Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 paired with the Intel Arc B570 delivers a playable but constrained experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with the data showing a clear pattern: this combination is consistently bottlenecked by the CPU at lower resolutions and by the GPU at higher ones. The combo ranks in the 2406th position out of 2996 tested configurations, placing it in the lower tier of systems, yet the measured frame rates reveal that a balanced set of settings can still yield a smooth flight experience.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior of this combo is the most telling indicator of its performance profile. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS drops by a predictable margin, but the real story emerges when moving to 4K. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces 86 FPS, which is the highest score across all tests. Dropping to 1440p Low reduces that to 69 FPS, and at 4K Low the average falls to 51 FPS. This progression shows a scaling pattern where the GPU is gradually becoming the limiting factor as pixel count increases.

The transition from 1440p to 4K is particularly steep. At Medium settings, the average FPS goes from 54 at 1440p down to 40 at 4K, a drop of 14 FPS. For High settings, the 1440p average of 41 FPS falls to 30 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset tells a similar story, with 39 FPS at 1440p dropping to 28 FPS at 4K. These numbers indicate that at 4K, the Intel Arc B570 is working near its limits, while at 1080p there is headroom that suggests the CPU is the constraining element.

The scaling efficiency between 1080p and 1440p is roughly linear, with about a 20% reduction in average FPS across most settings. However, the jump from 1440p to 4K shows a more dramatic decline of roughly 25-30%, which points to the GPU's 10 GB of memory and 160-bit bus width becoming a limiting factor at higher resolutions. The data suggests that this combination is best suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming, where the FPS remains within a reasonable range for a flight simulator, rather than 4K, where even Medium settings only yield 40 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 28 FPS confirms that this resolution is not viable for a smooth experience, making the 1440p Medium setting the sensible ceiling for this hardware pairing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy for settings selection, with the Medium preset emerging as the optimal balance between visual quality and performance. At 1080p Medium, the system delivers an average of 67 FPS with a minimum of 57 FPS and a maximum of 77 FPS. This is a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold that is often considered desirable, and the minimum frame rate is still respectable enough to avoid major stutters during complex flight scenes.

At 1440p, the Medium preset yields 54 FPS on average with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 62 FPS. While this is below the 60 FPS average mark, the minimum of 46 FPS is still within a playable range for a flight simulator, which is less demanding on frame rate consistency than fast-paced action games. The 4K Medium result of 40 FPS average with a minimum of 34 FPS is borderline, but likely acceptable for players who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate smoothness.

The High preset offers a modest improvement in visual quality but at a significant performance cost. At 1080p High, the average FPS drops to 50, which is a 25% reduction compared to Medium. At 1440p High, the average falls to 41 FPS, and at 4K High it drops to 30 FPS. The Ultra preset is even more punishing, with 1080p Ultra at 48 FPS, 1440p Ultra at 39 FPS, and 4K Ultra at 28 FPS. These numbers indicate that the visual gains from High to Ultra are not worth the frame rate penalty, especially considering that the Ultra preset only provides a 2 FPS improvement over High at 1080p.

The Low preset, while delivering the highest frame rates, sacrifices too much visual detail for a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator, where terrain and cockpit readability are important. With 86 FPS at 1080p Low, 69 FPS at 1440p Low, and 51 FPS at 4K Low, this setting is only recommended for players who prioritize frame rate above all else. The data strongly supports the Medium preset as the default recommendation for this combo, as it provides the best overall experience across all resolutions, with the 1080p Medium setting being the sweet spot.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 plays a critical role in this combination, particularly at higher resolutions where its specifications become the defining factor for performance. The GPU features 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but the 4K results suggest that the memory subsystem is stretched thin, contributing to the significant FPS drops observed at that resolution.

The GPU's clock speeds are fixed at a base and boost of 2500 MHz, which is a relatively high operating frequency for a mid-range card. The shading units count of 2304, along with 144 texture mapping units and 80 render output units, gives the card a theoretical pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s. These specifications translate to a FP32 performance of 11.52 TFLOPS, which is competitive in its class, as evidenced by its percentile ranking of 65 against all GPUs and an average benchmark score of 20556.

The GPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile with a score of 20534 and a delta of 0.1%, as well as the Intel Arc A750 with a score of 20582 and a delta of -0.1%. This places the B570 in a narrow performance band, where it is statistically tied with these competitors. However, in Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically, the measured FPS results show that the GPU's performance is heavily influenced by the CPU pairing, as the Ryzen 5 2600 may not be able to feed the GPU enough data at lower resolutions.

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2649 and the Geekbench Vulkan score of 96844 provide additional context for the GPU's raw compute capabilities. These scores are respectable but not exceptional, and they align with the observed FPS results in the game. The GPU's 18 ray tracing cores are present, but the game's performance at Ultra settings suggests that ray tracing features are not the primary bottleneck, as the frame rate drops are consistent across all settings tiers. The 150 W TDP and dual-slot design indicate a card that is power-efficient, but the 4K performance gap highlights the limits of its memory bandwidth and capacity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of how this combo performs across all tested configurations. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 28 FPS, which is the lowest score in the entire dataset. The High preset at 4K yields 30 FPS, while the Medium preset improves to 40 FPS with a minimum of 34 FPS and a maximum of 46 FPS. The Low preset at 4K reaches 51 FPS, which is the only 4K configuration that approaches playable territory.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results show a significant improvement across all settings. The Ultra preset averages 39 FPS, the High preset averages 41 FPS, and the Medium preset averages 54 FPS with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 62 FPS. The Low preset at 1440p achieves 69 FPS, which is a strong result that indicates the GPU can handle this resolution well when the visual load is reduced.

At 1920x1080, the combo reaches its performance peak. The Ultra preset delivers 48 FPS, the High preset delivers 50 FPS, and the Medium preset delivers 67 FPS with a minimum of 57 FPS and a maximum of 77 FPS. The Low preset at 1080p achieves 86 FPS, which is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combination. The spread between the lowest and highest settings at 1080p is 38 FPS, demonstrating that the CPU and GPU combination has a wide performance range depending on the graphical load.

The data shows a consistent pattern where the difference between Medium and High settings is larger than the difference between High and Ultra. For example, at 1080p, the gap between Medium and High is 17 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 2 FPS. This suggests that the High preset is not efficiently utilizing the GPU's resources, and players would be better served by either sticking with Medium or dropping to Low for a substantial frame rate boost.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 2406 out of 2996 tested configurations places this system in the bottom 20% of all tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This ranking is a reflection of both the CPU and GPU's individual performance levels, as well as their synergy in this specific game. The Ryzen 5 2600 has a percentile ranking of 75 against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 21484, which indicates it is a mid-range processor that is showing its age in a demanding simulation title.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 65 against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20556, shows that the Arc B570 is a competent mid-range card. However, when paired with the Ryzen 5 2600, the combination does not achieve the sum of its parts. The rank of 2406 suggests that many other combinations of CPUs and GPUs are better suited for this game, likely because Microsoft Flight Simulator is highly CPU-intensive, and the Ryzen 5 2600's six cores and twelve threads at a boost clock of 3.90 GHz are not sufficient to maintain high frame rates alongside the GPU.

The nearest CPU rivals in benchmark scores include the Intel Core Ultra 5 228V with a delta of 0.2% and the Intel Core i9-11900H with a delta of 0.5%, both of which are newer architectures. The AMD EPYC 9454 is also close with a delta of 1.2%, but its server-oriented design would not be a typical choice for gaming. The fact that the Ryzen 5 2600 is competitive with these newer parts in synthetic benchmarks is notable, but in the real-world game data, the CPU's limitations are more apparent. The combo's low rank is a clear indicator that for an optimal experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, a more modern CPU with higher single-thread performance would be necessary.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 is a six-core, twelve-thread processor based on the Zen architecture, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 3.90 GHz. The CPU has a 16 MB shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory in a dual-channel configuration with a bandwidth of 46.9 GB/s. These specifications are from the 2000 series generation, which was released in 2018, and the data suggests that this processor is the primary limiting factor in this game combination.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is critical because the game's simulation logic, including flight physics and AI traffic, is heavily reliant on single-thread performance. The Ryzen 5 2600's passmark single-thread score of 2239 and its geekbench single-core score of 1154 are modest figures, and they directly impact the maximum achievable frame rates. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system produces 86 FPS, but at 1080p Ultra, it only produces 48 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is not the bottleneck at lower settings, but rather the CPU's ability to process the game's simulation loop.

The CPU's multicore performance is more robust, with a passmark multithread score of 13160 and a geekbench multicore score of 5648. However, Microsoft Flight Simulator does not scale well with additional cores beyond a certain point, and the CPU's six cores are sufficient for the game's threading model. The cinebench R15 multicore score of 1248 and single-core score of 157.3 further illustrate the CPU's capabilities, with the single-core result being particularly relevant for this game.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and 12 nm process node indicate a power-efficient design, but the architecture is several generations behind current offerings. The nearest rivals in benchmark scores, such as the Intel Core i9-11900H with a delta of 0.5%, show that the Ryzen 5 2600 is not significantly slower in synthetic tests, but the real-world game data reveals a more complex picture. The combination of the CPU's single-thread performance and the GPU's memory bandwidth creates a situation where frame rates are capped at around 86 FPS at 1080p Low, and this ceiling prevents the system from fully utilizing the GPU's potential at higher settings. For players seeking higher frame rates, upgrading the CPU would provide a more significant benefit than upgrading the GPU, based on the measured data.