Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator reveals a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases, but with some interesting nuances that point to where the bottleneck shifts. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination delivers 135.8 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same Low preset drops that to 108.3 FPS, a reduction of roughly 20%. At 3840x2160 Low, the average falls further to 78.4 FPS, which is about 42% below the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU is still the primary driver of performance, though the CPU has enough headroom to keep frame rates high at lower resolutions.

The High preset tells a more revealing story about the limiting component. At 1080p High, the system produces 76.5 FPS. At 1440p High, that drops to 65.2 FPS, a 15% decrease. At 4K High, the average is 48.7 FPS, which is 36% below the 1080p result. The relatively modest drop from 1080p to 1440p at High settings suggests that the CPU is starting to become a factor at lower resolutions, as the GPU has more capacity than the processor can feed. However, the sharper decline from 1440p to 4K indicates that the RTX 3070's rendering load becomes the dominant constraint at higher pixel counts.

Ultra settings exhibit the most dramatic resolution scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the system manages 76 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it falls to 59.1 FPS, a 22% reduction. At 4K Ultra, the average drops to 46.7 FPS, which is 39% below the 1080p figure. The gap between 1080p High and 1080p Ultra is minimal—just 0.5 FPS—which strongly suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is the limiting factor. The Ryzen 5 3600, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, appears to cap performance around the mid-70s FPS range regardless of whether the game runs at High or Ultra settings at this resolution.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data provides clear guidance for optimizing the experience across different resolutions. At 1080p, the jump from Low to Medium yields a significant improvement: from 135.8 FPS to 105.1 FPS, which is a 23% performance cost for substantially better visual quality. However, the step from Medium to High costs another 27% (105.1 to 76.5 FPS), and the step from High to Ultra costs virtually nothing in performance terms—just 0.5 FPS—while presumably adding visual fidelity. This makes Ultra the recommended setting at 1080p, as the measured data shows no meaningful penalty compared to High.

At 1440p, the recommendations shift. Low delivers 108.3 FPS, Medium drops to 86.3 FPS (a 20% reduction), High falls to 65.2 FPS (a 25% further reduction), and Ultra bottoms out at 59.1 FPS. The Medium preset offers the best balance, as it retains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS while providing a substantial visual upgrade over Low. High at 65.2 FPS is still playable, but the additional cost of Ultra (just 6.1 FPS) makes High the better choice over Ultra if frame rate stability is the priority.

At 4K, the picture changes dramatically. Low delivers 78.4 FPS, Medium drops to 62.9 FPS, High falls to 48.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 46.7 FPS. The Medium preset is the clear sweet spot here, as it stays above 60 FPS while offering a meaningful visual improvement over Low. High at 48.7 FPS is below the 60 FPS threshold but may still be acceptable for a flight simulator where precise frame timing is less critical than in fast-paced action games. Ultra at 46.7 FPS is only 2 FPS below High, so if visual fidelity is paramount, the cost is negligible.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU and GPU combination in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: Based on the measured data, 1440p with Medium settings provides the best overall experience, delivering 86.3 FPS. This balances the visual quality improvements over 1080p while maintaining a frame rate well above the 60 FPS threshold. At 4K, only Low and Medium settings (78.4 and 62.9 FPS respectively) manage to stay at or above 60 FPS.

Q: Why does the Ultra preset barely change performance compared to High at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 appears to be the limiting component. The measured data shows 76.5 FPS at High and 76 FPS at Ultra, a difference of just 0.5 FPS. This indicates that the CPU reaches its performance ceiling around the mid-70s FPS range at this resolution, regardless of GPU load.

Q: How does the RTX 3070's performance compare to its nearest rivals in this game's context?

A: The RTX 3070 has an average benchmark score of 28238, which places it 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (27985) and 1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (27956). It trails the AMD FirePro S7150 by 0.6% (28409) and the AMD Radeon R9 M295X by 1.1% (28541).

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 4K with the Ultra preset?

A: The measured data shows an average of 46.7 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This is below the 60 FPS threshold but represents the highest visual fidelity available in the test configuration. For comparison, the High preset at 4K delivers 48.7 FPS, only 2 FPS more.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important for this game based on the benchmark data?

A: The data suggests the CPU becomes the bottleneck at 1080p, where High and Ultra settings produce nearly identical frame rates (76.5 vs 76 FPS). As resolution increases to 1440p and 4K, the GPU becomes the dominant factor, with frame rates scaling more significantly across settings.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 3600 compare to its closest competitors?

A: The Ryzen 5 3600 has an average benchmark score of 18129, placing it 0.1% below the Intel Core i5-11400 (18150) and 0.2% below the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (18158). It sits 0.2% above the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS (18101) and 0.3% above the AMD EPYC 9274F (18189).

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset provides a comprehensive view of performance across all tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 135.8 FPS, Medium reaches 105.1 FPS, High delivers 76.5 FPS, and Ultra matches closely at 76 FPS. The 1080p results show a clear pattern: each step up from Low to Medium costs 30.7 FPS (23%), Medium to High costs 28.6 FPS (27%), and High to Ultra costs only 0.5 FPS (0.7%). This compression at the top end reinforces the CPU-bottleneck conclusion.

At 2560x1440, the scaling is more evenly distributed. Low produces 108.3 FPS, Medium drops to 86.3 FPS (a 22 FPS or 20% reduction), High falls to 65.2 FPS (a 21.1 FPS or 24% reduction), and Ultra bottoms out at 59.1 FPS (a 6.1 FPS or 9% reduction). The 1440p data shows that the RTX 3070 has enough headroom at this resolution to make each settings tier meaningful, though the gap between High and Ultra narrows considerably.

At 3840x2160, the results are as follows: Low achieves 78.4 FPS, Medium drops to 62.9 FPS (a 15.5 FPS or 20% reduction), High falls to 48.7 FPS (a 14.2 FPS or 23% reduction), and Ultra bottoms out at 46.7 FPS (a 2 FPS or 4% reduction). The 4K data reveals that the GPU is heavily loaded, with the difference between High and Ultra becoming negligible relative to the cost of each step from Medium to High.

The overall combo rank for this CPU and GPU combination in Microsoft Flight Simulator is 798 out of 1795 tested combinations, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database. The data is marked as measured, indicating that these results come from actual testing rather than estimation.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 plays a critical role in this game's performance, particularly at higher resolutions. The card features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is adequate for the tested settings, as the data shows consistent scaling from 1080p through 4K without any anomalous drops that would indicate VRAM capacity issues.

The GPU's clock speeds are 1500 MHz base and 1725 MHz boost, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip manufactured on Samsung's 8 nm process, containing 17,400 million transistors on a 392 mm² die. This hardware configuration delivers 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which is substantial for a flight simulator that relies heavily on detailed terrain rendering and weather effects.

The benchmark data shows that the RTX 3070 has a percentile ranking of 72 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28238. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (27985, 0.9% slower), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (27956, 1% slower), and the AMD FirePro S7150 (28409, 0.6% faster). This positioning suggests that the RTX 3070 sits comfortably in the upper-midrange segment, capable of handling Microsoft Flight Simulator at high settings across most resolutions.

The GPU's memory clock of 1750 MHz and bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s are particularly relevant for this game, as flight simulators often stream large amounts of terrain and texture data. The 8 GB VRAM capacity proves sufficient in the measured results, as there are no instances where frame rates collapse unexpectedly at 4K, which would be the typical symptom of VRAM exhaustion. The RTX 3070's 5888 shading units and 184 texture mapping units provide the raw compute power needed to sustain the frame rates observed in the data.