Microsoft Flight Simulator

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and Intel Arc B570 combination delivers a narrowly playable experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, but only at lower resolutions and with significant settings compromises. The data shows a system that is clearly capable of running the game, yet is constrained by the GPU at higher resolutions, where the demanding flight simulator pushes the Arc B570 to its limits.

FAQ

Q: Is this combination capable of running Microsoft Flight Simulator at 60 FPS?

A: At 1080p, yes, with Low settings achieving 86 FPS and Medium hitting 67 FPS on average. At 1440p, only Low settings remain above the 60 FPS threshold, averaging 69 FPS. At 4K, no settings preset reaches the 60 FPS mark; the highest average is 51 FPS on Low.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B570 compare to its closest rivals in raw GPU performance?

A: The Arc B570’s average benchmark score of 20556 places it within 0.5% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534, deltaPct 0.1) and the Intel Arc A750 (20582, deltaPct -0.1). This indicates near-identical rasterization performance among these three GPUs.

Q: What is the best playable settings preset at 1440p for this combo?

A: The only preset that maintains an average above 60 FPS at 2560x1440 is Low, with an average of 69 FPS. The Medium preset falls to 54 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS playable threshold.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 has an average benchmark score of 48995, which is within 0.8% of the Intel Core i5-14600K (48618, deltaPct 0.8) and within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228, deltaPct -0.5). The data indicates very similar multi-threaded performance across these processors.

Q: What are the minimum FPS figures for the Medium preset at each resolution?

A: At 4K, the Medium preset shows a minimum FPS of 34. At 1440p, the minimum is 46 FPS. At 1080p, the minimum FPS is 57, which is still below the 60 FPS target but indicates a more stable experience than at higher resolutions.

Q: Where does this specific CPU/GPU combo rank among all tested combinations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 2988th out of 3714 total tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the lower portion of the benchmark database for this particular title.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data reveals a clear shift in system bottleneck depending on resolution. At 1920x1080, the Arc B570 is the primary limiting factor, as the CPU's strong single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4648) is sufficient to feed the GPU. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p is significant: average FPS drops from 86 to 48, a 44% reduction. This steep decline demonstrates that the GPU's compute and memory bandwidth (380.0 GB/s) are being saturated as settings increase.

At 2560x1440, the GPU's pressure intensifies. The average FPS at Medium drops to 54 from 67 at 1080p, a 19% decrease, while the Low preset only falls from 86 to 69 FPS, a 20% drop. This consistent reduction across settings suggests that the GPU is the dominant constraint here, with the CPU's 14 cores and 14 threads providing ample headroom. The Ultra preset at 1440p averages just 39 FPS, underscoring that the Arc B570’s 10 GB of GDDR6 memory and 160-bit bus are insufficient for this flight simulator's heavy draw calls and texture streaming at higher quality levels.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's limitations become absolute. Even the Low preset only manages an average of 51 FPS, which is below the playable threshold. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is a mere 23 FPS (51 to 28), indicating that the GPU is so heavily taxed that settings adjustments have diminishing returns. The CPU's role is minimal at this resolution; the data shows that the system is entirely GPU-bound, as the Core Ultra 5 245's performance percentile (90th vs all CPUs) far exceeds the GPU's (65th vs all GPUs). The CPU would not be the cause of frame rate drops at 4K, but rather the Arc B570's raw rendering capabilities.

Best Settings per Resolution

For a target of 60 FPS average, the data identifies the following best settings:

• 1920x1080: The Medium preset is the most demanding option that stays above 60 FPS, with an average of 67 FPS. The minimum FPS of 57 indicates occasional dips below the target, but the average remains playable. High settings fall to 50 FPS average, making them unsuitable for this target.
• 2560x1440: The Low preset is the only playable option, averaging 69 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 54 FPS average, failing the 60 FPS criterion.
• 3840x2160: No preset achieves a 60 FPS average. The best result is Low at 51 FPS, followed by Medium at 40 FPS. This resolution is not viable for smooth gameplay with this hardware.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Based on the nearestRivals data, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 behaves similarly to the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (avgScore 49196, deltaPct -0.4) and the Intel Core i5-14600K (avgScore 48618, deltaPct 0.8). In CPU-bound scenarios, these processors would deliver nearly identical frame rates, with the Core Ultra 5 245 sitting between these two in multi-threaded workloads. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900 is also within 0.5%, offering comparable performance for this game's physics and simulation logic.

For the GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (avgScore 20534, deltaPct 0.1) and the Intel Arc A750 (avgScore 20582, deltaPct -0.1) are the closest matches. A system with an Arc A750 would produce essentially the same FPS figures in Microsoft Flight Simulator as the Arc B570, given the negligible 0.1% benchmark delta. The NVIDIA Quadro M4000M and AMD Radeon R9 M390X are also listed as near equivalents, though these are older mobile parts that may lack modern driver optimizations; nevertheless, their raw scores indicate similar rendering throughput in this title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Core Ultra 5 245 and Arc B570 ranks 2988th out of 3714 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the bottom 20% of all tested systems, which is noteworthy given that the CPU is in the 90th percentile of all CPUs. The ranking is dragged down by the GPU's 65th percentile performance. This indicates that while the CPU is high-end, the GPU is a mid-range part, and the overall system is mismatched for a game as demanding as Microsoft Flight Simulator. The rank of 2988 suggests that most other tested combos—likely those with higher-tier GPUs—achieve better frame rates, particularly at higher resolutions.

The Verdict

Based on the verdictByResolution data, this PC can run Microsoft Flight Simulator, but with clear limitations. At 1920x1080, the system is playable at Low (86 FPS) and Medium (67 FPS) settings. At 2560x1440, only Low settings (69 FPS) clear the 60 FPS threshold. At 3840x2160, the system is not playable, as no settings preset reaches 60 FPS; the best average is 51 FPS on Low. The data indicates that users should target 1080p or 1440p with reduced settings for a smooth experience. The 4K resolution is not viable for this hardware pairing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

3840x2160

• Ultra: Average 28 FPS. No min/max data available.
• High: Average 30 FPS. No min/max data available.
• Medium: Average 40 FPS, with a minimum of 34 FPS and a maximum of 46 FPS.
• Low: Average 51 FPS. No min/max data available.

2560x1440

• Ultra: Average 39 FPS. No min/max data available.
• High: Average 41 FPS. No min/max data available.
• Medium: Average 54 FPS, with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 62 FPS.
• Low: Average 69 FPS. No min/max data available.

1920x1080

• Ultra: Average 48 FPS. No min/max data available.
• High: Average 50 FPS. No min/max data available.
• Medium: Average 67 FPS, with a minimum of 57 FPS and a maximum of 77 FPS.
• Low: Average 86 FPS. No min/max data available.

The frame time consistency, where recorded, shows that the Medium preset at 1080p has a 20 FPS spread between minimum and maximum, while at 1440p the spread narrows to 16 FPS. At 4K, the spread is 12 FPS. This suggests that as resolution increases, the frame rate becomes more stable but consistently lower, further confirming the GPU-bound nature of the system at higher resolutions. The data does not include min/max values for Low, High, or Ultra presets, indicating that only Medium was measured for variance.