Microsoft Flight Simulator

This system pairing combines Intel’s Core i7-14700KF with NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5090, and the measured data for Microsoft Flight Simulator shows a combination that is heavily overqualified for smooth play at every tested resolution. The 20-core, 28-thread CPU with a 5.60 GHz boost clock and the 32 GB GDDR7 GPU with a 512-bit memory bus form a platform where the bottleneck shifts decisively to the simulator’s engine rather than the hardware. Across all resolutions and all four presets — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra — the average frame rates never dip below 76.9 FPS, which means the playable threshold of 60 FPS is cleared with substantial headroom everywhere. The data is measured, not estimated, and it ranks this specific CPU-GPU pairing at 58th out of 3,714 tested combos for this game, placing it firmly in the top percentile of configurations.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, which delivers an average of 76.9 FPS. This is the highest visual quality the game offers, and it still runs at roughly 28% above the 60 FPS threshold. If you prefer higher frame rates over absolute fidelity, dropping to High yields 80.2 FPS, and Medium jumps to 106.5 FPS, but there is no need to sacrifice quality for playability at this resolution. The Low preset runs at 139 FPS, which is overkill for a flight simulator where the view is mostly static scenery.

At 2560x1440, Ultra again holds the top spot, averaging 107.8 FPS. That is nearly double the playable threshold, so 1440p Ultra is not just playable — it is comfortable for high-refresh-rate monitors. High runs at 111.5 FPS, Medium at 150.7 FPS, and Low at 194 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra is only 3.7 FPS, which suggests the visual uplift from Ultra is nearly free at this resolution, making Ultra the obvious choice for any 1440p display.

At 1920x1080, Ultra averages 132 FPS, which is the best balance of fidelity and speed for 1080p. High runs at 141.4 FPS, Medium at 189.8 FPS, and Low at 233.5 FPS. Since even the heaviest preset clears 120 FPS, you can run Ultra without any concern for dropping below 60 FPS. The data shows that at 1080p, the GPU is barely taxed, and the CPU’s strong single-thread performance (a Geekbench single-core score of 2578) keeps the frame rate high even in CPU-bound scenarios like dense urban areas.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling between resolutions reveals how the workload shifts. From 1080p to 1440p, the Ultra preset drops from 132 FPS to 107.8 FPS, a 24.2 FPS decline (about 18%). From 1440p to 4K, Ultra drops further to 76.9 FPS, a 30.9 FPS decline (about 29%). This pattern indicates that the GPU becomes progressively more important as resolution increases, but even at 4K, the RTX 5090’s 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 1.79 TB/s of memory bandwidth are sufficient to keep the frame rate well above 60 FPS.

At 1080p, the CPU plays a larger relative role. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 101.5 FPS (233.5 vs 132), whereas at 4K the same preset difference is 62.1 FPS (139 vs 76.9). This compression of the preset gap at higher resolutions confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, while at 1080p the CPU’s ability to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations matters more. The i7-14700KF’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44167 and single-core score of 6235 indicate that it is not a bottleneck at any resolution tested — the frame rates are consistently high, and the scaling between presets is smooth rather than erratic.

The Medium preset shows the biggest relative jump from 4K to 1440p: 106.5 to 150.7 FPS, a 44.2 FPS increase. This suggests that Medium settings are particularly sensitive to resolution, likely because they reduce texture and shadow workloads that scale directly with pixel count. Low settings show the least resolution sensitivity, with only a 94.5 FPS difference between 4K and 1080p (139 vs 233.5), which is expected since Low disables many GPU-intensive effects. Overall, the data indicates that for this game, the GPU is the primary driver of performance at 4K, while the CPU becomes more relevant at 1440p and below, but neither component ever falls below a level that would compromise the 60 FPS target.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured averages are as follows: Low runs at 139 FPS, Medium at 106.5 FPS, High at 80.2 FPS, and Ultra at 76.9 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs 32.5 FPS, from Medium to High costs 26.3 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs only 3.3 FPS. This last step is remarkably small, indicating that the Ultra preset’s additional effects (likely higher shadow quality and more detailed terrain) are nearly free on this hardware. No minimum or maximum frame rates were recorded in the data, so the analysis relies solely on averages, but the consistency of the averages across settings suggests stable performance.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 194 FPS, Medium 150.7 FPS, High 111.5 FPS, and Ultra 107.8 FPS. The preset-to-preset drops are 43.3 FPS from Low to Medium, 39.2 FPS from Medium to High, and 3.7 FPS from High to Ultra. Again, the High-to-Ultra gap is minimal, reinforcing that Ultra is the sensible setting at 1440p. The jump from 4K to 1440p at the same preset yields significant gains: Low improves by 55 FPS, Medium by 44.2 FPS, High by 31.3 FPS, and Ultra by 30.9 FPS. These gains are roughly proportional to the pixel count reduction (4K has 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p), which is a classic sign of GPU-bound performance.

At 1920x1080, Low runs at 233.5 FPS, Medium at 189.8 FPS, High at 141.4 FPS, and Ultra at 132 FPS. The Low-to-Medium drop is 43.7 FPS, Medium-to-High is 48.4 FPS, and High-to-Ultra is 9.4 FPS. The High-to-Ultra gap is larger at 1080p than at higher resolutions, which indicates that the CPU starts to matter more when the GPU has spare capacity. The 1080p Ultra score of 132 FPS is still 72 FPS above the playable threshold, so there is no practical reason to choose a lower preset. The overall pattern across all resolutions is that this combo delivers between 76.9 and 233.5 FPS, with no preset or resolution falling below the 60 FPS target.

The Verdict

This PC can run Microsoft Flight Simulator at every resolution and preset tested, and it does so with substantial margin. At 3840x2160, the verdict is that Ultra is playable at 76.9 FPS, and all four settings — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra — clear the 60 FPS threshold. At 2560x1440, Ultra averages 107.8 FPS, which is near double the playable threshold, and all settings are similarly playable. At 1920x1080, Ultra runs at 132 FPS, and even the highest quality setting leaves 72 FPS of headroom above the 60 FPS line. The verdictByResolution data lists all four presets as playable at each resolution, with the best settings being Ultra everywhere. In practical terms, this means you can enable maximum visual quality at any resolution and never worry about frame drops below playability. The only caveat is that the data does not include minimum or maximum frame times, so transient stutters cannot be assessed, but the average FPS figures are uniformly high. For a flight simulator that often relies on steady frame pacing for smooth camera panning, these averages are reassuring.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run the game at 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the measured average frame rate is 76.9 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS playable threshold. All other presets at 4K also clear 60 FPS, with Low at 139 FPS, Medium at 106.5 FPS, and High at 80.2 FPS.

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p if I want the highest quality?

A: Ultra is the best choice, averaging 107.8 FPS at 2560x1440. The difference between High and Ultra is only 3.7 FPS (111.5 vs 107.8), so Ultra provides the full visual experience with negligible performance cost.

Q: How much faster is Low compared to Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low averages 233.5 FPS while Ultra averages 132 FPS, making Low approximately 77% faster. However, both are far above the 60 FPS threshold, so the speed advantage is irrelevant for playability.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more at 4K?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary limiter at 4K because the frame rate drops more steeply with resolution increases. From 1440p to 4K at Ultra, the average drops by 30.9 FPS, whereas from 1080p to 1440p it drops by 24.2 FPS, indicating growing GPU pressure as pixel count rises.

Q: Is this combo ranked among the best for this game?

A: This pairing ranks 58th out of 3,714 tested combos, placing it in the top 1.6% of all configurations. The CPU and GPU each sit in the 92nd and 94th percentile against all CPUs and GPUs respectively, though their nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are close, with deltas under 1.4%.

Q: Are there any settings where the game runs below 60 FPS?

A: No. Every resolution and preset combination in the measured data — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K — averages at least 76.9 FPS. The lowest recorded average is 76.9 FPS at 4K Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator, this pairing holds the 58th position out of 3,714 combos, which places it in the top 1.6% of all tested systems. This rank reflects the combined strength of the i7-14700KF and RTX 5090, though neither component is the absolute leader in its category. The CPU ranks in the 94th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 70163, and its nearest rival is the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K at 70879, which is 1% higher — a negligible margin. The GPU ranks in the 92nd percentile against all GPUs, with an average score of 79842, and its nearest rival is the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X at 80959, which is 1.4% higher. These small synthetic deltas do not translate into visible frame rate differences in this game, as the measured FPS data shows no resolution or preset where the combo struggles. The 58th rank out of 3,714 is impressive but not surprising given that the RTX 5090 is the flagship of its generation, and the i7-14700KF provides ample multi-threaded performance (a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44167) for the simulator’s CPU-heavy simulation logic. For context, the CPU’s nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, scores 69515 (0.9% lower), while the GPU’s nearest rival, the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB, scores 79605 (0.3% lower). These margins are within noise, so the rank is driven more by the overall platform balance than by any single component’s synthetic benchmark dominance. In practical terms, the 58th rank means that only 57 other tested combos deliver higher average frame rates in this specific game, and given the near-identical synthetic scores of the closest rivals, the real-world difference between this combo and those above it is likely minimal. The data confirms that this is a top-tier configuration for Microsoft Flight Simulator, with headroom to spare at every resolution.