Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT paired with the Intel Arc B580 delivers a playable Microsoft Flight Simulator experience only at 1440p and 1080p, with the 4K resolution falling short of the 60 FPS threshold across all tested settings. Benchmark data shows this combination is best suited for Medium presets at lower resolutions, where it achieves comfortable frame rates, while High and Ultra presets remain demanding at every resolution tested.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 4K (3840x2160), the combination struggles to maintain playable frame rates. The Low preset delivers an average of 56.0 FPS, which falls just short of the 60 FPS target. Medium drops to 42.8 FPS, High reaches 35.9 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 33.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 22.9 FPS, indicating that graphics settings have a substantial impact on performance when the GPU is heavily loaded.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results improve considerably. The Low preset averages 76.4 FPS, providing headroom above the 60 FPS threshold. Medium achieves 62.8 FPS, which remains playable but with less margin. High settings produce 43.1 FPS, and Ultra yields 44.1 FPS. Interestingly, High and Ultra perform nearly identically at this resolution, with only a 1.0 FPS difference, suggesting a bottleneck shift away from pure pixel throughput.

At 1920x1080, the data shows the strongest performance. Low settings average 96.4 FPS, Medium reaches 74.5 FPS, and both High and Ultra hover around 54.5 FPS and 54.4 FPS respectively. The 1080p results reveal a clear pattern: Medium is the optimal playable preset, delivering 74.5 FPS, while the jump to High costs approximately 20 FPS compared to Medium. The similarity between High and Ultra scores at 1080p (54.5 vs 54.4) mirrors the 1440p behavior, indicating a consistent performance ceiling for these higher presets.

Across all resolutions, the frame rate scaling is not linear. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 42.0 FPS; at 1440p it narrows to 32.3 FPS; at 4K it shrinks to 22.9 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions confirms that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as pixel count increases, while at 1080p the CPU plays a more significant role in determining maximum achievable frame rates.

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run Microsoft Flight Simulator at 4K?

A: No, not at playable frame rates. The best result at 3840x2160 is 56.0 FPS on Low settings, which is below the 60 FPS playable threshold. All other 4K presets fall further behind, with Ultra averaging only 33.1 FPS.

Q: What is the best playable setting at 1440p?

A: Medium is the highest playable preset at 2560x1440, averaging 62.8 FPS. Low also clears the threshold at 76.4 FPS, but High and Ultra both fall below 60 FPS at 43.1 and 44.1 FPS respectively.

Q: How does the 1080p performance compare between presets?

A: Low averages 96.4 FPS, Medium 74.5 FPS, High 54.5 FPS, and Ultra 54.4 FPS. The data shows a steep drop from Medium to High of about 20 FPS, while High and Ultra are nearly identical.

Q: Which component is more important at 1080p versus 4K?

A: At 1080p, the CPU plays a larger role, evidenced by the wider spread between Low and Ultra (42.0 FPS). At 4K, the GPU dominates, as the frame rate spread narrows to 22.9 FPS and all presets cluster below 60 FPS.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 5800XT a bottleneck for the Arc B580?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not a severe bottleneck at lower resolutions, since 1080p Low reaches 96.4 FPS. However, the small performance gap between High and Ultra presets at both 1440p and 1080p indicates that the GPU's capabilities cap out around 54-55 FPS for these settings regardless of resolution.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combination?

A: The maximum average FPS is 96.4, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only configuration that approaches 100 FPS, with all other playable settings staying below 80 FPS.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data reveals a clear division of labor between the AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT and the Intel Arc B580 depending on resolution and settings. At 4K, the GPU is overwhelmingly the limiting factor. The frame rates across all four presets (33.1 to 56.0 FPS) are tightly grouped, and even dropping to Low only recovers 22.9 FPS over Ultra. This pattern indicates that the Arc B580's compute and memory bandwidth are saturated at this resolution, and the CPU has ample headroom to feed the GPU.

At 1440p, the roles become more balanced. The Low preset achieves 76.4 FPS, showing that the GPU can handle lower graphical loads efficiently. However, High and Ultra both plateau around 43-44 FPS, which is nearly identical to their 4K counterparts (35.9 and 33.1). This suggests that the High and Ultra presets introduce CPU-bound simulation workloads that limit frame rates to the mid-40s regardless of resolution, while the GPU still has spare capacity.

At 1080p, the CPU's influence becomes even more apparent. Low settings reach 96.4 FPS, nearly double the 4K Low result, demonstrating that the CPU can drive high frame rates when the GPU is not pixel-bound. Yet High and Ultra remain stuck at 54.5 and 54.4 FPS, almost identical to the 1440p results. This consistency across resolutions for High/Ultra strongly implies a CPU or game-engine limit for these presets, not a GPU pixel throughput limit. The Ryzen 7 5800XT's performance in single-threaded tasks, as indicated by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3359, is sufficient for Low and Medium, but the simulation's draw calls and physics calculations at High/Ultra appear to cap performance.

The scaling data also shows that Medium is the sweet spot. At 1080p, Medium achieves 74.5 FPS, which is 20 FPS higher than High. At 1440p, Medium hits 62.8 FPS, still above the threshold. This indicates that Medium settings balance the CPU and GPU loads effectively, allowing the Arc B580 to stretch its legs without hitting the simulation's CPU bottleneck.

The Verdict

This PC can run Microsoft Flight Simulator, but only at specific resolutions and presets. According to the verdict data, 4K (3840x2160) has no playable settings — every preset averages below 60 FPS, with the best being Low at 56.0 FPS. Users targeting 4K will need to consider different hardware or accept sub-60 FPS performance.

At 2560x1440, the combination is playable on Low and Medium. The best playable setting is Medium, achieving an average of 62.8 FPS. This provides a decent balance between visual quality and smoothness, with only 2.8 FPS of headroom above the threshold. Low offers more comfort at 76.4 FPS but sacrifices visual fidelity.

At 1920x1080, the system performs best. Low and Medium are both playable, with Medium being the recommended setting at 74.5 FPS average. This gives a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. High and Ultra fall short at 54.5 and 54.4 FPS respectively, so users must stick to Medium or lower for a consistent experience.

The overall verdict is that this is a capable 1080p and 1440p gaming system for this title, but not a 4K machine. The 1080p Medium configuration offers the best combination of performance and visual quality, while 1440p Medium is viable for users with higher-resolution monitors who can tolerate a narrower FPS margin.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at the CPU's nearest rivals, the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H has an average benchmark score of 29868, which is essentially identical to the Ryzen 7 5800XT's 29879 (0% delta). This means a system with the 7840H would behave nearly identically in CPU-bound scenarios. The AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS and Ryzen 7 7840HS both score 29955, which is 0.3% higher, indicating marginally better multi-threaded performance that could translate to slightly higher frame rates in CPU-limited sections. The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X scores 29713, 0.6% lower, so it would perform within a fraction of a percent in most cases.

For the GPU, the nearest rival is the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP with an average score of 23061, just 0.2% higher than the Arc B580's 23021. This suggests nearly interchangeable performance in GPU-bound scenarios. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 scores 22895, which is 0.6% lower, so it would produce slightly lower frame rates at the same settings. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 scores 23172, 0.7% higher, offering a small but measurable performance advantage. The NVIDIA P106-100 scores 23249, 1.0% higher, though this is within the noise margin for most games.

For Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically, users with any of these CPU alternatives can expect similar results at 1080p and 1440p, since the benchmark deltas are all under 1%. The GPU alternatives would shift frame rates by a few FPS at most, with the RTX 3080 potentially providing 1-2 FPS higher averages in GPU-bound 4K scenarios.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT + Intel Arc B580 combination ranks 2826 out of 3714 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the 24th percentile, meaning roughly 76% of tested hardware combinations perform better in this game. The ranking reflects the system's limitations at 4K and its inability to handle High/Ultra presets at any resolution above 60 FPS.

This rank is consistent with the measured FPS data. The system's strengths are in Medium and Low presets at 1080p and 1440p, but it lacks the raw GPU power for 4K and the CPU headroom for High/Ultra settings. The 68th percentile ranking of the Arc B580 among all GPUs and the 81st percentile of the Ryzen 7 5800XT among all CPUs suggest that both components are above-average individually, but their combination does not synergize well for this particular game's demands.

The gap between the combo's component percentiles and its game-specific rank indicates that Microsoft Flight Simulator is particularly demanding on both CPU and GPU simultaneously. The 2826th rank out of 3714 combos positions this system in the lower-middle tier for this title, suitable for conservative settings at mainstream resolutions but not for high-fidelity or high-resolution play.