Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT combination delivers a playable, if not always fluid, experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The measured data shows a clear hierarchy across settings, with the Ultra preset proving too demanding for consistent frame rates at higher resolutions. The sweet spot for this configuration is the High preset at 1440p, where the balance between visual fidelity and performance is optimal.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results indicate that the High preset offers the most balanced experience for this hardware pairing. At 1920x1080, High yields an average of 62.7 FPS, which is smooth enough for most flight scenarios, though not quite reaching the 60 FPS threshold at 4K where it drops to 34.1 FPS. The Medium preset provides a substantial performance uplift—83.2 FPS at 1080p and 65.8 FPS at 1440p—making it the recommended choice for users prioritizing frame rate stability over maximum visual detail.

For those with 1440p displays, High is the definitive recommendation. The 46.7 FPS average is respectable for a simulation title, and the step down to Medium (65.8 FPS) offers a 40.9% improvement in frame rate, though at a noticeable visual cost. At 4K, the data becomes more problematic: High (34.1 FPS) and Ultra (35.3 FPS) are nearly identical in performance, suggesting a hard bottleneck that additional graphical settings cannot overcome. Low at 4K (60.1 FPS) is the only preset that approaches smoothness, but the visual compromise is substantial.

The Low preset, while delivering 105.8 FPS at 1080p and 81.3 FPS at 1440p, is best reserved for competitive or streaming scenarios where frame rate is paramount. The measured data shows that the jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 22.6 FPS (from 105.8 to 83.2 FPS), a 21.4% reduction, which is a significant trade-off for moderate visual gains. Ultimately, the High preset at 1440p is the best overall experience, providing a 62.7 FPS-like experience at 1080p and a respectable 46.7 FPS at 1440p without the severe performance penalties seen at 4K.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivers 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is sufficient for the texture loads in Microsoft Flight Simulator at 1080p and 1440p, as evidenced by the smooth scaling between Low and High presets. The GPU's boost clock of 2635 MHz and game clock of 2410 MHz, combined with 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs, provide the raw compute throughput needed for the game's complex terrain rendering.

The pixel rate of 168.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 337.3 GTexel/s directly influence how the simulator fills the screen with ground details and cockpit instrumentation. At 4K, however, the GPU becomes the limiting factor. The difference between High (34.1 FPS) and Ultra (35.3 FPS) at 3840x2160 is negligible, indicating that the GPU is saturated and cannot benefit from additional detail settings. This is further confirmed by the 4K Low result of 60.1 FPS, which, while playable, represents a 43.3% drop from the 105.8 FPS seen at 1080p Low.

The GPU's RDNA 2.0 architecture and DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) allow it to handle the simulator's advanced rendering features, but the 8 GB VRAM capacity may become a constraint with high-resolution texture packs. The measured data suggests that the RX 6650 XT is well-matched for 1440p High settings, delivering a 46.7 FPS average, but it is not capable of sustaining 4K gaming at anything above Low settings without falling below the 40 FPS threshold.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600, a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, provides the computational backbone for the simulator's complex flight physics and AI traffic. With a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, this CPU delivers strong single-thread performance—crucial for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which relies heavily on a few primary threads for core simulation logic. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2124 and multi-core score of 15045 underscore its capability in both lightly-threaded and fully-threaded workloads.

The CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps maintain data locality for the large world-streaming datasets the game requires. In the measured results, the CPU does not appear to be the primary bottleneck at 1080p, where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor—the jump from Low (105.8 FPS) to Ultra (56.4 FPS) at 1080p shows a 46.7% reduction that is consistent with GPU-bound scaling. However, at 1440p and 4K, the CPU's influence diminishes further, as the GPU becomes increasingly saturated.

The Ryzen 5 3600's 3dmark single-thread score of 696 and 2-thread score of 1361 indicate that it can handle the game's primary simulation thread without choking, even when the GPU is pushing 60+ FPS at 1080p Low. The 12 threads available via SMT also allow the CPU to manage background tasks like terrain loading and AI aircraft calculations without impacting main-thread performance. The processor's 65W TDP and DDR4-3200 support (51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth) provide adequate system-level throughput for the simulator's streaming requirements.

FAQ

Q: What is the best setting preset for a 60 FPS experience at 1080p?

A: The High preset delivers an average of 62.7 FPS at 1920x1080, which is the only preset above High that achieves this target. Medium and Low are also above 60 FPS (83.2 and 105.8 FPS respectively), but High offers the best visual quality while maintaining a 60+ FPS average.

Q: How does this combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the High preset yields 34.1 FPS, Ultra 35.3 FPS, and Medium 44.9 FPS. Only the Low preset achieves a playable average of 60.1 FPS at 4K, indicating that this hardware is not suited for high-fidelity 4K flight simulation.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data shows the GPU is the primary bottleneck. At 1080p, the FPS scales dramatically with graphics settings (105.8 FPS Low to 56.4 FPS Ultra), which is classic GPU-bound behavior. The CPU's strong single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2124) is sufficient to feed the GPU.

Q: How does the RX 6650 XT compare to its nearest rivals in overall GPU benchmarks?

A: The RX 6650 XT's average benchmark score of 29024 is virtually identical to the AMD Radeon RX 6800M (deltaPct of 0%) and only 0.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 470. It trails the Intel Arc A370M by 0.5% and the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH by 0.6% in aggregate scores.

Q: What is the performance difference between the High and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset averages 46.7 FPS while Ultra averages 49.7 FPS. The 3 FPS difference (6.4% improvement) from High to Ultra is minor, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional effects have minimal impact on this hardware.

Q: Should I use the Medium preset for smoother gameplay?

A: If frame rate is your priority, Medium at 1440p provides 65.8 FPS, which is 41% higher than High's 46.7 FPS. At 1080p, Medium offers 83.2 FPS versus High's 62.7 FPS. The data supports Medium as the best option for fluid gameplay, while High is better for visual quality.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p High, the combo achieves 62.7 FPS; stepping to 1440p High drops this to 46.7 FPS (a 25.5% reduction); and at 4K High, the frame rate falls to 34.1 FPS (a 45.6% reduction from 1080p). This scaling is consistent with the GPU's 128-bit memory bus and 8 GB VRAM capacity, which struggle to maintain bandwidth at higher pixel counts.

The Low preset shows the least severe scaling: 105.8 FPS at 1080p, 81.3 FPS at 1440p (23.2% drop), and 60.1 FPS at 4K (43.2% drop from 1080p). This indicates that even at minimal settings, the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors rather than the CPU. The CPU's role is confirmed by the fact that the relative drop from 1440p to 4K (26.1% for Low, 27.0% for High) is nearly identical across settings, suggesting a consistent GPU-side bottleneck.

The Ultra preset exhibits the most interesting behavior: 56.4 FPS at 1080p, 49.7 FPS at 1440p (11.9% drop), and 35.3 FPS at 4K (37.4% drop from 1080p). The relatively small drop from 1080p to 1440p suggests that the CPU may be providing some bottleneck relief at lower resolutions when the GPU is heavily loaded with Ultra effects. However, the severe 4K drop confirms that the RX 6650 XT's 280.3 GB/s bandwidth is insufficient for ultra-high-resolution rendering. Overall, the data points to the GPU as the primary limiter across all resolutions, with the CPU's strong single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 696) ensuring it never becomes the constraining factor.