Microsoft Flight Simulator

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT lands at rank 674 out of 1795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the configuration in the upper-middle tier of all tested systems, outperforming roughly 62% of the field. The ranking reflects a balanced pairing where neither component dramatically bottlenecks the other, though the data shows the GPU is doing most of the heavy lifting at higher resolutions. In the broader context, the CPU sits at the 76th percentile among all processors, and the GPU also holds the 76th percentile among all graphics cards, suggesting a well-matched duo in terms of relative capability. The combination's position is not near the top of the leaderboard, but it is comfortably ahead of the median tested setup, indicating a system that can handle the game's demanding simulation workload without falling into the lower performance tiers.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7800 XT brings 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory capacity is particularly relevant for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is known for streaming large amounts of terrain and aircraft detail data. The GPU's clock behavior shows a base of 1295 MHz, a game clock of 2124 MHz, and a boost clock of 2430 MHz, with memory running at 2438 MHz (19.5 Gbps effective). These specifications translate into a pixel rate of 233.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 583.2 GTexel/s, figures that support the frame rates observed in the measured data. The GPU's RDNA 3.0 architecture with 3840 shading units and 96 ROPs provides the raw throughput needed for the game's complex rendering of landscapes and cockpits. In the benchmark results, the GPU's PassMark G3D score of 24176 and its 76th percentile standing among all GPUs indicate solid mid-to-high-range performance. The nearest rivals in the database—such as the AMD FirePro S9300 X2 with a 0.2% higher average score and the NVIDIA P104-100 with a 0.4% lower score—show that this GPU sits in a tightly contested performance band where small differences separate competitors.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of diminishing returns as resolution increases, with the most substantial drops occurring between 1080p and 4K. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 135.4 FPS at 1920x1080 to 115.7 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 83.6 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 38% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings. The scaling is similar but slightly less severe at higher presets: at High settings, the average drops from 83.6 FPS at 1080p to 68.8 FPS at 1440p, then to 50.9 FPS at 4K, a 39% decline overall. The Ultra preset shows the smallest relative drop, going from 83.2 FPS at 1080p to 66 FPS at 1440p and finally 51.1 FPS at 4K, a 39% decrease as well. The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the limiting factor shifts gradually from the CPU at 1080p to the GPU at 4K. The relatively modest FPS reduction from 1440p to 4K (around 20-25%) compared to the 1080p to 1440p drop (around 15-20%) indicates that the GPU still has headroom at higher resolutions, while the CPU becomes more relevant at lower resolutions where frame rates are higher.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combination delivers 135.4 FPS on Low, 112.5 FPS on Medium, 83.6 FPS on High, and 83.2 FPS on Ultra. The small gap between High and Ultra (0.4 FPS) is notable, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional visual effects do not meaningfully tax this hardware at 1080p, or that the CPU is beginning to limit performance at these higher frame rates. Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 115.7 FPS on Low, 94.5 FPS on Medium, 68.8 FPS on High, and 66 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p results show a wider spread between presets, with Low being 75% faster than Ultra, indicating that the GPU is becoming more of a factor. At 3840x2160, the figures are 83.6 FPS on Low, 69.8 FPS on Medium, 50.9 FPS on High, and 51.1 FPS on Ultra. Interestingly, at 4K the Ultra preset (51.1 FPS) slightly edges out High (50.9 FPS) by 0.2 FPS, which is within measurement noise but suggests that the High and Ultra presets are essentially equivalent at this resolution, both being constrained by the GPU's rendering limits. The 4K Low setting at 83.6 FPS matches the 1080p High setting exactly, showing how resolution and settings trade off against each other.

Settings Recommendations

The data points to the High preset at 2560x1440 as the most balanced choice for this hardware, delivering 68.8 FPS while maintaining visual quality above the Medium tier. For users prioritizing smoothness over fidelity, the Medium preset at 1440p provides 94.5 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold and represents a 37% improvement over High. At 4K, the situation is more constrained: High and Ultra both hover around 51 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a flight simulator where smooth panning matters. The Low preset at 4K, at 83.6 FPS, offers a very playable experience but sacrifices significant visual detail. For 1080p users, the Medium preset at 112.5 FPS appears to be the sweet spot, as stepping up to High (83.6 FPS) or Ultra (83.2 FPS) provides only marginal visual gains for a 26% performance hit. The near-identical performance between High and Ultra at both 1080p and 4K suggests that the game's Ultra preset includes effects that this GPU handles with minimal additional cost, making Ultra a viable choice when frame rates are already acceptable.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 contributes 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its Zen 2 architecture on the 7 nm process provides a 32 MB shared L3 cache, which is relevant for the game's streaming workloads. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU scores 15045 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 2124 in single-core, with a PassMark single-thread score of 2562 and a multithread score of 17700. These figures place it at the 76th percentile among all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core i5-11400 (0.1% higher average score) and the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (0.2% lower). The CPU's role in this game becomes apparent when examining the FPS scaling: at 1080p Low, the system reaches 135.4 FPS, which is high enough that the CPU's single-thread performance likely becomes a limiting factor, preventing higher frame rates. However, the data shows that even at 1080p Ultra (83.2 FPS), the CPU is not severely bottlenecking, as the GPU can still push frame rates above 80 FPS. The 3dmark single-thread score of 696 and 2-thread score of 1361 indicate modest per-core performance, which is adequate for this game's simulation logic but not exceptional. The CPU's 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are standard for the platform, and the 3,800 million transistors on a 74 mm² die demonstrate efficient use of the process node.