Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator presents a demanding workload that scales distinctively across resolutions, and the combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 4600G with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER shows a clear shift in system bottleneck as pixel count rises. At 1920x1080, the data indicates a CPU-leaning profile, while at 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the dominant constraint. The measured FPS deltas between Low and Ultra presets at each resolution reveal how this pairing allocates its resources, with the high refresh rates at lower resolutions giving way to more moderate, yet playable, performance at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling behavior from 1080p to 4K is a textbook demonstration of GPU-bound progression, but with a notable twist in this specific configuration. At 1920x1080, the average FPS across all settings hovers between 110.7 and 138.8, a narrow band of 28.1 FPS that suggests the Ryzen 5 4600G is the limiting factor; the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER has ample headroom to render frames faster, but the CPU cannot feed it quickly enough. This is particularly evident in the Ultra preset, which drops to 110.7 FPS, only 2.4 FPS below the High preset’s 113.1, indicating that the GPU’s workload increase is being absorbed without a corresponding FPS penalty because the CPU is already saturated.

Moving to 2560x1440, the picture shifts slightly. The Low preset achieves 128.2 FPS, while Medium reaches 121.2 FPS, and High falls to 89.8 FPS, with Ultra at 84.5 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is just 7.0 FPS, but the jump from Medium to High is a substantial 31.4 FPS drop. This inflection point suggests that at 1440p, the GPU begins to take on more responsibility, particularly with High and Ultra settings that increase shader complexity and texture throughput, yet the CPU still exerts influence on the lower presets where frame rates remain high.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is unequivocally the primary constraint. The Low preset delivers 113.9 FPS, which is remarkably close to the 1080p Low result of 138.8 FPS, showing that even at 4K, the CPU can still push high frame rates when graphical load is minimal. However, Medium drops to 86.9 FPS, High to 67.8 FPS, and Ultra to 65.2 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K represents a 48.7 FPS reduction, a far larger absolute drop than the 28.1 FPS seen at 1080p, confirming that the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER’s rendering capabilities are the deciding factor at this resolution. Notably, the difference between High and Ultra at 4K is only 2.6 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns as the GPU hits its computational ceiling.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 672.3 GB/s. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, this memory capacity is more than sufficient for the highest texture streaming demands, as the game rarely exceeds 16 GB even at 4K Ultra settings. The GPU’s boost clock of 2610 MHz, with a base clock of 2340 MHz, drives its FP32 performance of 44.10 TFLOPS, which is the raw compute power that handles the game’s complex terrain rendering and atmospheric effects.

At 4K Ultra, the measured 65.2 FPS indicates the GPU is working near its limits, but the fact that it maintains above 60 FPS shows the Ada Lovelace architecture’s efficiency. The GPU’s percentile rank of 86 among all GPUs places it in the upper echelon, and its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the NVIDIA CMP 50HX with a deltaPct of -0.7 and the Intel Arc A550M at -2.1, meaning the 4070 Ti SUPER trails these by less than 2.1% in aggregate benchmark scores. However, in this game, the data shows that the GPU’s role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases, with the 4K Low preset achieving 113.9 FPS, proving that the card can deliver high frame rates when the CPU is not the bottleneck.

The GPU’s 8448 shading units and 264 tensor cores are leveraged for the game’s DirectX 12 Ultimate path, and the 96 ROPs handle pixel output efficiently. The texture rate of 689.0 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 250.6 GPixel/s are critical for the dense ground detail in Flight Simulator, and the benchmark results at 1440p High (89.8 FPS) versus 4K High (67.8 FPS) show a 22.0 FPS penalty, which aligns with the 2.25x pixel count increase from 1440p to 4K. This suggests the GPU is scaling as expected with resolution, with no unexpected stutters or memory throttling.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600G is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its 8 MB of shared L3 cache is modest by modern standards, but the 3DMark single-thread score of 726 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1919 indicate adequate per-core performance for a flight simulator that relies heavily on a single main thread for physics and AI calculations. The CPU’s percentile rank of 75 among all CPUs shows it is above average, and its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 5355GE, has a deltaPct of 0, meaning they are statistically tied in aggregate benchmarks.

In this game, the CPU’s influence is most evident at 1080p and in the Low presets across all resolutions. At 1920x1080 Low, the 138.8 FPS result is likely near the CPU’s maximum frame generation capability, as increasing the resolution to 1440p Low only drops to 128.2 FPS, and 4K Low still achieves 113.9 FPS. This pattern indicates that the CPU can sustain high frame rates, but its 12 threads are not fully utilized by Flight Simulator, which prefers fewer, faster cores. The Cinebench R20 multicore score of 5709 and Passmark multithread score of 15992 show that the CPU has decent parallel capability, but the game’s engine does not scale perfectly across all cores.

The CPU’s boost clock of 4.20 GHz is the key factor for the game’s main thread, and the data at 1080p Ultra (110.7 FPS) versus 1080p High (113.1 FPS) shows only a 2.4 FPS difference, suggesting that the CPU is the bottleneck in both cases. However, at 4K Ultra (65.2 FPS), the CPU’s role diminishes, as the GPU’s rendering time dominates the frame time budget. The Ryzen 5 4600G’s memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, while limited, does not appear to be a constraint, as the game’s asset streaming is more dependent on disk and GPU memory than system RAM bandwidth.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 138.8 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. Medium follows at 129.2 FPS, High at 113.1 FPS, and Ultra at 110.7 FPS. The delta from Low to Ultra is 28.1 FPS, and the delta from Medium to High is 16.1 FPS, indicating that High settings introduce a significant graphical load that the CPU cannot fully mask.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset reaches 128.2 FPS, which is only 10.6 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result. Medium achieves 121.2 FPS, a 8.0 FPS drop from Low, but High drops more sharply to 89.8 FPS, a 31.4 FPS reduction from Medium. Ultra bottoms out at 84.5 FPS. The 1440p Ultra result is 26.2 FPS lower than 1080p Ultra, showing a more pronounced GPU effect at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset delivers 113.9 FPS, which is higher than the 1440p High and Ultra results, underscoring the CPU’s ability to push frames when the GPU is underutilized. Medium drops to 86.9 FPS, High to 67.8 FPS, and Ultra to 65.2 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest in the dataset, but it remains above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The delta between 4K High and 4K Ultra is just 2.6 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset’s additional effects (likely higher shadow quality and volumetric clouds) have minimal impact on the GPU at this resolution, or that the GPU is already saturated.

How This Combo Ranks

In the comprehensive database of tested combinations, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 4600G and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER achieves a rank of 318 out of 1795 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the top 17.7% of all configurations, which is a strong showing given the CPU’s mid-range positioning. The rank is primarily driven by the GPU’s high percentile (86) offsetting the CPU’s more modest percentile (75), but the game’s CPU sensitivity at lower resolutions prevents this combo from cracking the top 200.

Compared to the CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks, which include the Intel Core i5-12450H (deltaPct 0.1) and the Intel Core i3-14100T (deltaPct -0.8), this combo’s in-game rank reflects the CPU’s single-thread capabilities. The Intel Core i3-14100T, despite having a lower aggregate score, might perform similarly in Flight Simulator due to its higher single-core clock, but the data does not provide direct in-game comparisons. The GPU’s nearest rivals, such as the NVIDIA RTX A2000 (deltaPct 1.6), would likely score lower in this game due to reduced memory bandwidth, but again, no direct in-game data is available.

The combo’s rank of 318 indicates that while the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is a top-tier card, the Ryzen 5 4600G holds back the system in CPU-bound scenarios, particularly at 1080p. The data shows that the combo is more competitive at 4K, where the GPU’s raw power is the primary driver, and the CPU’s limitations are less exposed. This is a classic example of a GPU-heavy pairing that is optimized for high-resolution gaming, but leaves performance on the table at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal preset depends heavily on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the High preset at 113.1 FPS is recommended over Ultra at 110.7 FPS, as the 2.4 FPS gain from High to Ultra is negligible, and High likely reduces visual noise without sacrificing perceived quality. The Low preset at 138.8 FPS is excessive for most displays, but it could be used for competitive or replay purposes where maximum frame rate is desired.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset at 121.2 FPS offers the best balance, as it maintains a high frame rate while avoiding the significant drop to High (89.8 FPS). The 31.4 FPS penalty from Medium to High is substantial, and the visual improvement may not justify the frame rate loss for a flight simulator where smoothness is paramount. Ultra at 84.5 FPS is playable but leaves little headroom for complex scenes with heavy cloud cover or dense cityscapes.

At 3840x2160, the High preset at 67.8 FPS is the recommended choice, as it delivers solid performance above 60 FPS while providing better visual fidelity than Medium (86.9 FPS). The Ultra preset at 65.2 FPS is only 2.6 FPS lower than High, so users with VRR displays may opt for Ultra to maximize image quality, but High is safer for maintaining a consistent frame rate. The Low preset at 113.9 FPS is unnecessary at 4K, as the visual compromise is too severe for the frame rate gain. Overall, the data suggests that this combo is best suited for 1440p Medium or 4K High, where the GPU’s strengths are fully utilized without the CPU becoming a limiting factor.