Lockdown Protocol

# Lockdown Protocol with Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers a formidable Lockdown Protocol experience, with measured frame rates ranging from 57 FPS at 4K Ultra to 260 FPS at 1080p Low. This combination ranks in the 77th percentile among all tested combos for this game, placing it at position 639 out of 2828 configurations. The data shows a system that remains fluid across most settings, though the heaviest 4K Ultra preset pushes the GPU to its limits.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling across resolutions reveals a classic GPU-bound pattern, with the RTX 4070 becoming the primary constraint as pixel count increases. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at High settings drops the average from 161 FPS to 118 FPS, a 26.7% reduction. The jump from 1440p to 4K at High is steeper, falling from 118 FPS to 76 FPS, a 35.6% loss. This accelerating degradation with each resolution tier indicates that the GPU's rendering throughput, rather than the CPU's frame generation capability, is the limiting factor at higher pixel densities.

At Low settings, the pattern becomes even more pronounced. The 1080p Low average of 260 FPS drops to 191 FPS at 1440p, then to 123 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p loss of 26.5% closely mirrors the High settings scaling, but the 1440p to 4K drop of 35.6% is nearly identical to the High settings trajectory. This consistency across quality presets suggests that resolution scaling is independent of graphical detail level, reinforcing the GPU-bound analysis.

The Medium settings rows provide additional insight through their min/max frame data. At 1080p Medium, the average is 185 FPS with a minimum of 157 FPS and maximum of 213 FPS, showing a 56 FPS spread between extremes. At 1440p Medium, the average falls to 135 FPS with a 115 FPS minimum and 156 FPS maximum, tightening the spread to 41 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average drops to 87 FPS with a 74 FPS minimum and 101 FPS maximum, compressing the range further to 27 FPS. This narrowing variance at higher resolutions is typical of GPU-bound scenarios, where the frame pacing becomes more consistent as the GPU saturates.

The Ultra settings scaling shows the steepest resolution penalties. From 121 FPS at 1080p to 89 FPS at 1440p, the loss is 26.4%. The 1440p to 4K transition is harsher, dropping from 89 FPS to 57 FPS, a 36.0% reduction. The 4K Ultra result of 57 FPS sits just below the 60 FPS threshold commonly associated with smooth gameplay, indicating that this preset is only marginally playable at this resolution.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this combo at 1080p?

A: The maximum measured average is 260 FPS, achieved at 1080p Low settings. At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 185 FPS, while High and Ultra produce 161 FPS and 121 FPS respectively.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: No. The measured average at 4K Ultra is 57 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold. The 4K High preset achieves 76 FPS, and 4K Medium reaches 87 FPS, both clearing the threshold.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in general benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 4070's average benchmark score of 37648 is nearly identical to the NVIDIA Tesla P4 at 37628, just 0.1% higher. It trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile by 1.3%, which scores 38135, while leading the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 by 0.4% and the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 by 1.3%.

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

A: At 1440p, Low settings produce 191 FPS average, while Ultra produces 89 FPS. This represents a 102 FPS difference, with Medium at 135 FPS and High at 118 FPS filling the intermediate tiers.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution in this game?

A: The resolution scaling data indicates the GPU is the consistent bottleneck. The frame rate drops by roughly 26-36% between each resolution tier regardless of settings, which is characteristic of GPU-bound performance rather than CPU limitation.

Q: How does the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus compare to its closest CPU rival?

A: The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at 83807. It also leads the AMD EPYC 4584PX by 1.1% and the AMD EPYC 9135 by 1.2%, while trailing the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3%.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus provides substantial processing headroom for Lockdown Protocol, with 24 cores and 24 threads operating on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture. The processor's base clock of 3.70 GHz can boost up to 5.80 GHz, delivering single-threaded performance that the benchmark data shows as a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7303. This single-thread capability is particularly relevant for an FPS title like Lockdown Protocol, where game logic and physics often rely on fewer, higher-clocked threads.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are equally robust, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and a Cinebench R20 multi-core score of 21727. The PassMark multithread score of 60860 further confirms the processor's ability to handle background tasks without interfering with game frame delivery. The L3 cache of 36 MB shared across the 24 cores provides ample capacity for game assets that benefit from fast access, while the 115.2 GB/s memory bandwidth on DDR5 ensures data flows efficiently to the GPU.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 96 among all processors places it in the top tier for general compute performance. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, scores 83807 on average compared to 84003, a margin of just 0.2%. This performance parity means that for Lockdown Protocol specifically, the CPU is unlikely to be the limiting factor at any tested resolution. The measured frame rate scaling, which shows consistent percentage drops across resolutions, supports this conclusion—if the CPU were constraining performance, the 1080p results would show smaller gains relative to 1440p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 4070 delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce a 260 FPS average, which represents the highest frame rate in the entire measurement set. Medium settings drop to 185 FPS with a 157 FPS minimum and 213 FPS maximum, providing a 56 FPS range. High settings yield 161 FPS average, while Ultra settings produce 121 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a 139 FPS spread between the most and least demanding presets.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales downward proportionally. Low settings average 191 FPS, Medium achieves 135 FPS with a 115 FPS minimum and 156 FPS maximum, High reaches 118 FPS, and Ultra produces 89 FPS. The Medium settings range narrows to 41 FPS at this resolution, compared to 56 FPS at 1080p. The 1440p results show that even the Ultra preset remains comfortably above 60 FPS, making this resolution viable for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates begin to approach playability thresholds. Low settings still manage 123 FPS average, providing a smooth experience for competitive play. Medium settings drop to 87 FPS with a 74 FPS minimum and 101 FPS maximum, maintaining playability with some headroom. High settings produce 76 FPS average, which remains fluid for most players. Ultra settings fall to 57 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS threshold and represents the only preset at any resolution that fails to maintain this standard.

The Medium settings rows across all three resolutions show the most complete data, with min and max values recorded. At 1080p, the minimum of 157 FPS ensures that even the lowest frame dips stay well above refresh-rate targets. At 1440p, the 115 FPS minimum remains above 100 FPS, indicating consistent frame delivery. At 4K, the 74 FPS minimum approaches but does not breach the 60 FPS floor, suggesting occasional stutter in demanding scenes.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 achieves a rank of 639 out of 2828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol. This places the system in the upper quartile of all configurations tested, with approximately 77.4% of combos ranking below it. The rank reflects the balanced nature of this pairing, where neither component significantly bottlenecks the other across the tested resolution and settings range.

The CPU's contribution to this ranking is supported by its 96th percentile position among all processors, indicating that it ranks in the top 4% of CPUs tested. The GPU's 81st percentile among all GPUs places it in the top 19% of graphics cards. The disparity between these percentiles—CPU ranking higher than GPU—suggests that the RTX 4070 is the more limiting component in this pairing, consistent with the resolution scaling analysis.

The combo's rank of 639 sits notably below what the CPU's percentile might suggest, indicating that game-specific performance is influenced more heavily by GPU capabilities than by processor compute power. This is expected for an FPS title where rendering throughput dominates frame time. The CPU's nearest rival, the Core Ultra 9 285K, would likely produce nearly identical results given the 0.2% average benchmark delta, while the GPU's closest competitor, the Tesla P4, would perform nearly identically based on the 0.1% delta between their average scores.

Settings Recommendations

For players prioritizing maximum frame rates at 1080p, the Low preset delivers 260 FPS average, which exceeds the refresh rate of most high-end monitors. This setting is optimal for competitive play where response time matters more than visual fidelity. The Medium preset at 185 FPS still provides ample headroom for 144Hz displays while offering improved visual quality, making it the balanced choice for most 1080p users.

At 1440p, the Medium preset delivers 135 FPS average with a 115 FPS minimum, providing a smooth experience on 120Hz or 144Hz displays. The High preset at 118 FPS remains viable for 120Hz monitors, though the tighter frame pacing of Medium offers more consistent performance. For users with 60Hz displays, the Ultra preset at 89 FPS provides the best visual experience without sacrificing playability.

At 4K, the Medium preset at 87 FPS offers the best combination of visual quality and performance, with the 74 FPS minimum ensuring that frame drops remain above the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset at 76 FPS is also playable, though the reduced headroom above 60 FPS makes it less forgiving during intense action sequences. The Ultra preset at 57 FPS should be avoided for serious play, as the sub-60 FPS average indicates the GPU is overextended.

The data suggests that the Medium preset provides the most consistent experience across all resolutions, with the narrowest frame time variance as indicated by the min/max ranges. This preset balances GPU load such that neither the CPU nor GPU becomes a consistent bottleneck, resulting in the most predictable frame delivery.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 serves as the primary rendering engine for this combo, with its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus providing 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's Ada Lovelace architecture operates at a base clock of 1920 MHz and boosts to 2475 MHz, with the memory running at an effective 21 Gbps. These specifications position the RTX 4070 as a capable mid-to-high-end card, though its 81st percentile ranking among all GPUs indicates it is not at the very top of the performance hierarchy.

The GPU's 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation units deliver a pixel rate of 158.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 455.4 GTexel/s. The 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores provide hardware acceleration for advanced rendering features, though the measured data does not include ray tracing-specific benchmarks. The FP32 performance of 29.15 TFLOPS represents the GPU's raw compute capability, which is sufficient for the demands of Lockdown Protocol's rendering workload.

The measured frame rates show that the RTX 4070 begins to strain at 4K Ultra, producing a 57 FPS average. This aligns with the GPU's position relative to its nearest rivals, where it scores 1.3% lower than the RTX 4080 Mobile. The GPU's average benchmark score of 37648 places it in close competition with the Tesla P4, which scores 37628—a difference of just 0.1%—suggesting that these cards would produce nearly identical results in this game.

The GPU's 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the tested settings, as none of the measured frame rates indicate memory-related stuttering or performance collapse. The 504.2 GB/s bandwidth provides adequate data throughput for 4K textures, though the Ultra preset's 57 FPS result suggests that compute and rasterization limits, rather than memory bandwidth, are the binding constraint at maximum settings. The GPU's end-of-life production status does not diminish its current performance in this title, as the data shows it remains competitive with its nearest rivals.