Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol presents a demanding workload for the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER pairing, with benchmark results indicating that the graphics card is the primary constraint across all tested settings. The data shows a clear performance hierarchy dictated by resolution, where the gap between the CPU's potential and the GPU's delivery becomes increasingly apparent as pixel count rises. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS, the role of each component, and how this specific combination ranks against other tested systems.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, a pattern that firmly establishes the GPU as the limiting factor in this configuration. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 123 FPS, which is the highest score recorded across all tests. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same Low settings, the average falls to 90 FPS, a reduction of 33 FPS or roughly 27% from the 1080p result. At 3840x2160 with Low settings, the average plummets to 58 FPS, which represents a 53% decrease from the 1080p Low figure and a 36% decrease from the 1440p Low figure. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU's rendering capabilities are being saturated well before the CPU's processing power is fully utilized.

The trend is consistent across all quality presets. For High settings, the averages are 76 FPS at 1080p, 56 FPS at 1440p, and 36 FPS at 4K. This translates to a 26% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a further 36% drop from 1440p to 4K. Medium settings show a similar trajectory: 87 FPS at 1080p, 64 FPS at 1440p, and 41 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset, which is the most demanding, yields 57 FPS at 1080p, 42 FPS at 1440p, and just 27 FPS at 4K. The consistency of these percentage drops across different settings is telling; it suggests that the bottleneck is not related to a specific game feature or setting but rather to the raw pixel throughput the GPU can manage.

The data also shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low (123 FPS) and Ultra (57 FPS) is 66 FPS. At 1440p, this gap narrows to 48 FPS (90 vs 42), and at 4K, it narrows further to 31 FPS (58 vs 27). This compression of the settings range at higher resolutions is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario. When the GPU is overwhelmed by pixel count, the relative cost of increasing visual fidelity becomes smaller because the baseline performance is already so constrained. Benchmark results indicate that the GTX 1660 SUPER, with its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth, simply cannot maintain playable frame rates at 4K with this CPU, regardless of the quality preset selected.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is the decisive component in this combination's gaming performance. Its specifications, including a base clock of 1530 MHz and a boost clock of 1785 MHz, are modest by modern standards, and the benchmark data confirms its limitations in Lockdown Protocol. The GPU's average benchmark score is 12986, placing it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, which scores 12940 (a 0.4% difference), and the AMD Radeon RX 580, which scores 12928 (also a 0.4% difference). This places the GTX 1660 SUPER in a competitive but not exceptional tier, and the game's performance reflects this positioning.

The 6 GB VRAM capacity is a critical factor. At 3840x2160, the game's texture and geometry demands likely exceed what this memory buffer can efficiently handle, contributing to the low average FPS of 36 on High and 27 on Ultra. The memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s, while reasonable for the card's class, is insufficient for the data throughput required at 4K resolution. The card's pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s further illustrate its limits; these figures are the theoretical ceilings that the 4K results are far from reaching, indicating that the card is not just underperforming but is fundamentally overwhelmed.

The GPU's architecture, Turing, with 1408 shading units, 88 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, provides a baseline for its compute capability. The FP32 performance of 5.027 TFLOPS is a key metric for raw shader work, and the measured FPS suggests that this compute power is the primary bottleneck. The card's passmark G3D score of 12699 and passmark GPU compute score of 5076 show a significant discrepancy, indicating that while the card can handle some tasks, its gaming-specific performance is limited. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1278 is particularly low, reinforcing the notion that this GPU is not designed for high-resolution, high-fidelity gaming in a modern title like Lockdown Protocol. The data shows that the GTX 1660 SUPER is a capable 1080p performer, but its role in this combo is to cap performance well below what the CPU could theoretically support.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Lockdown Protocol with this combo?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the combo consistently delivers high frame rates. At Low settings, it averages 123 FPS, and even at Ultra, it maintains 57 FPS. At 2560x1440, the averages range from 42 FPS (Ultra) to 90 FPS (Low), which may be acceptable for some users, but at 3840x2160, performance drops to a range of 27 FPS (Ultra) to 58 FPS (Low), which is largely unplayable for a fast-paced FPS.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 SUPER compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 12986. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, scores 12940, which is a 0.4% difference. The AMD Radeon RX 580 scores 12928, also a 0.4% difference. The NVIDIA Tesla M2090 scores 13075, which is -0.7% relative to the GTX 1660 SUPER. This indicates that the card is performance-neutral compared to its direct competitors.

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus the bottleneck in this system?

A: No, the benchmark results indicate the GPU is the bottleneck. The CPU's performance is far ahead of the GPU's output. For example, the CPU's Cinebench R23 multicore score is 51731, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 123 FPS, but the CPU is capable of much higher frame rates if paired with a stronger GPU. The FPS drops at higher resolutions are consistent with GPU limitations, not CPU limitations.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the average FPS on Low settings is 90, while on Ultra settings it is 42. This represents a 48 FPS difference, or a 53% reduction in performance when moving from the lowest to the highest quality preset. The Medium settings average 64 FPS, and High settings average 56 FPS.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Lockdown Protocol?

A: The measured data suggests that 4K gaming is not viable. At 3840x2160, the highest average FPS is 58 on Low settings, which is below the typical 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay. On Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 27, which is a poor experience for an FPS title. The GPU's 6 GB VRAM and bandwidth are insufficient for this resolution.

Q: How does the CPU's performance in single-threaded tasks relate to gaming?

A: The CPU's single-threaded performance is strong, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7303. This is relevant for gaming, as many game engines rely on single-thread performance for core game logic. However, in this case, the GPU is the limiting factor, so the CPU's strong single-thread score does not translate to higher FPS in Lockdown Protocol.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER ranks 2425 out of 2828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol. This places the combo in the bottom 15% of all tested configurations, a surprisingly low position given the high-end CPU. The rank is a direct consequence of the GPU's limitations. While the CPU is a top-tier part, ranking in the 96th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 84003, the GPU's 53rd percentile ranking and average score of 12986 drag the overall gaming performance down.

The disparity between the two components is stark. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which has an average score of 83807 (a 0.2% difference), and the AMD EPYC 4584PX, which scores 83090 (a 1.1% difference). These are all high-performance workstation-class parts. In contrast, the GPU's rivals are mid-range parts like the AMD Radeon RX 580 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile. This pairing is a classic example of a CPU-GPU imbalance, where the processor's potential is left untapped due to the graphics card's inability to keep up.

The data shows that this combo's rank is not a reflection of the CPU's capability but rather the GPU's. For Lockdown Protocol, the game is heavily GPU-bound, as evidenced by the FPS scaling. The 2425th rank out of 2828 combos suggests that the vast majority of other tested systems, which likely feature more balanced GPU pairings, deliver better in-game performance. The high CPU rank does not compensate for the low GPU rank in this specific gaming scenario. The result is a combo that is significantly underperforming relative to its component cost and potential.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is an exceptionally powerful processor, and its specifications suggest it should have no trouble feeding a graphics card in most gaming scenarios. It features 24 cores and 24 threads, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 36 MB of L3 cache. Its memory support for DDR5 with a dual-channel bus and a bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s ensures that data can be fed to the cores rapidly.

Synthetic benchmarks confirm the CPU's dominance. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51731 and single-core score of 7303 are top-tier figures. In Passmark tests, it scores 60860 in multithread and 4823 in single-thread. These scores place it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84003. However, in Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is to prepare frames for the GPU, and the data shows that it is not the limiting factor. The FPS at 1080p, which is the least GPU-bound resolution, is still capped by the GPU's performance.

The CPU's performance relative to its rivals is telling. It is 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, 1.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 4584PX, and 1.2% ahead of the AMD EPYC 9135. It is 1.3% behind the AMD EPYC 7F72. These are all marginal differences, indicating that the CPU is at the very top of the performance stack. Yet, in the game, this translates to no practical advantage over a much weaker CPU would provide, because the GTX 1660 SUPER cannot process frames fast enough to utilize the CPU's headroom. The CPU's 3 nm process node and 17,800 million transistors make it a very efficient and powerful part, but its gaming contribution in this combo is effectively neutralized.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Lockdown Protocol with this hardware combination provides a complete picture of performance across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. On Low settings, the average FPS is 123, providing a very smooth experience. Medium settings yield an average of 87 FPS, with a minimum of 74 FPS and a maximum of 100 FPS. High settings produce an average of 76 FPS. The Ultra preset, while demanding, still manages an average of 57 FPS, which is playable. This resolution is the only one where the combo consistently hits or exceeds the 60 FPS target for a competitive FPS.

At 2560x1440, performance drops significantly. Low settings average 90 FPS, which is still good. Medium settings average 64 FPS, with a minimum of 54 FPS and a maximum of 73 FPS, indicating some frame pacing issues. High settings average 56 FPS, which dips below the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra settings average 42 FPS, which is a less enjoyable experience for a fast-paced game. The data shows that 1440p is a compromise resolution for this combo, requiring lower settings to maintain playability.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles to provide a playable experience. Low settings average 58 FPS, which is borderline. Medium settings average 41 FPS, with a minimum of 35 FPS and a maximum of 47 FPS, showing significant frame drops. High settings average 36 FPS, and Ultra settings average 27 FPS. These figures are far below what is considered acceptable for an FPS title, and the frame time consistency is likely poor. The highest average FPS at 4K is 58 on Low, which is still below the ideal 60 FPS target, and the minimum FPS is not recorded but implied to be lower. The conclusion is that this combo is not suited for 4K gaming in Lockdown Protocol, regardless of the settings used.