Microsoft Flight Simulator

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The measured frame rates for Microsoft Flight Simulator with this AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination reveal a clear hierarchy across presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 118.8 FPS average, while Medium drops to 107.3 FPS and High falls to 80.9 FPS. The Ultra preset yields 75 FPS at this resolution. The gap between Low and Medium is 11.5 FPS, while the drop from Medium to High is 26.4 FPS, indicating that the High preset introduces a substantial rendering cost relative to its visual uplift.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. Low produces 105.9 FPS, Medium 83.6 FPS, and both High and Ultra plateau at 61.5 FPS. This identical result for High and Ultra suggests that at this resolution, the combination becomes constrained by another factor—likely the CPU's ability to feed the GPU in a flight simulator with heavy world-streaming workloads. The 22.3 FPS difference between Low and Medium at 1440p is notable, but the lack of any measurable difference between High and Ultra points to a bottleneck that is not purely GPU-bound.

At 3840x2160, Low yields 76.3 FPS, Medium 60.3 FPS, and High 45.1 FPS, while Ultra produces 45.7 FPS. Interestingly, Ultra is slightly faster than High at 4K, which is within measurement noise but indicates that the game's Ultra preset does not always impose a strictly higher load than High in this configuration. The best experience per the measured rows appears to be the Medium preset at 1080p or 1440p: it maintains 107.3 and 83.6 FPS respectively, offering a balance that avoids the steep falloff seen when moving to High. For users targeting 60 FPS, Medium at 4K also achieves 60.3 FPS, making it the only 4K preset that clears that threshold.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific CPU-GPU pairing holds a combo rank of 835 out of 1795 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. That places it in the upper-middle portion of the distribution, just past the halfway point of the database. Given that the RTX 3070 sits at the 72nd percentile among all GPUs and the Ryzen 5 2600 at the 77th percentile among all CPUs, the combo's rank is somewhat lower than either component's individual standing suggests. This discrepancy indicates that the pairing does not scale as effectively in this title as its component-level percentiles might imply.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the Intel Core i5-1345U with an average score of 19691 (0.4% higher), the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U at 19508 (0.6% lower), the Intel Core i5-11600KF at 19740 (0.6% higher), and the Intel Core i7-10700F at 19485 (0.7% lower). These deltas are all within a single percentage point, meaning the Ryzen 5 2600's computational throughput is essentially matched by a range of mobile and desktop parts from newer generations. For a flight simulator that relies heavily on single-threaded performance for flight dynamics and scenery loading, this tight grouping suggests the 2600 is not a differentiator.

On the GPU side, the RTX 3070's nearest rivals include the AMD FirePro S7150 (28409, 0.6% higher), the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (27985, 0.9% lower), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (27956, 1.0% lower), and the AMD Radeon R9 M295X (28541, 1.1% higher). The fact that a GTX 980 Ti and an R9 M295X are within roughly one percent of the RTX 3070's average benchmark score is notable—it suggests that in this game's specific rendering paths, the 3070's architectural advantages are not fully realized, or that the CPU pairing holds back the GPU's potential.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Its base clock is 1500 MHz with a boost clock of 1725 MHz. The card's memory operates at 1750 MHz, which translates to 14 Gbps effective. For Microsoft Flight Simulator, which streams terrain and photogrammetry data continuously, memory bandwidth and capacity are critical. The 448.0 GB/s figure is substantial, but the 8 GB capacity may become a limiting factor at higher resolutions and presets where the game's texture pools expand.

The GPU's 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs provide a raw compute foundation that is more than capable for most titles. Its 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores are present, though Microsoft Flight Simulator's use of these features is not reflected in the measured FPS rows. The card's pixel rate of 165.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 317.4 GTexel/s indicate strong fill rates, but the measured FPS data shows that at 4K Ultra, the combination only achieves 45.7 FPS—suggesting that either the CPU cannot feed the GPU fast enough, or the game's draw calls are not scaling with the GPU's theoretical throughput.

The RTX 3070's average benchmark score is 28238, placing it at the 72nd percentile of all GPUs. Its DirectX 12 PassMark score is 85, which is low relative to its other scores—a sign that the card's DX12 performance in synthetic tests may not translate directly to this game's engine. The Vulkan score of 120664 and OpenCL score of 123479 are much higher, but Microsoft Flight Simulator primarily uses DirectX, which could explain why the measured FPS at 4K High (45.1) and Ultra (45.7) are so close—the game may be hitting a DirectX-level bottleneck that the GPU's raw compute cannot overcome.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 60 FPS at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Medium preset achieves 83.6 FPS, while High and Ultra both cap at 61.5 FPS. Medium is the only preset that exceeds 60 FPS with significant headroom.

Q: Does the Ultra preset provide any benefit over High at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Ultra yields 45.7 FPS while High produces 45.1 FPS—a difference of 0.6 FPS, which is within measurement noise. The two presets are effectively identical in performance.

Q: How does this combo rank relative to all tested combinations?

A: This pairing ranks 835th out of 1795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the 46th percentile of all tested configurations.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p Low?

A: At 1920x1080 Low, the combination reaches 118.8 FPS. Given that the RTX 3070's average benchmark score is 28238, the CPU's synthetic average of 19616 is the lower component, and the tight grouping of its rivals (all within 0.7%) suggests the Ryzen 5 2600 is the binding constraint at low settings.

Q: What is the FPS difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, 1080p yields 80.9 FPS, 1440p yields 61.5 FPS, and 4K yields 45.1 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 35.8 FPS, or a 44.3% reduction.

Q: Are there any settings where Ultra is slower than High?

A: At 1080p, Ultra is 5.9 FPS slower than High (75 vs 80.9). At 1440p, they are identical at 61.5 FPS. At 4K, Ultra is slightly faster at 45.7 vs 45.1 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression across resolutions at each preset reveals how this combination scales under increasing pixel loads. At Low settings, the average FPS moves from 118.8 at 1080p to 105.9 at 1440p (-12.9 FPS, -10.9%) and then to 76.3 at 4K (-29.6 FPS from 1440p, -27.9%). This indicates that at Low, the GPU is not the primary bottleneck until 4K, since the drop from 1080p to 1440p is modest, but the jump to 4K introduces a significant pixel-throughput cost.

At Medium settings, the progression is 107.3 FPS at 1080p, 83.6 at 1440p (-23.7 FPS, -22.1%), and 60.3 at 4K (-23.3 FPS from 1440p, -27.9%). The consistent percentage drop between each resolution step suggests a more balanced scaling curve, where both CPU and GPU are being taxed in tandem. The fact that Medium at 4K (60.3 FPS) is almost exactly half of Low at 1080p (118.8) is a coincidence, but it underscores the linearity of the scaling.

At High settings, the pattern changes: 80.9 FPS at 1080p, 61.5 at 1440p (-19.4 FPS, -24.0%), and 45.1 at 4K (-16.4 FPS from 1440p, -26.7%). The smaller absolute drop from 1440p to 4K compared to 1080p to 1440p suggests that at High, the CPU is becoming more influential—the GPU is not fully saturated until 4K, at which point the card's 8 GB memory and 448 GB/s bandwidth start to matter. Ultra follows a similar shape: 75 FPS at 1080p, 61.5 at 1440p (-13.5 FPS, -18.0%), and 45.7 at 4K (-15.8 FPS from 1440p, -25.7%).

The data indicates that the limiting component shifts depending on settings. At Low and Medium, the Ryzen 5 2600's six cores and twelve threads are the primary constraint, as evidenced by the relatively flat scaling from 1080p to 1440p. At High and Ultra, the GPU's workload increases, and the RTX 3070 begins to show its capacity limits at 4K, where the FPS converges to the 45-46 range regardless of whether High or Ultra is selected. The consistent 4K ceiling across High and Ultra, combined with the identical 61.5 FPS at 1440p for both presets, points to a scenario where the game engine's draw call submission from the CPU caps the frame rate before the GPU's pixel pipeline is fully loaded.