Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers a broad range of performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator, depending on resolution and preset. At 1080p and 1440p, this combo clears the 60 FPS threshold at every setting tested, while 4K requires dropping to Medium or Low. The data below breaks down exactly what to expect frame-by-frame, where the CPU and GPU each carry the load, and how this pairing stacks against other tested combinations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). Average frame rates are provided for all settings, while min/max figures are only available for the Medium preset at each resolution.

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 135 avg FPS
• Medium: 105 avg FPS, 89 min FPS, 121 max FPS
• High: 79 avg FPS
• Ultra: 75 avg FPS

At 1080p, the RTX 3070 has ample headroom. The jump from Low to Medium costs 30 FPS on average (135 to 105), while the step from Medium to High costs another 26 FPS (105 to 79). Interestingly, High and Ultra are only 4 FPS apart (79 vs 75), suggesting that the Ultra preset adds visual fidelity without a proportional performance hit at this resolution. The Medium preset’s min of 89 FPS means even the heaviest moments stay well above 60 FPS, and the max of 121 FPS shows bursts of headroom for smoother pacing.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 109 avg FPS
• Medium: 85 avg FPS, 72 min FPS, 98 max FPS
• High: 64 avg FPS
• Ultra: 61 avg FPS

At 1440p, the pattern shifts. Low delivers 109 FPS, but Medium drops to 85 FPS (a 24 FPS loss). High then falls to 64 FPS (a 21 FPS loss from Medium), and Ultra lands at 61 FPS. The Medium preset’s min of 72 FPS is still above the 60 FPS playable threshold, but High and Ultra hover just barely above it—64 and 61 average respectively. The gap between High and Ultra is only 3 FPS, mirroring the 1080p behavior where the top two presets are close in cost.

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 80 avg FPS
• Medium: 63 avg FPS, 53 min FPS, 72 max FPS
• High: 47 avg FPS
• Ultra: 45 avg FPS

At 4K, the RTX 3070’s 8 GB memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth start to feel the strain. Low produces 80 FPS, but Medium drops to 63 FPS average—and the min of 53 FPS shows that dips below 60 are common. High falls to 47 FPS, and Ultra is nearly identical at 45 FPS. The 4K results show a cliff: Low and Medium are playable, while High and Ultra are not, with a 16–18 FPS gap between Medium and High.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset is the only one with min/max data, which reveals a consistent pattern: the min FPS is roughly 10–20% lower than the average, while the max is 15–25% higher. For example, at 1440p Medium, the average is 85 FPS, but the min of 72 FPS and max of 98 FPS bracket that average tightly. At 4K Medium, the min of 53 FPS confirms that even a playable average can have unplayable moments in dense scenery.

CPU and GPU Roles

Microsoft Flight Simulator is a demanding title that stresses both the processor and the graphics card, but the balance shifts with resolution. The Ryzen 5 7400F has 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21765. The RTX 3070 has 5888 shading units, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, and a PassMark G3D score of 22214. The data shows which component dominates at each resolution.

At 1080p, the CPU becomes the primary limiter. The frame rates are high enough (75–135 FPS) that the GPU has spare capacity, but the Ryzen 5 7400F’s single-thread performance—Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3072, PassMark single-thread score of 3689—determines the ceiling. The evidence is the small gap between High (79 FPS) and Ultra (75 FPS): both presets push the CPU’s thread scheduling to its limit, while the GPU is not yet saturated. The scaling from Low to Medium (135 to 105 FPS) shows a 30 FPS drop, but the scaling from Medium to High (105 to 79 FPS) is a 26 FPS drop, meaning the CPU is still the bottleneck even at Medium. If the GPU were the limit, the drop from Low to Ultra would be much larger than the observed 60 FPS total.

At 1440p, the balance shifts toward the GPU. The RTX 3070’s 256-bit memory bus and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth start to matter more, as the pixel count increases by 78% compared to 1080p. The frame rates drop proportionally: Low goes from 135 to 109 FPS (a 19% reduction), and Medium goes from 105 to 85 FPS (a 19% reduction). This consistent scaling suggests the GPU is now the primary constraint, though the CPU still contributes. The Ultra preset at 61 FPS is only 3 FPS above the High preset (64 FPS), which indicates that the GPU is running near its limit—the difference between High and Ultra is mostly shader and texture detail, which the RTX 3070 handles with similar efficiency at this resolution.

At 4K, the GPU is unambiguously the bottleneck. The RTX 3070’s 8 GB memory capacity is insufficient for the highest presets, causing the steep drop from Medium (63 FPS) to High (47 FPS). The Ultra preset (45 FPS) is nearly identical to High, confirming that the GPU’s compute and memory bandwidth are exhausted, not the CPU. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 7400F has enough headroom: the CPU’s multi-core score (Cinebench R23 21765) is well above what this game needs at 4K, as evidenced by the fact that Low (80 FPS) and Medium (63 FPS) still scale with GPU load rather than CPU limits. The min FPS at 4K Medium (53 FPS) further proves the GPU’s role—those dips occur when the 8 GB VRAM buffer overflows, not when the CPU stalls.

The preset scaling reinforces this split. At 1080p, going from Low to Ultra reduces FPS by 44% (135 to 75), but at 4K, the same preset change reduces FPS by 44% as well (80 to 45)—yet the absolute numbers are far lower. This means the GPU workload scales more with resolution than preset, while the CPU workload is more tied to preset complexity. For a flight simulator with dense terrain and weather systems, the CPU handles the simulation logic, but the RTX 3070 draws every pixel.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination—AMD Ryzen 5 7400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070—ranks 1575 out of 3714 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. That places it in the 42nd percentile of all tested pairings, which is a solid mid-pack result for a flight sim that is notoriously demanding.

The percentileVsAllCpus for the Ryzen 5 7400F is 83, meaning it outperforms 83% of all CPUs in the database. The percentileVsAllGpus for the RTX 3070 is 61, meaning it outperforms 61% of all GPUs. The combo rank is lower than either individual percentile, which reflects the game’s unique balance—it needs both strong single-thread CPU performance and substantial GPU memory bandwidth, and the RTX 3070’s 8 GB VRAM is a limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The combo rank can be interpreted against the measured FPS. At 1080p, this combo would rank higher than 1575, because the frame rates (75–135 FPS) are strong. At 4K, it would rank lower, because High and Ultra presets fall below 60 FPS. The overall rank of 1575 suggests that most of the 3714 tested combos are either faster in CPU, GPU, or both, but this pairing is not a slouch—it delivers playable performance at 1080p and 1440p across all presets, and at 4K with settings reduced.

The Verdict

Yes, this PC can run Microsoft Flight Simulator, but the playable settings depend heavily on resolution. The verdictByResolution data uses a 60 FPS threshold, and the results are clear:

• 3840x2160 (4K): Playable at Low (80 avg FPS) and Medium (63 avg FPS). High (47 avg FPS) and Ultra (45 avg FPS) are not playable. The best playable setting is Medium with 63 avg FPS, though the min FPS of 53 means occasional dips below 60 in dense areas.
• 2560x1440 (1440p): Playable at all four presets—Low (109 avg FPS), Medium (85 avg FPS), High (64 avg FPS), and Ultra (61 avg FPS). The best playable setting is Ultra with 61 avg FPS, which is just above the threshold.
• 1920x1080 (1080p): Playable at all four presets—Low (135 avg FPS), Medium (105 avg FPS), High (79 avg FPS), and Ultra (75 avg FPS). The best playable setting is Ultra with 75 avg FPS.

For a flight simulator, where smoothness matters more than raw FPS, the 60 FPS threshold is a reasonable baseline. At 1080p, the Ultra preset at 75 FPS gives you headroom for complex aircraft and weather. At 1440p, Ultra at 61 FPS is borderline—playable on average, but expect stutters in heavy cloud layers or over dense cities. At 4K, Medium at 63 FPS is the sweet spot, but the 53 FPS min means you’ll see dips below the threshold during demanding moments.

The verdict is that this combo is a capable 1080p and 1440p machine for this game, and a 4K machine only if you’re willing to run Medium or Low presets. The RTX 3070’s 8 GB VRAM is the limiting factor at 4K, not the CPU.

Similar Performance Alternatives

If you’re considering this combo, the nearest rivals for each component give a sense of what else would behave similarly. These are based on average benchmark scores, not game-specific FPS, but they indicate that swapping either part for a close sibling would produce nearly identical results.

CPU rivals for the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F:

• Intel Core i5-14600T: Average score 32707, deltaPct 0.1% from the Ryzen 5 7400F (which has an avgBenchmarkScore of 32750). This is effectively a tie. The i5-14600T would deliver the same frame rates in this game, given the same GPU.
• AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H: Average score 32812, deltaPct -0.2% (the Ryzen 5 7400F is 0.2% faster). Again, a tie within measurement noise. This is a laptop chip, but it shows that the desktop Ryzen 5 7400F is competitive with high-end mobile parts.
• Intel Core Ultra 7 155H: Average score 32697, deltaPct 0.2% (the Ryzen 5 7400F is 0.2% faster). Another near-tie, meaning this Intel mobile chip would behave almost identically.
• AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360: Average score 32662, deltaPct 0.3% (the Ryzen 5 7400F is 0.3% faster). The smallest gap in this group, again within the margin of error.

The takeaway is that the Ryzen 5 7400F sits in a dense cluster of CPUs with nearly identical average scores (all within 0.3% of each other). In Microsoft Flight Simulator, any of these would produce the same FPS with the RTX 3070, because the game’s CPU bottleneck at 1080p would be the same.

GPU rivals for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070:

• AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT: Average score 17083, deltaPct 0.7% (the RTX 3070 is 0.7% faster). This is the closest rival. The RX 7600 XT would deliver roughly the same FPS at 1080p and 1440p, though its VRAM configuration is not listed in the pack—so any differences in 4K behavior are not supported by data.
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690: Average score 17037, deltaPct 1% (the RTX 3070 is 1% faster). The GTX 690 is an older dual-GPU card, but its average score is very close. However, the GTX 690’s driver support and VRAM management are not comparable in practice, so this is a benchmark-only similarity.
• AMD Radeon HD 7970M: Average score 17019, deltaPct 1.1% (the RTX 3070 is 1.1% faster). This is a mobile GPU from a much older generation, so the benchmark match is mostly coincidental—it would not perform the same in a modern flight sim.
• NVIDIA Tesla K40c: Average score 17468, deltaPct -1.5% (the Tesla K40c is 1.5% faster). This is a compute card, not a gaming GPU, so its higher average score does not translate to better gaming FPS.

For gaming, the RX 7600 XT is the only realistic rival that would behave similarly in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The other three are benchmark curiosities—they match in average score but would not handle the game’s rendering and simulation loops the same way.

Best Settings per Resolution

Based on the measured FPS and the 60 FPS playable threshold, here are the most demanding presets that stay at or above 60 FPS at each resolution:

• 3840x2160 (4K): Medium is the best playable preset, with an average of 63 FPS. Low (80 FPS) is also playable, but Medium offers higher visual quality while still averaging above 60 FPS. The min FPS of 53 for Medium means you will see dips below 60 in the heaviest moments, but the average holds. High (47 FPS) and Ultra (45 FPS) are not playable.
• 2560x1440 (1440p): Ultra is the best playable preset, with an average of 61 FPS. This is just barely above the threshold, so expect occasional dips below 60 in complex scenes. High (64 FPS) is a safer choice if you prefer more headroom, but Ultra is technically playable per the data. Low (109 FPS) and Medium (85 FPS) are also playable but leave performance on the table.
• 1920x1080 (1080p): Ultra is the best playable preset, with an average of 75 FPS. This provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS, with enough headroom for dense scenery or heavy weather. High (79 FPS) is nearly identical, but Ultra adds visual fidelity for just a 4 FPS cost. Low (135 FPS) and Medium (105 FPS) are playable but underutilize the hardware.

The optimal strategy is to run Ultra at 1080p or 1440p, and Medium at 4K. At 1440p, if you prioritize smoothness over visuals, High at 64 FPS gives you a 3 FPS buffer over Ultra. At 4K, the choice between Low (80 FPS) and Medium (63 FPS) is a tradeoff between visual quality and frame stability—Medium’s 53 FPS min is the only sub-60 value in the playable range, so Low is the choice for competitive or stutter-sensitive flying. The data shows that this combo’s sweet spot is 1440p Ultra, where the 61 FPS average is playable and the visual quality is high, while 1080p Ultra at 75 FPS is the most comfortable experience overall.