Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and AMD Radeon RX 6600 pairing delivers a measured performance profile in Microsoft Flight Simulator that reflects the strengths and limits of both components. The data, captured across three resolutions and four quality presets, shows a system that can handle 1080p comfortably but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K. This analysis breaks down the resolution scaling, the roles of the CPU and GPU, and how this pairing ranks against other tested combos.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS values show a clear and consistent drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 91.5 at 1080p to 75.5 at 1440p and then to 55.9 at 4K. Medium settings follow a similar pattern: 71.9 at 1080p, 58.6 at 1440p, and 40.1 at 4K. High settings start at 56.6 at 1080p, drop to 42 at 1440p, and reach 29.4 at 4K. Ultra settings produce 48.5 at 1080p, 39.6 at 1440p, and exactly 30 at 4K.

The scaling pattern indicates that the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor as resolution climbs. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 91.5 FPS, suggesting the CPU can feed the GPU adequately at that resolution. But at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 30, a figure that is only 33% of the 1080p Low result. The gap between Low and Ultra settings also narrows at higher resolutions: at 1080p, the difference is 43 FPS (91.5 vs 48.5), while at 4K it is 25.9 FPS (55.9 vs 30). This compression of performance across quality presets at 4K points to the GPU's rendering capacity being saturated, rather than the CPU's processing power.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 2000 series, built on the Zen architecture and manufactured on a 12 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 3.90 GHz, with 16 MB of shared L3 cache. Its launch MSRP was $199. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 11186 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1579 in single-core. Its average benchmark score across all tests is 19616, placing it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs.

The CPU's nearest rivals, based on average benchmark score, include the Intel Core i5-1345U (delta -0.4%), AMD Ryzen 5 7530U (0.6%), Intel Core i5-11600KF (-0.6%), and Intel Core i7-10700F (0.7%). These deltas are all within 0.7%, meaning the Ryzen 5 2600 performs essentially on par with those processors in aggregate. The single-core score of 1579 is modest, and the multi-core score of 11186 reflects the 6-core/12-thread configuration.

In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's single-thread performance is likely a factor at lower resolutions where the GPU is less stressed. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 91.5 FPS, which suggests the CPU can keep up with the GPU's output at that setting. However, at 4K, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the CPU's role diminishes. The data does not show a CPU-induced frame rate ceiling at any resolution, as the FPS scales consistently with resolution changes.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is a RDNA 2.0 architecture GPU with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1626 MHz, boost clock is 2491 MHz, and game clock is 2044 MHz. The memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The GPU has 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 159.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 279.0 GTexel/s. Its FP32 compute is 8.928 TFLOPS. The launch MSRP was 329 USD.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RX 6600 scores 1492 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 15096 in Passmark G3D, and 6554 in Passmark GPU Compute. Its average benchmark score is 25235, placing it in the 69th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 890M (delta 0%), AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP (-0.2%), AMD Radeon RX 6700M (0.2%), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (0.5%). These deltas are all within 0.5%, indicating that the RX 6600's aggregate performance is nearly identical to those cards.

The GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are key specifications for this game's texture streaming and rendering workload. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 30, which is the lowest recorded in the dataset. The GPU's compute throughput of 8.928 TFLOPS is likely the limiting factor at high resolutions, as the FPS drops sharply from 1080p to 4K across all settings. The memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s may also constrain performance when large textures are loaded at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 2600 and RX 6600 ranks 1472 out of 1795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the pairing in the lower portion of the database, closer to the bottom than the top. The rank is consistent with the measured FPS: at 1080p, the system delivers playable frame rates (56.6 FPS at High, 48.5 at Ultra), but at 4K, all settings produce average FPS below 60, with High at 29.4 and Ultra at 30. The combo's position in the 1472nd spot out of 1795 indicates that many other CPU-GPU pairings achieve higher performance in this game, likely due to stronger single-thread CPU performance or more powerful GPUs.

The CPU's 77th percentile and GPU's 69th percentile individually suggest mid-range components, but their combined rank in this specific game is lower, reflecting the demanding nature of the simulation. The data shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, while the CPU's modest single-core score may limit performance at lower resolutions. Overall, this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can maintain playable frame rates across all quality presets.

FAQ

Q: What is the CPU's boost clock?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 has a boost clock of 3.90 GHz.

Q: How much VRAM does the GPU have?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory.

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p Ultra?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 48.5.

Q: What is the combo's rank in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The combo ranks 1472 out of 1795 tested combinations.

Q: What is the GPU's memory bandwidth?

A: The RX 6600 has a memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s.

Q: What is the CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score?

A: The Ryzen 5 2600 scores 11186 in Cinebench R23 multi-core.