Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600G paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 presents a fascinating study in bottleneck dynamics within Microsoft Flight Simulator. The data reveals a configuration where the CPU’s modest single-thread performance and the GPU’s substantial memory bandwidth interact in ways that shift the performance limiter depending on resolution and settings. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS data to show exactly where this combo excels and where it struggles.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and expected trend: performance degrades as resolution increases, but the rate of that degradation is not uniform across settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 119.4 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. Dropping to 1440p Low reduces this to 94 FPS, a decrease of 25.4 FPS. Moving to 4K Low yields 68.5 FPS, another 25.5 FPS drop. This consistent ~25 FPS penalty per resolution step at Low settings suggests the GPU is scaling with pixel count, but the CPU is still feeding it enough data to keep the frame rate relatively high.

The scaling behavior changes dramatically when settings are raised. At High settings, the system delivers 69.9 FPS at 1080p, 54 FPS at 1440p, and 43.5 FPS at 4K. The step from 1080p to 1440p is a 15.9 FPS loss, while the step from 1440p to 4K is only a 10.5 FPS loss. This flattening of the curve at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor. The RTX 4060’s 8 GB VRAM and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth are being saturated by the increased detail and texture loads, creating a scenario where the CPU’s 12 threads have spare capacity.

The most telling data point is the Ultra preset. At 1080p Ultra, the system produces 65.6 FPS, which is only 4.3 FPS lower than 1440p High’s 54 FPS. The gap between 1440p Ultra (54.3 FPS) and 4K Ultra (39.8 FPS) is 14.5 FPS, the largest absolute drop in the dataset. This shows that at Ultra settings, the combination of high resolution and maximum detail pushes the RTX 4060 past its comfort zone. The data suggests that for this pairing, 1440p High is the sweet spot, balancing the CPU’s contribution with the GPU’s rendering load.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a boost clock of 2460 MHz. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications directly inform the 4K performance ceiling. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra is 39.8 FPS, which falls below the 43.5 FPS seen at 4K High. This 3.7 FPS penalty for enabling Ultra settings at 4K is a clear sign that the GPU is running out of memory bandwidth and raw compute headroom.

The GPU’s 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 236.2 GTexel/s texture rate are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming. The PassMark G3D score of 19545 and the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2302 place the RTX 4060 in the 66th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23321, -0.6% delta) and the Intel Arc B580 (23021, +0.7% delta). These close scores indicate that the RTX 4060 is a mid-pack performer, which aligns with the measured FPS data showing it can handle 1440p High comfortably but struggles with 4K Ultra.

The VRAM capacity of 8 GB is a critical constraint. Flight simulators are notorious for loading vast amounts of terrain and texture data. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the system drops to 39.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target most gamers consider smooth. This is not a CPU bottleneck; the Ryzen 5 4600G has plenty of headroom at 4K. Instead, the GPU is choking on the data volume. The 128-bit memory bus, while efficient for the RTX 4060’s class, limits the speed at which textures can be streamed from VRAM to the rendering pipeline.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600G is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture (Renoir). Its base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 4.20 GHz are modest by modern standards. The 8 MB of shared L3 cache is a notable limitation for a flight simulator that benefits from large caches to store terrain data. The CPU’s benchmark scores reflect this: a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1919 and a multi-core score of 13593. The 3DMark single-thread score of 726 is particularly revealing, as it shows the CPU’s weakness in single-threaded workloads.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is heavily dependent on single-thread performance for its main simulation loop. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 119.4 FPS. This is a high score, but it is not as high as it could be with a stronger single-thread CPU. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 75th among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17489, places it in the upper-middle tier. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-12450H (17475, +0.1% delta) and the Intel Core i3-14100T (17636, -0.8% delta). These rivals have similar average scores, but the i5-12450H and i3-14100T typically have better single-thread performance, which would help in this game.

The CPU’s 12 threads are more than sufficient for the game’s multi-threaded tasks, such as AI traffic and physics calculations. The PassMark multi-thread score of 15992 supports this. However, the 3DMark 2-thread score of 1430 and 4-thread score of 2732 show that the CPU’s performance does not scale linearly with thread count. This is typical for Zen 2, but it means that the CPU is not the bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the CPU is likely operating at 60-70% utilization, while the GPU is at 100%.

FAQ

Q: Why does the FPS drop so much from 1080p Low to 4K Low?

A: The 1080p Low setting produces 119.4 FPS, while 4K Low produces 68.5 FPS. This 50.9 FPS drop is due to the GPU having to render four times as many pixels. The RTX 4060’s 272.0 GB/s bandwidth is enough for 1080p but becomes a limiting factor at 4K even with Low settings.

Q: Is this CPU or GPU limited at 1440p High?

A: The data shows 54 FPS at 1440p High, which is 15.9 FPS lower than 1080p High’s 69.9 FPS. The relatively small drop suggests a balance, but the CPU’s single-thread score of 726 in 3DMark indicates it is still contributing to the frame rate. The GPU is not fully saturated, as evidenced by the 4K High score of 43.5 FPS being only 10.5 FPS lower.

Q: Can this system handle 4K Ultra settings in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The measured 4K Ultra score is 39.8 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The RTX 4060’s 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus are insufficient for the data demands of 4K Ultra, making this a GPU-bound scenario.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 4060 has an average benchmark score of 23181. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6600M, scores 23321, a delta of -0.6%. The Intel Arc B580 scores 23021, a delta of +0.7%. These differences are negligible, indicating that in-flight simulator performance, the RTX 4060 is on par with these alternatives.

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for this CPU/GPU pair?

A: The data suggests 1440p High is optimal. It delivers 54 FPS, which is playable, while 1080p Ultra only offers 65.6 FPS, a marginal gain. The 4K High score of 43.5 FPS is too low for a consistent experience, making 1440p the highest viable resolution.

Q: Does the CPU’s 8 MB L3 cache affect performance?

A: The 8 MB shared L3 cache is a known limitation for flight simulators. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1919 is modest, and the 3DMark single-thread score of 726 confirms that the CPU cannot fully exploit the GPU’s capabilities at lower resolutions, where the CPU is more involved.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following data points provide the exact measured average FPS for each resolution and settings combination:

• 3840x2160 (4K):
• Ultra: 39.8 FPS
• High: 43.5 FPS
• Medium: 56.7 FPS
• Low: 68.5 FPS

• 2560x1440 (1440p):
• Ultra: 54.3 FPS
• High: 54 FPS
• Medium: 73.1 FPS
• Low: 94 FPS

• 1920x1080 (1080p):
• Ultra: 65.6 FPS
• High: 69.9 FPS
• Medium: 93.1 FPS
• Low: 119.4 FPS

At 1080p, the system is clearly CPU-limited at Low settings, as the 119.4 FPS score is high but not exceptional for a modern GPU. The jump from Low to Medium is a 26.3 FPS drop, which is substantial. At 1440p, the Medium setting produces 73.1 FPS, which is a solid result for this hardware. The Ultra setting at 1440p yields 54.3 FPS, which is virtually identical to the High setting’s 54 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset adds significant visual fidelity without a proportional performance cost at this resolution.

The 4K results paint a clearer picture of the GPU’s limits. The 4K Low score of 68.5 FPS is impressive, showing that even at 4K, the RTX 4060 can handle low details. However, the 4K Medium score of 56.7 FPS and the 4K High score of 43.5 FPS show a steep decline as settings increase. The 4K Ultra score of 39.8 FPS confirms that this configuration cannot maintain a 40 FPS average at maximum settings. These numbers suggest that the RTX 4060 is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K reserved for less demanding titles or lower settings presets.