Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol pairs a 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus with a 4 GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, creating a stark contrast between a top-tier CPU and an entry-level GPU. The benchmark data for this combination shows a system that is almost entirely constrained by its graphics card, with the CPU's substantial compute resources remaining largely underutilized in this FPS title.

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

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It operates at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosts up to 5.80 GHz, with a 36 MB shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU demonstrates exceptional capability, scoring 51,731 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 7,303 in single-core, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, is only 0.2% behind in average score, showing the 290K Plus is at the very top of the desktop CPU hierarchy.

However, the measured FPS in Lockdown Protocol tells a different story. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 76 FPS average. The CPU's role in this pairing is to supply frames as fast as the GTX 1650 can render them, but the data shows the GPU becomes the limiting factor well before the CPU's potential is reached. For context, the CPU’s PassMark multi-thread score of 60,860 is staggeringly high, yet the game's frame rates at 4K Ultra (17 FPS) and even 1080p Ultra (35 FPS) indicate that the graphics card is the bottleneck. The CPU's high single-thread performance (7,303 in Cinebench R23 single-core) should easily handle the game's logic and physics, but the rendering pipeline is capped by the GPU's throughput.

The data suggests that in this configuration, the 290K Plus is effectively idle waiting for the GTX 1650 to finish its work. For example, at 4K Low, the combo produces 36 FPS, which is a 64% increase over 4K High (22 FPS), showing that reducing graphical load directly translates to higher frame rates—a sign that the CPU is not the constraint. The 24 cores and 24 threads are far more than this game requires, even with its FPS genre demands for fast response times. In essence, the CPU's role here is to ensure that it never becomes a bottleneck at any resolution or setting, which it successfully does, but the measured results are entirely dictated by the GPU's limits.

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

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves at 1080p?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 76, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only settings/resolution combination in the data that exceeds 60 FPS, indicating that the GTX 1650 can only reach playable frame rates at the lowest graphical preset.

Q: How does the combo's rank compare to other tested combinations?

A: This specific combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ranks 2,737 out of 2,828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the bottom 3.2% of all tested systems, highlighting that the GPU severely hampers overall performance despite the top-tier CPU.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more responsible for the performance bottleneck?

A: The data strongly indicates the GPU is the bottleneck. For instance, at 1440p, dropping from High to Low settings increases average FPS from 35 to 56, a 60% improvement. This scaling with graphical settings is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario, while the CPU's high benchmark scores (e.g., 51,731 in Cinebench R23 multi-core) show it is far from being stressed.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between 1080p and 4K at Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the combo averages 54 FPS, while at 4K Medium it drops to 26 FPS. This represents a 52% reduction in frame rate when moving from 1080p to 4K, further confirming that the GPU's rendering capability is the limiting factor.

Q: Does the GTX 1650's VRAM capacity affect performance in this game?

A: The GTX 1650 has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory with a 128.1 GB/s bandwidth. While the FACT PACK does not provide VRAM usage data, the significant FPS drops at higher resolutions and settings—such as from 76 FPS at 1080p Low to 17 FPS at 4K Ultra—suggest that the card's memory bandwidth and capacity are insufficient for demanding configurations in this FPS title.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1650 has an average benchmark score of 7,472, which is only 1% lower than the Intel Arc A310's score of 7,550. Its percentile rank is 40, meaning it performs better than 40% of all GPUs, but its nearest rivals are all within a 1% margin, indicating it sits at the lower end of the performance spectrum.

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

Based on the measured FPS data, the only playable experience is at 1080p with Low settings, which yields an average of 76 FPS. This is the sole configuration that clears the 60 FPS threshold, making it the recommended choice for smooth gameplay. At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 54 FPS, which may be acceptable for some players, but the data shows a 29% performance loss compared to Low. The Medium preset does provide a minimum FPS of 46 and a maximum of 62, indicating some frame time variance.

At higher resolutions, the frame rates become increasingly marginal. At 1440p Low, the combo averages 56 FPS, which is close to playable but still below the 60 FPS target. The 1440p Medium preset drops to 40 FPS average with a minimum of 34 FPS, which could result in noticeable stuttering in a fast-paced FPS. For 4K, all settings are below 36 FPS, making them unsuitable for competitive play. The Ultra preset at any resolution is the worst option, with the highest average being 35 FPS at 1080p and the lowest at 17 FPS for 4K.

Given the data, the optimal balance of visual quality and performance is 1080p Low. If a player prioritizes visual fidelity over frame rate, 1440p Low offers a 56 FPS average, but the 1080p Low setting provides the most headroom for maintaining consistent frame times. The High preset at 1080p (47 FPS) offers a middle ground, but the 38% drop from Low to High suggests that the graphical overhead is too high for the GTX 1650 to maintain a smooth experience. In summary, the data supports 1080p Low as the only setting that delivers a consistently playable frame rate, with 1440p Low as a secondary option for those with lower refresh rate monitors.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ranks 2,737 out of 2,828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol. This places it in the bottom 3.2% of all configurations, a surprisingly poor result given the CPU's top-tier status. The ranking highlights a massive mismatch: the CPU is in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU is in the 40th percentile. This discrepancy is the primary reason for the low rank.

The combo's performance is almost entirely dictated by the GPU's capabilities. The GTX 1650's average benchmark score of 7,472 is only 0.3% higher than the AMD Radeon HD 8850M and 0.4% higher than the Intel UHD Graphics 750, both of which are integrated or legacy mobile parts. In contrast, the CPU's nearest rivals are all high-end server or desktop parts, such as the AMD EPYC 4584PX, which is only 1.1% behind. This pairing creates a situation where the CPU's potential is wasted, as the GPU cannot keep up with even the most basic rendering tasks.

Compared to other combos in the database, this rank suggests that many systems with much weaker CPUs but stronger GPUs outperform this configuration. For example, a system with a mid-range CPU and a GTX 1660 or RTX 2060 would likely rank significantly higher, as the GPU would not be as severe a bottleneck. The data shows that in Lockdown Protocol, the GPU is the dominant factor in determining performance, and pairing a flagship CPU with an entry-level GPU results in a sub-par experience that does not reflect the CPU's capabilities.

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

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent drop in performance as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K, which is a classic indicator of a GPU-bound system. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 76 at 1080p to 56 at 1440p, a 26% decrease, and then to 36 at 4K, a 53% decrease from 1080p. This scaling is directly proportional to the pixel count increase: 1080p has 2.07 million pixels, 1440p has 3.69 million (78% more), and 4K has 8.29 million (300% more). The FPS does not drop proportionally to the pixel count, which suggests that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are being saturated, but the CPU is not the limiting factor.

At Medium settings, the drop is from 54 FPS at 1080p to 40 FPS at 1440p (26% decrease) and then to 26 FPS at 4K (52% decrease from 1080p). This consistent pattern across settings indicates that the GPU's rendering pipeline is the bottleneck. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see similar FPS across resolutions, as the CPU's workload (game logic, physics) does not scale with resolution. Instead, the FPS drops significantly, proving that the GTX 1650's computational and memory resources are exhausted at higher resolutions.

The data also shows that at any given resolution, lowering settings from Ultra to Low provides a substantial FPS boost. For example, at 1080p, the FPS increases from 35 at Ultra to 76 at Low, a 117% improvement. This scaling with settings, combined with the resolution scaling, provides strong evidence that the GPU is the sole limiting component. The CPU's high single-thread score (7,303 in Cinebench R23) and multi-thread score (51,731) are far beyond what this game requires, so the CPU is never the constraint. The resolution scaling analysis confirms that the GTX 1650 is the primary performance limiter, and the CPU's capabilities are irrelevant to the measured frame rates beyond ensuring it does not bottleneck the GPU further.

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

At 1920x1080, the combo achieves the highest frame rates in the dataset. The Low preset delivers an average of 76 FPS, which is the only configuration above 60 FPS. The Medium preset averages 54 FPS, with a minimum of 46 and a maximum of 62, showing some variability. The High preset averages 47 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 35 FPS. This shows a clear trend: each step up in settings from Low to Ultra reduces performance by approximately 20-30%, with the largest drop occurring from Medium to High.

At 2560x1440, the performance degrades noticeably. The Low preset averages 56 FPS, which is still relatively playable. The Medium preset averages 40 FPS, with a minimum of 34 and a maximum of 46. The High preset averages 35 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 26 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 30 FPS, which is a 54% reduction, indicating that the GPU's limitations are more pronounced at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates fall to unplayable levels for most settings. The Low preset averages 36 FPS, which is the only 4K configuration above 30 FPS. The Medium preset averages 26 FPS, with a minimum of 22 and a maximum of 29. The High preset averages 22 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 17 FPS. The drop from 1080p Low (76 FPS) to 4K Low (36 FPS) is a 53% reduction, while the drop from 1080p Ultra (35 FPS) to 4K Ultra (17 FPS) is a 51% reduction, showing a consistent scaling pattern.

The data across all resolutions and settings reveals a consistent pattern: the GTX 1650's performance is capped at approximately 76 FPS even at the lowest settings and resolution, and it scales down in a predictable manner as resolution and settings increase. The minimum and maximum FPS values are only provided for Medium settings, showing a range of 46-62 FPS at 1080p, 34-46 FPS at 1440p, and 22-29 FPS at 4K. This suggests that Medium settings produce relatively stable frame times, but the average FPS is too low for a smooth experience at higher resolutions.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is a Turing-architecture GPU built on a 12 nm process, with 896 shading units, 56 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. It operates at a base clock of 1485 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, with a memory clock of 2001 MHz (8 Gbps effective). The card has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 128.1 GB/s. Its theoretical peak performance is 2.984 TFLOPS for FP32 operations, which is modest by modern standards.

In synthetic benchmarks, the GTX 1650 scores 7,880 in PassMark G3D, placing it in the 40th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Arc A310, is only 1% faster, while the AMD Radeon HD 8850M is 0.3% slower. These scores are indicative of an entry-level GPU that was released in 2019, and its performance in Lockdown Protocol reflects this age.

The GPU's role in this combo is to render the game's frames, and the measured FPS data shows that it is severely underpowered for this task. The 4 GB VRAM is likely a limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings, as the game's textures and buffers may exceed this capacity, leading to the significant FPS drops observed. For example, at 1080p Ultra, the combo averages 35 FPS, while at 1080p Low it averages 76 FPS. This 117% improvement when lowering settings is typical of a GPU with insufficient memory bandwidth and compute power.

The GTX 1650's 128.1 GB/s memory bandwidth is also a constraint. At 4K, the pixel throughput demand is high, and the card's bandwidth cannot keep up, resulting in the 17 FPS average at 4K Ultra. The card's boost clock of 1665 MHz is relatively low, and its 2.984 TFLOPS FP32 performance is insufficient for modern FPS titles at high resolutions. The data clearly shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck, and its 40th percentile ranking among all GPUs, combined with its 4 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus, makes it unsuitable for anything beyond 1080p Low settings in this game.