Microsoft Flight Simulator

Measured FPS Breakdown

The recorded data for this CPU/GPU pairing in Microsoft Flight Simulator shows a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics solution. Across all tested resolutions and presets, average frame rates remain below the 60 FPS playability threshold, and in several configurations they dip into the low 20s or teens.

At 3840x2160, the highest resolution tested, the results are uniformly poor. The Low preset delivers an average of 33 FPS, which is the best outcome at this resolution. Stepping up to Medium drops the average to 26 FPS, with a minimum of 22 FPS and a maximum of 30 FPS. The High and Ultra presets both average 19 FPS, indicating that the GPU has effectively hit a hard performance ceiling that additional graphics workload does not meaningfully change. There is no recorded minimum or maximum for High or Ultra at this resolution, but the averages alone confirm that 4K is not a viable target.

Moving to 2560x1440, the situation improves but remains far from smooth. Low settings produce an average of 45 FPS, which is the only preset at this resolution that approaches a playable range, yet it still falls short. Medium averages 35 FPS, with a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 40. High drops to 26 FPS, and Ultra falls further to 25 FPS. The spread between Low and Medium at 1440p is 10 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 9 FPS, showing that each preset tier costs a similar amount of performance.

At 1920x1080, the results are the strongest in the dataset but still disappointing. The Low preset averages 56 FPS, just 4 FPS short of the 60 FPS threshold. Medium averages 43 FPS, with a minimum of 37 and a maximum of 50. High averages 33 FPS, and Ultra averages 31 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium at 1080p is 13 FPS, while the difference between Medium and High is 10 FPS. Notably, the gap between High and Ultra is only 2 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset adds visual features that are nearly free in performance terms at this resolution.

Best Settings per Resolution

No resolution in the recorded data achieves a playable average of 60 FPS or higher. The verdict field for every resolution lists no playable settings and no best preset, which confirms that this combination cannot hit the playability threshold anywhere.

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that stays closest to 60 FPS is Low, but it only reaches 33 FPS. Medium falls to 26 FPS, and both High and Ultra sit at 19 FPS. Even the lowest settings at 4K leave the system more than 25 FPS short of the target.

At 2560x1440, Low is again the best option, averaging 45 FPS. Medium drops to 35 FPS, with a minimum of 30 FPS that would cause noticeable stutter in flight phases. High and Ultra are effectively tied at 26 and 25 FPS, respectively. The 15 FPS deficit from Low to the 60 FPS target is significant, but it is the closest any preset comes at this resolution.

At 1920x1080, Low is the only preset that nearly reaches a playable state, averaging 56 FPS. This is 4 FPS below the threshold, which means even the least demanding configuration will not maintain a consistent 60 FPS. Medium averages 43 FPS, High averages 33 FPS, and Ultra averages 31 FPS. For users who absolutely must run this game, 1080p Low is the only configuration that approaches a smooth experience, but it does not clear the bar.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data strongly indicates that the Intel Arc B390 GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing. The CPU, an AMD Ryzen 5 7500F, is a 6-core, 12-thread Zen 4 processor with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, and its benchmark scores place it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 22799 and single-core is 3218, which are strong results for a desktop processor. In contrast, the GPU sits in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, with a single recorded 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482. The nearest GPU rivals are all legacy or entry-level parts, including the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX and the GT 710, which are separated by less than 3% in score.

The frame rate scaling across resolutions confirms this imbalance. At 1080p, the average FPS ranges from 31 (Ultra) to 56 (Low). At 1440p, the range shifts to 25 (Ultra) to 45 (Low). At 4K, the range compresses to 19 (High/Ultra) to 33 (Low). The performance drop from 1080p Low to 1440p Low is 11 FPS, and from 1440p Low to 4K Low is 12 FPS. This linear degradation with increasing pixel count is characteristic of a GPU-bound workload. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would remain relatively flat across resolutions, since the CPU work per frame stays roughly constant regardless of output resolution.

The preset scaling further supports this. At 1080p, moving from Low to Medium costs 13 FPS, from Medium to High costs 10 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs only 2 FPS. At 1440p, the same transitions cost 10, 9, and 1 FPS, respectively. At 4K, Low to Medium costs 7 FPS, but Medium to High and High to Ultra cost 0 FPS, with both High and Ultra locked at 19 FPS. The fact that High and Ultra produce identical averages at 4K is a strong signal that the GPU has exhausted its shading, texture, and rasterization throughput. Additional visual complexity from the Ultra preset does not increase the workload because the GPU is already saturated.

The CPU's role becomes apparent only at the lowest settings, where the GPU has less work to do. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 56 FPS, which is the highest recorded average across all configurations. This suggests that the CPU can feed the GPU sufficiently at lower resolutions, but the GPU cannot translate that into higher frame rates once pixel count increases. The Ryzen 5 7500F, with its 32 MB shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support at 83.2 GB/s, is more than capable for this game's simulation logic, but the Arc B390's 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 24 ROPs are simply inadequate for the rendering demands of Microsoft Flight Simulator at higher settings.

Similar Performance Alternatives

For the CPU, the nearest rivals in the database are all within a narrow performance band. The Intel Core i7-11850H has an average score of 24935, which is 0.1% different from the Ryzen 5 7500F's average of 24964. The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F scores 25005, a delta of -0.2%. The Intel Core i7-13620H scores 24911, a delta of 0.2%. The Intel Core 5 210H scores 24872, a delta of 0.4%. In practical terms, any of these processors would deliver nearly identical CPU-bound performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The simulation's heavy single-thread and multi-thread workloads would see differences of less than 1% between these parts, meaning the frame rates recorded in this analysis would carry over essentially unchanged if the GPU remained the same.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals are dramatically weaker parts, which highlights just how low the Arc B390 sits in the performance hierarchy. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX scores 1463, just 1.3% below the Arc B390's 1482. The NVIDIA GeForce 800M scores 1460, a 1.5% delta. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM scores 1446, a 2.5% delta. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 scores 1443, a 2.7% delta. All of these GPUs are from an older era or the lowest tier of their respective lineups, and they would produce frame rates in Microsoft Flight Simulator that are statistically indistinguishable from the Arc B390. Users coming from any of these GPUs would see no meaningful improvement or regression by switching to the Arc B390.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 77 versus the GPU's percentile ranking of 9 creates a stark mismatch. The recorded data shows that this system is not balanced for a demanding flight simulator. Upgrading the GPU to a part with a substantially higher benchmark score would yield significant gains, while swapping the CPU for one of its nearest rivals would produce no measurable change.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Microsoft Flight Simulator at 60 FPS at any resolution?

A: No. The recorded data shows no playable settings at any resolution. The closest result is 1080p Low, which averages 56 FPS, 4 FPS below the 60 FPS threshold. The verdict field lists no playable settings for 3840x2160, 2560x1440, or 1920x1080.

Q: What is the best average frame rate this combination achieves?

A: The highest recorded average is 56 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At 2560x1440, the best average is 45 FPS with Low settings. At 3840x2160, the best average is 33 FPS with Low settings.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, both High and Ultra average 19 FPS. The recorded data shows no difference between these two presets at this resolution, indicating the GPU is fully saturated and cannot handle additional workload.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this system?

A: The GPU is the clear bottleneck. The Ryzen 5 7500F is in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, while the Intel Arc B390 is in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Frame rates drop consistently as resolution increases, which is a GPU-bound pattern. The CPU's nearest rivals differ by less than 0.5% in average score.

Q: What GPUs would perform similarly to the Intel Arc B390?

A: The nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, the NVIDIA GeForce 800M, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM, and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710. All of these have average scores within 2.7% of the Arc B390's 1482 score.

Q: What is the frame rate at 1440p Medium settings?

A: The recorded average is 35 FPS, with a minimum of 30 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS playability threshold and would feel choppy during flight.

The Verdict

This system cannot run Microsoft Flight Simulator at a playable level, defined as 60 FPS or higher. The verdictByResolution data is unambiguous: all three resolutions, 3840x2160, 2560x1440, and 1920x1080, have empty playable settings lists and no best preset. The recorded frame rates confirm this across every configuration.

At 4K, the best case is 33 FPS on Low, which is roughly half the target. At 1440p, the best case is 45 FPS on Low, still 15 FPS short. At 1080p, the best case is 56 FPS on Low, a narrow miss that would result in frequent dips below 60 FPS during busy scenes such as city overflights or weather events. The combination of a strong CPU and a very weak GPU makes this a fundamentally unbalanced system for this title. The Ryzen 5 7500F has ample processing headroom, but the Arc B390's performance sits in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals that are over a decade old in many cases.

For a builder evaluating this pairing, the data is clear: do not expect playable performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Even the lowest settings at 1080p fail to reach the 60 FPS bar, and every other configuration falls further behind. The only path to a playable experience would be a GPU upgrade to a part with a substantially higher benchmark score, as the CPU side is not the limiting factor. As it stands, this system is suitable for less demanding titles, but for this flight simulator, it falls short across the board.