Lockdown Protocol

Lockdown Protocol is a competitive FPS where frame pacing and headroom matter more than absolute visual fidelity, and the measured data for this Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination provides a clear hierarchy of playable settings. The sweet spot for this combo is the Medium preset at 2560x1440, which delivers an average of 172 FPS with a minimum of 147 FPS and a maximum of 198 FPS. This settings tier offers a substantial jump in visual quality over Low while maintaining frame rates well above the 144Hz refresh rate that most competitive monitors target, and the minimum frame rate ensures that drops during intense firefights remain smooth and consistent. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset is even more forgiving, producing an average of 235 FPS with a minimum of 200 FPS, which is ideal for players using high-refresh-rate 240Hz panels. While the Ultra preset at 1440p is playable at 113 FPS average, the lack of a recorded minimum frame rate suggests potential instability that could be disruptive in a fast-paced shooter.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show that the Low preset is the most demanding on the CPU-to-GPU pipeline, producing the highest frame rates across all resolutions, but it does so by sacrificing visual clarity that can be crucial for spotting distant enemies. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 331 FPS, which is an extraordinary number, but the visual trade-off is significant. However, the data indicates that the Medium preset is the best overall experience for this hardware. It provides a balanced load that keeps the GPU fully utilized without creating a CPU bottleneck, and the frame time consistency is evident from the recorded minimum and maximum values. At 1440p Medium, the 147 FPS minimum is a strong guarantee of smoothness, and at 1080p Medium, the 200 FPS minimum is exceptional. For players who prioritize maximum visual fidelity and have a 4K display, the High preset at 3840x2160 yields 97 FPS average, which is borderline for competitive play but acceptable for slower-paced game modes. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 73 FPS, which is too low for a competitive FPS and should be avoided unless the player is willing to accept a significant disadvantage in responsiveness. Ultimately, the recommendation is to start at 1440p Medium, and if the display is 1080p, the Medium preset is the clear winner for a blend of visual clarity and performance. For 4K displays, High is the only viable preset, but the 97 FPS average is a compromise.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of this specific CPU and GPU configuration ranks 175th out of 2828 tested combos in Lockdown Protocol, placing it in the top 6.2% of all tested systems. This is a strong result, indicating that the pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is well-balanced for this title. The CPU itself is a high-end part, scoring in the 96th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84003. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which scores 83807 with a 0.2% delta, and the AMD EPYC 4584PX, which scores 83090 with a 1.1% delta. The GPU, while not the absolute top-tier, is still a formidable performer, sitting in the 86th percentile against all GPUs with an average score of 54209. It is closely matched with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, which has a -0.1% delta, and it outperforms the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X by 1.1%. This rank suggests that while the combo is not at the very top of the leaderboard, it is exceptionally capable and will deliver a high-refresh-rate experience in most scenarios. The fact that it ranks in the top 6.2% indicates that there are only a handful of more powerful combinations, likely featuring top-tier 4090 or 5090-class GPUs paired with flagship CPUs, that would yield higher frame rates. For practical purposes, this rank demonstrates that the system has ample headroom for Lockdown Protocol and is unlikely to be the bottleneck in a competitive setting.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the primary driver of frame rates in Lockdown Protocol, and its specifications explain the measured performance. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. This large memory pool is more than sufficient for Lockdown Protocol at 4K Ultra, ensuring that texture streaming and asset loading do not cause hitches. The memory clock is rated at 1438 MHz, which translates to 23 Gbps effective, and this high-speed memory helps maintain consistent frame pacing. The GPU's core clock is set at 2295 MHz base and boosts to 2550 MHz, which is a modest boost for a 40-series card but sufficient to drive the 10,240 shading units. The card has 320 TMUs and 112 ROPs, which are critical for fill-rate-dependent tasks. In terms of raw compute, it delivers 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which is ample for the shader complexity in a modern FPS. The 80 RT cores and 320 Tensor cores are present, but Lockdown Protocol is not a ray-tracing-heavy title based on the measured data, so their impact is likely minimal. The GPU's percentile rank of 86th places it below the very top cards, but the measured FPS data shows that it is more than capable at 1440p and even 4K in this game. At 1080p Low, the GPU is likely not the limiting factor, as the CPU takes over to push frame rates to 331 FPS. However, as resolution increases to 1440p and 4K, the GPU becomes more stressed, and the frame rates scale accordingly. The 16 GB VRAM is a future-proofing advantage, ensuring that even with high-resolution textures, the card will not run out of memory, which is a common cause of stuttering in other titles.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of how this combo performs across three resolutions and four settings tiers. At 1920x1080, the Low preset produces an average of 331 FPS, which is the highest recorded of any configuration. The Medium preset at 1080p drops to 235 FPS average with a minimum of 200 FPS and a maximum of 270 FPS, showing excellent consistency. The High preset yields 205 FPS average, and the Ultra preset drops to 154 FPS average. At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 243 FPS, which is still extremely high and suitable for high-refresh-rate gaming. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 172 FPS with a minimum of 147 FPS and a maximum of 198 FPS, making it the sweet spot for quality and speed. The High preset at 1440p averages 151 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 113 FPS. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 157 FPS, which is surprisingly high for 4K and indicates that the CPU is still pushing hard. The Medium preset at 4K averages 111 FPS with a minimum of 95 FPS and a maximum of 128 FPS, which is playable but with a lower minimum than 1440p. The High preset at 4K averages 97 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 73 FPS. The data shows a clear pattern: the Low preset is CPU-bound at lower resolutions, while the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher resolutions and higher settings. The Medium preset offers the best balance of frame rate and visual quality, with the 1440p Medium configuration providing a minimum of 147 FPS that is ideal for competitive play. The Ultra preset is only viable at 1080p, where it still achieves 154 FPS average, but at 4K, it is too demanding for smooth gameplay.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important information about the system's bottleneck. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 331 FPS at 1080p to 243 FPS at 1440p and 157 FPS at 4K. This represents a 26.6% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 35.4% drop from 1440p to 4K, indicating that the CPU is still a significant factor at Low settings, but the GPU load is increasing. At Medium settings, the frame rate drops from 235 FPS at 1080p to 172 FPS at 1440p and 111 FPS at 4K. This is a 26.8% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 35.5% drop from 1440p to 4K, showing a consistent scaling pattern. At High settings, the frame rate drops from 205 FPS at 1080p to 151 FPS at 1440p and 97 FPS at 4K, which is a 26.3% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 35.8% drop from 1440p to 4K. At Ultra settings, the frame rate drops from 154 FPS at 1080p to 113 FPS at 1440p and 73 FPS at 4K, a 26.6% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 35.4% drop from 1440p to 4K. The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings tiers is remarkable, suggesting that the scaling is largely resolution-driven rather than settings-driven. The drop from 1440p to 4K is consistently around 35%, which is a significant reduction. This indicates that the GPU is starting to become the limiting factor at 4K, as the increase in pixel count places a heavy load on the rendering pipeline. The fact that the CPU is able to maintain high frame rates at 1080p Low (331 FPS) suggests that it is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions, but as resolution increases, the GPU's workload becomes more dominant. The data shows that the system is well-balanced for 1440p gaming, with the 35% drop to 4K being a clear indication that 4K gaming is more demanding on the GPU, but still playable at Medium and High settings.

CPU Role

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 node. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The CPU features 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache per core, along with 192 KB of L1 cache per core. This configuration is designed for high multithreaded performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731, which is a strong result. In Lockdown Protocol, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw calls, and the high boost clock of 5.80 GHz ensures that single-threaded performance is excellent, which is critical for maintaining high frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios. The CPU's percentile rank of 96th against all CPUs indicates that it is one of the fastest processors available. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, has a 0.2% higher average benchmark score, but the 290K Plus is effectively on par. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the CPU is the bottleneck, as the frame rate of 331 FPS is likely limited by the CPU's ability to process frames rather than the GPU's rendering capacity. This is further supported by the fact that the GPU's utilization is likely not maxed out at this setting. As resolution increases, the GPU takes over as the primary bottleneck, but the CPU's strong performance ensures that it does not hold back the GPU at 1440p or 4K. The CPU's 24 cores and 24 threads are more than sufficient for Lockdown Protocol, which is not a heavily multithreaded title, but the high clock speeds are beneficial for maintaining consistent frame times. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s, paired with dual-channel DDR5 support, ensures that data can be fed to the GPU quickly, reducing potential stutters. Overall, the CPU is a top-tier part that provides a solid foundation for the GPU, and its performance is more than adequate to support the RTX 4080 SUPER in this game, even at 4K High settings.