Microsoft Flight Simulator

Similar Performance Alternatives

When analyzing how this AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and Intel Arc B390 pairing behaves in Microsoft Flight Simulator, the nearest rivals for each component provide useful context. For the CPU side, the AMD EPYC 7313P scores within 0.2% of the Ryzen 9 7900X, making it effectively a performance twin in synthetic workloads. The Intel Xeon 634 sits 0.6% ahead, while the Intel Core i7-14700F trails by 0.6%. The Intel Xeon Phi 7290 lands between these, coming in 0.3% behind the Ryzen 9 7900X. In practical terms, any of these processors would deliver nearly identical frame pacing in this flight simulator, since the game's CPU demands are unlikely to expose differences of less than a single percentage point.

The GPU side tells a very different story. The Intel Arc B390's nearest rivals are all legacy NVIDIA parts: the GeForce GT 520MX (1.3% ahead), the GeForce 800M (1.5% ahead), the GeForce GT 625 OEM (2.5% ahead), and the GeForce GT 710 (2.7% ahead). These delta values are small, but the absolute performance class is what matters. The Arc B390 ranks in the 9th percentile among all GPUs, which places it far below the CPU's 91st percentile standing. A builder considering this combo should understand that swapping the CPU for any of its nearest rivals would change almost nothing in this game, while swapping the GPU for one of its nearest rivals would also change almost nothing, because all of them occupy the same low-performance tier. The bottleneck is unambiguous.

CPU and GPU Roles

The recorded data for Microsoft Flight Simulator shows a system where the GPU constrains performance at every resolution. Looking at the 3840x2160 results, the average frame rate moves from 19 FPS at High settings to 33 FPS at Low settings. That is a 14 FPS swing, roughly 74% improvement from lowering settings, which indicates the graphics workload dominates. At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds: Low settings produce 45 FPS while High drops to 26 FPS. At 1920x1080, Low reaches 56 FPS and High falls to 33 FPS. In each case, the gap between Low and High is substantial, and the gap between Medium and High is also clear, for example 43 FPS versus 33 FPS at 1080p.

The scaling between resolutions reinforces this conclusion. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 56 at 1080p to 45 at 1440p to 33 at 4K. That is a steady decline as pixel count rises, which is exactly what happens when the GPU is the limiting factor. If the CPU were the bottleneck, resolution changes would produce much smaller FPS differences. The CPU's 12 cores and 24 threads, with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29300, are far more capable than what this game needs at these frame rates. The Arc B390, with its 7.680 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 9th percentile GPU ranking, simply cannot feed frames fast enough to exercise the Ryzen 9 7900X.

At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 19, identical to 4K High. This suggests the GPU has hit a hard ceiling where additional settings changes no longer matter, the scene is already fully GPU-bound. The same effect appears at 1440p Ultra (25 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (31 FPS). Builders should not expect CPU upgrades to help this pairing in Microsoft Flight Simulator; the data points squarely at the GPU as the component that determines playability.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured results cover three resolutions and four settings levels. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 33 FPS. Medium averages 26 FPS with a minimum of 22 FPS and a maximum of 30 FPS. High averages 19 FPS, and Ultra also averages 19 FPS. No 4K configuration reaches the 60 FPS playable threshold, and none come close.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 45 FPS. Medium averages 35 FPS with a minimum of 30 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS. High averages 26 FPS, and Ultra averages 25 FPS. Again, every setting falls short of 60 FPS, with the best case being Low at 45 FPS, which is 15 FPS below the target.

At 1920x1080, Low averages 56 FPS, the highest result in the entire dataset. Medium averages 43 FPS with a minimum of 37 FPS and a maximum of 50 FPS. High averages 33 FPS, and Ultra averages 31 FPS. The 56 FPS at 1080p Low is the only result that approaches the 60 FPS threshold, but it still misses it by 4 FPS.

The minimum and maximum values recorded only for Medium settings show how frame pacing behaves: at 1080p Medium, the range spans 37 to 50 FPS around a 43 FPS average, at 1440p Medium it spans 30 to 40 FPS around a 35 FPS average, and at 4K Medium it spans 22 to 30 FPS around a 26 FPS average. These ranges are tight, meaning the frame time variance is modest, but the overall performance is too low to matter for playability.

How This Combo Ranks

The database ranks this specific CPU and GPU combination at 3302 out of 3714 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. That places it in the bottom 11% of all configurations tested. The ranking reflects the GPU's severe limitation: the Arc B390's 9th percentile standing among all GPUs drags the entire system down despite the Ryzen 9 7900X sitting in the 91st percentile among CPUs.

To put this in perspective, the CPU alone would rank as a high-end part by synthetic benchmarks, with a Passmark multi-thread score of 51406 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 19267. The GPU, however, has only a single recorded 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482, and its nearest rivals are all more than a decade old. The combination rank of 3302 out of 3714 is consistent with a system where one component is several performance classes below the other. Builders should interpret this rank as a warning: the CPU is not the problem, and no amount of CPU headroom can compensate for the GPU's output.

The Verdict

Can this PC run Microsoft Flight Simulator at 60 FPS? The recorded data says no, at any resolution or preset. The verdict by resolution is unambiguous. At 3840x2160, there are no playable settings, meaning no preset reaches 60 FPS. At 2560x1440, the same result: no playable settings. At 1920x1080, also no playable settings. The best recorded average across the entire test matrix is 56 FPS at 1080p Low, which is still 4 FPS below the 60 FPS playable threshold.

The absence of any playable settings at the lowest tested resolution and preset is the clearest possible signal. Even at 1080p with Low settings, the system cannot maintain 60 FPS. The game is playable in a loose sense at 56 FPS, which many users would tolerate, but the database's playable threshold is 60 FPS, and this combo does not meet it anywhere. The verdict for all three resolutions is the same: not playable by the 60 FPS standard.

Best Settings per Resolution

Since no preset at any resolution clears 60 FPS, there is no "best playable setting" to recommend. The verdict data confirms this: for 3840x2160, 2560x1440, and 1920x1080, the playable settings list is empty, and the best settings field is null. The closest result is 1920x1080 with Low settings at 56 FPS average, which is the highest measured average in the entire dataset, but it still falls short.

For a builder who insists on using this hardware, the practical advice from the data is to run at 1080p Low and accept a frame rate in the mid-50s. If the 60 FPS threshold is non-negotiable, this combination cannot deliver it. The gap between the best case (56 FPS) and the target (60 FPS) is 4 FPS, and the next step up in settings, 1080p Medium, drops to 43 FPS, a 13 FPS penalty that makes the shortfall even worse. The data does not support any settings combination that achieves the playable threshold, so the only honest recommendation is that this GPU must be replaced or the playability standard must be relaxed.