions, and component roles define this pairing's real-world behavior.

Settings Recommendations

Examining the measured FPS across all settings and resolutions, the Low preset emerges as the only viable path to smooth gameplay, and even then, only at 1080p. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 77 FPS, which is the single highest measured frame rate in the entire dataset. This represents a 43% improvement over the next best setting at the same resolution, which is Medium at 54 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is substantial, suggesting that the RX 570's 4 GB GDDR5 memory and GCN 4.0 architecture are heavily taxed by even moderate increases in visual complexity.

For players prioritizing frame rate, the Low preset at 1080p is the only configuration that clears the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset at 1080p delivers 54 FPS on average, with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 63 FPS, which is borderline playable but will experience noticeable dips during intense action sequences. High settings at 1080p drop to 47 FPS average, while Ultra falls to 36 FPS. At 1440p, even Low settings only muster 56 FPS, which is below the ideal smoothness mark, and every other setting at this resolution falls below 40 FPS. The data strongly suggests that if the goal is the best experience per the measured rows, 1080p Low is the only defensible choice, as it provides a frame rate that is more than double the Ultra preset at the same resolution.

The Medium preset at 1080p offers a compromise for those who want slightly better visuals, but the 23 FPS drop from Low to Medium indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is likely saturated at Medium settings, causing the performance cliff. The measured minimum of 46 FPS at Medium further reinforces that this setting will produce stutter in fast-paced FPS combat. Therefore, the recommendation is unambiguous: use Low settings at 1080p for the best balance of playability and responsiveness, as no other configuration in the measured data comes close to matching its average frame rate.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570, released in 2017 with a 14 nm Polaris 20 chip, is the clear bottleneck in this pairing. Its specifications are modest by modern standards: 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs, with a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz. The memory configuration consists of 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. The GPU's FP32 compute is rated at 5.095 TFLOPS, a figure that is dwarfed by the CPU's capabilities but is still the primary driver of frame rate in this game.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 74 out of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28766, places it in a competitive but aging tier. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6800M (scoring 28874, a delta of -0.4%), the AMD Radeon R9 M295X (28580, delta 0.7%), and the AMD Radeon RX 470 (28996, delta -0.8%). This clustering shows that the RX 570 sits in a performance band where small percentage differences separate it from other mid-range parts, but none of these rivals are modern high-end solutions. The measured FPS data confirms that the GPU's age and memory capacity are the constraining factors. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS collapses to 17, which is unplayable, and even at 4K Low, the average is only 36 FPS. The GPU's 4 GB VRAM is insufficient for the higher texture and geometry loads at 4K, and the 224.0 GB/s bandwidth cannot feed the framebuffer fast enough.

The boost clock of 1244 MHz is modest, and the data shows that the GPU reaches its limits quickly as resolution increases. The difference between 1080p Low (77 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (36 FPS) is a 53% reduction, indicating that the GPU's shading and texture units are overwhelmed by the Ultra preset's demands. The RX 570's DirectX 12 (12_0) support is present, but the architecture is not optimized for modern draw calls, further explaining the steep performance drops. In summary, the GPU is the dominant limiting component, and its 4 GB memory capacity is the single most likely cause of the severe FPS penalties when moving from Low to Medium settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and reveals a GPU-bound scenario. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 77 FPS at 1080p to 56 FPS at 1440p (a 27% reduction) and then to 36 FPS at 4K (a 53% reduction from 1080p). This scaling is not linear and reflects the GPU's inability to maintain throughput as pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K. The data shows that the RX 570 is severely overtaxed at 4K, where even the lowest settings produce an average of 36 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay.

At Medium settings, the progression is 54 FPS (1080p), 40 FPS (1440p), and 26 FPS (4K). The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 14 FPS, and from 1440p to 4K is another 14 FPS, showing a consistent about 35% reduction per resolution step. At High settings, the figures are 47 FPS (1080p), 35 FPS (1440p), and 22 FPS (4K), with the 4K average being just above half of the 1080p value. Ultra settings follow the same trend: 36 FPS (1080p), 26 FPS (1440p), and 17 FPS (4K). The 4K Ultra result of 17 FPS is the lowest measured in the entire dataset, indicating that this configuration is essentially unusable for any serious gameplay at that resolution.

The resolution scaling pattern strongly indicates that the GPU is the limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller FPS differences between resolutions, as the CPU's workload is largely independent of pixel count. Instead, the FPS drops are substantial at every settings level, which is the hallmark of a GPU that has run out of fill rate and memory bandwidth. The CPU, with its 24 cores and 5.50 GHz boost clock, is certainly capable of feeding the GPU with draw calls, but the GPU cannot convert those instructions into frames at higher resolutions. The data implies that for this combo, 1080p is the only resolution where the GPU can exhibit its full potential, and even then, only at Low settings does it achieve a satisfactory frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader context of all tested CPU-GPU combinations for Lockdown Protocol, this pairing ranks 2723 out of 2828 combos, placing it in the bottom 3.7% of all configurations. This rank is a stark indicator of the performance mismatch between the high-end CPU and the entry-level GPU. The combo's rank is not surprising given the GPU's age and the game's release in 2024, which likely includes rendering features that the GCN 4.0 architecture cannot efficiently process.

The CPU, on its own, is a top-tier performer. The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has a percentile rank of 96 out of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 93785. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon 6520P (scoring 93786, delta 0%), the AMD EPYC 4564P (95183, delta -1.5%), the AMD EPYC 9175F (95615, delta -1.9%), and the AMD EPYC 4565P (95764, delta -2.1%). This places the CPU in the elite tier of processors, only slightly behind the fastest server-grade chips. In contrast, the GPU's percentile rank of 74 is respectable but not exceptional, and its average benchmark score of 28766 is far lower than any modern high-end GPU.

The combination of a 96th percentile CPU with a 74th percentile GPU results in a combo rank that is far below the average of both components. This suggests that the game's performance is overwhelmingly dictated by the GPU, and the CPU's power is wasted in this context. The data indicates that pairing this CPU with a much stronger GPU would yield a significantly higher combo rank, but as measured, the RX 570 drags the entire system down. The ranking serves as a cautionary tale about component pairing, where a top-tier CPU cannot compensate for a GPU that is over half a decade old.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a powerhouse that is largely underutilized in this configuration. With 24 cores and 24 threads, a base clock of 3.70 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, this CPU is designed for heavy multi-threaded workloads. Its cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU's memory support includes DDR5 with a dual-channel bus and a bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 44253 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2439 in single-core, with a Passmark multi-thread score of 68574 and a single-thread score of 5068.

In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and AI, which are typically spread across a few cores. The measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck, as the frame rates do not improve significantly when resolution is lowered, which would be expected if the CPU were limiting. For instance, at 1080p Low, the average FPS is 77, while at 4K Low, it drops to 36. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the 4K result would be much closer to the 1080p result, because the CPU would be processing the same number of frames. Instead, the GPU's inability to render at 4K is the clear constraint.

The CPU's 24 cores and 24 threads are far more than what Lockdown Protocol likely requires, as most FPS games utilize 4-8 threads. The high boost clock of 5.50 GHz ensures that single-threaded performance is excellent, which is important for the main game loop. However, the data suggests that the CPU's potential is wasted, as the GPU cannot keep up. The nearest rival comparisons for the CPU show it is within 2.1% of the fastest EPYC server processors, but in this game, that performance headroom is irrelevant because the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU's role is to feed the GPU with frames, but the GPU's 5.095 TFLOPS of compute power is insufficient to translate that into high FPS at any resolution above 1080p Low.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset of measured FPS provides a granular view of this combo's behavior across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low averages 77 FPS, Medium averages 54 FPS (with a min of 46 and max of 63), High averages 47 FPS, and Ultra averages 36 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 41 FPS, which is the largest range among all resolutions, indicating that the GPU is most capable at 1080p but still suffers from significant setting-based penalties.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages drop to 56 FPS for Low, 40 FPS for Medium (min 34, max 46), 35 FPS for High, and 26 FPS for Ultra. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 30 FPS, a narrower spread than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU is approaching its performance ceiling. At 3840x2160, the results are 36 FPS for Low, 26 FPS for Medium (min 22, max 30), 22 FPS for High, and 17 FPS for Ultra. The 4K results are uniformly poor, with even the lowest settings failing to reach 40 FPS.

The Medium preset is the only one with min and max values recorded, providing insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the range is 46-63 FPS, which is a 37% variance from the average, indicating significant frame pacing issues. At 1440p Medium, the range is 34-46 FPS, and at 4K Medium, it is 22-30 FPS. These ranges show that the GPU's frame output is not stable, which would exacerbate the perception of lag in a fast-paced FPS. The data reveals that no setting at 4K is playable, and only 1080p Low offers a consistently high frame rate. The overall pattern is clear: the RX 570 is a 1080p-class GPU, and even then, it requires the lowest quality settings to achieve a smooth experience.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this hardware in Lockdown Protocol?

A: Based on the measured FPS data, 1920x1080 with Low settings is the best combination, yielding an average of 77 FPS. This is the only configuration that exceeds 60 FPS. All higher settings or resolutions produce averages below 60 FPS, with 4K Ultra dropping to 17 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has an average benchmark score of 93785. Its nearest rival, the Intel Xeon 6520P, scores 93786, a delta of 0%. The AMD EPYC 4564P scores 95183 (delta -1.5%), and the AMD EPYC 9175F scores 95615 (delta -1.9%). The CPU is within 2.1% of the fastest rival, the AMD EPYC 4565P.

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

A: The data clearly indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. The FPS drops significantly with each resolution increase, which is typical of a GPU bottleneck. The CPU, with 24 cores and a 5.50 GHz boost clock, has ample headroom, but the RX 570's 4 GB VRAM and 5.095 TFLOPS compute cannot keep up with the game's demands at higher settings.

Q: What is the average FPS difference between 1080p Low and 4K Ultra?

A: The difference is 60 FPS, with 1080p Low averaging 77 FPS and 4K Ultra averaging 17 FPS. This represents a 78% reduction in frame rate, highlighting the GPU's severe performance degradation at 4K resolution.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: This combo ranks 2723 out of 2828 total combinations, placing it in the bottom 4% of all tested systems. The low rank is primarily due to the GPU's age and performance limitations, as the CPU alone ranks in the 96th percentile.

Q: What are the minimum and maximum FPS values recorded for the Medium preset?

A: For the Medium preset, the min and max values are recorded at all resolutions. At 1080p, the min is 46 FPS and max is 63 FPS. At 1440p, the min is 34 FPS and max is 46 FPS. At 4K, the min is 22 FPS and max is 30 FPS. These values show a consistent range of about 8-17 FPS around the average, indicating frame time instability.