Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator — AMD Ryzen 5 5500 + AMD Radeon RX 570

This combination ranks near the bottom of the tested pool in Microsoft Flight Simulator, landing at position 1709 out of 1795 combos. The data shows a system that can run the sim, but only at lower resolutions and settings, with the GPU clearly acting as the primary bottleneck across all tested configurations. The Ryzen 5 5500 provides adequate processing power, but the RX 570's 4 GB VRAM and 2017-era Polaris architecture limit the experience to modest frame rates even at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent, revealing a GPU-bound scenario at every settings level. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 45.4 FPS at 1920x1080 to 39.1 FPS at 2560x1440 (a 13.9% reduction) and then to 29.3 FPS at 3840x2160 — a cumulative 35.5% loss from 1080p to 4K. This scaling pattern indicates that the RX 570's rendering throughput, not the CPU, is the limiting factor; a CPU-bound system would show far less variation with resolution changes.

The gap widens at higher settings. At High settings, the drop from 1080p (27.3 FPS) to 1440p (20.8 FPS) is 23.8%, and 4K falls to 18.2 FPS — a 33.3% total reduction. The Ultra preset shows similar behavior: 25.3 FPS at 1080p, 25.1 FPS at 1440p (nearly identical), then a sharp decline to 19 FPS at 4K. The near-flat line between 1080p and 1440p at Ultra settings suggests that at these high quality levels, the GPU is already saturated even at the lower resolution, and the extra pixels at 1440p don't meaningfully change the workload — the card is simply maxed out.

Notably, the Medium preset follows a smoother curve: 37.3 FPS at 1080p, 31.8 FPS at 1440p (14.7% drop), and 23.2 FPS at 4K (27.1% drop from 1440p). This more linear scaling suggests Medium is the setting where the GPU's compute units and memory bandwidth are being utilized proportionally to pixel count, without hitting hard architectural limits. The overall pattern — with 4K performance never exceeding 29.3 FPS even at Low — confirms that this combo is not viable for 4K play, and only marginally playable at 1440p with reduced settings.

How This Combo Ranks

At rank 1709 out of 1795 tested combinations, this pairing sits in the bottom 5% of all configs for Microsoft Flight Simulator. The percentile position is a clear verdict: this is a low-end setup for this particular title, and the data supports that classification. The combo's rank reflects a fundamental mismatch between the game's demands and the hardware's capabilities, particularly on the GPU side.

The Ryzen 5 5500 itself performs respectably in general benchmarks — its average benchmark score of 20875 places it in the 79th percentile among all CPUs, and it trades blows with the Intel Core i5-12500 (deltaPct of -0.1%) and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE (also -0.1%). The CPU is not the weak link here. The RX 570, however, with an average benchmark score of 30158 and 74th percentile standing, is a mid-range part from 2017 that struggles with a 2020 flight simulator known for heavy rendering loads.

The deltaPct values against the GPU's nearest rivals are telling: the RX 570 scores 0.2% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT in the aggregate benchmark, but those are aggregate scores across multiple tests. In this specific game, the combination rank of 1709 shows that the pairing performs far worse than those individual component scores would suggest. The game's reliance on sustained rendering performance, not bursty compute, exposes the RX 570's age. The combo rank of 1709/1795 means 86 other configurations performed worse — a very small margin of safety above the bottom of the barrel.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Microsoft Flight Simulator at 1080p?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings with an average of 45.4 FPS. At Medium, the average drops to 37.3 FPS, and at High it falls to 27.3 FPS. Ultra averages 25.3 FPS, which is marginally playable but below smooth thresholds.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The data points to the GPU as the primary bottleneck. Resolution scaling shows significant FPS drops as resolution increases — 45.4 FPS at 1080p Low versus 29.3 FPS at 4K Low — which is characteristic of GPU limitation. The Ryzen 5 5500's 79th percentile CPU ranking and strong multi-core scores (16429 in Cinebench R23) indicate it has headroom that the RX 570 cannot exploit in this title.

Q: What's the best resolution for this combo?

A: 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the combo achieves playable frame rates at any setting. At 2560x1440, even Low settings only reach 39.1 FPS, and at 3840x2160, all settings stay below 30 FPS — the highest being 29.3 FPS at Low.

Q: How does the RX 570 compare to its nearest rivals in aggregate benchmarks?

A: The RX 570's average benchmark score of 30158 puts it 0.2% above the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and 0.2% above the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, and 0.6% above the NVIDIA Tesla M60. These are near-identical aggregate scores, but in Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically, the combo rank of 1709/1795 shows the pairing underperforms what those individual scores might suggest.

Q: Does the Ryzen 5 5500 hold up against similar CPUs?

A: Yes. Its average benchmark score of 20875 is within 0.1% of the Intel Core i5-12500 and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE, and 0.1% above the AMD EPYC 7J13. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads with a boost clock of 4.20 GHz provide adequate processing for this game, but the GPU limits overall results.

Q: Is 4K playable with this combo?

A: No. At 4K, the highest average FPS across any setting is 29.3 at Low, and Ultra drops to 19 FPS. These numbers fall below acceptable playability thresholds for a flight simulator, which requires smooth frame delivery for cockpit instrumentation and scenery rendering.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings sweep shows a clear hierarchy: Low averages 45.4 FPS, Medium averages 37.3 FPS, High averages 27.3 FPS, and Ultra averages 25.3 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium is a 17.8% drop, while the jump from Medium to High is a 26.8% drop — the largest single-step penalty in the entire dataset. The High-to-Ultra step is smaller at 7.3%, suggesting diminishing returns on the quality settings that differentiate those two presets.

Moving to 2560x1440, all settings take a hit. Low averages 39.1 FPS (a 13.9% drop from 1080p Low), Medium averages 31.8 FPS (14.7% drop), High averages 20.8 FPS (23.8% drop), and Ultra averages 25.1 FPS (0.8% drop from 1080p Ultra). The Ultra preset's near-identical performance at 1080p and 1440p is notable — it indicates that at Ultra, the GPU is already fully saturated at 1080p, and the additional pixel count at 1440p doesn't meaningfully increase the workload because the card is already at its limit.

At 3840x2160, performance collapses across the board. Low averages 29.3 FPS, Medium averages 23.2 FPS, High averages 18.2 FPS, and Ultra averages 19 FPS. The High-to-Ultra inversion — where Ultra (19) slightly outperforms High (18.2) — is within measurement noise but suggests that at 4K, the settings differences become less impactful because the GPU is so heavily constrained by pixel throughput. The 4K Medium result of 23.2 FPS is actually lower than the 1080p Ultra result of 25.3 FPS, highlighting how resolution scaling dominates over quality settings in this configuration.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 5500 brings 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its 16 MB of L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth are solid specifications for a mid-range desktop part. In synthetic benchmarks, the chip scores 836 in 3DMark single-thread, 5411 in 3DMark max threads, and 16429 in Cinebench R23 multi-core — all respectable numbers that place it in the 79th percentile overall.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is evident in the resolution scaling data. If the CPU were the bottleneck, frame rates would remain relatively flat across resolutions. Instead, the data shows FPS dropping by 10-20% from 1080p to 1440p and another 20-30% from 1440p to 4K, depending on settings. This indicates the CPU has headroom to feed the GPU with draw calls and simulation data — the flight sim's complex world-streaming and physics calculations are being handled without becoming the limiting factor.

The nearest rival comparison reinforces this: the Ryzen 5 5500 scores within 0.1-0.2% of the Intel Core i5-12500 and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE in average benchmark scores. The 5500's 12 threads provide adequate parallel throughput for the sim's multi-threaded rendering pipeline, and its single-thread score of 836 in 3DMark is sufficient for the game's main-thread simulation workload. The CPU is not the reason this combo ranks 1709th; the GPU is.

Settings Recommendations

For playable performance, the data points to 1080p Low as the only preset that consistently exceeds 45 FPS, averaging 45.4 FPS. This is the clear recommendation for anyone wanting smooth frame rates, especially during takeoff and landing where the sim loads heavy scenery data. The Medium preset at 1080p averages 37.3 FPS, which is still playable for a flight simulator but shows noticeable stutter during dense urban flyovers.

At 1440p, Low settings (39.1 FPS) are the only viable option, but even this falls short of the 1080p Low experience. The 1440p Medium result of 31.8 FPS is borderline, and High (20.8 FPS) and Ultra (25.1 FPS) are too choppy for reliable instrument reading. At 4K, no setting is recommended — the highest average is 29.3 FPS at Low, which is below the threshold for smooth flight simulation.

The Ultra preset offers the worst value in terms of FPS per quality increment: at 1080p, it only delivers 25.3 FPS versus High's 27.3 FPS — a mere 7.3% improvement in frame rate for the Ultra quality bump. Given that the sim's visual differences between High and Ultra are subtle for most scenery elements, the data suggests sticking with High at 1080p if you want better visuals without the full performance penalty, or dropping to Low for the smoothest experience. The Medium preset at 1080p (37.3 FPS) represents the best balance for most users, offering a 27% frame rate improvement over High while maintaining reasonable visual fidelity.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the clear limiting factor in this combo. With 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus delivering 224.0 GB/s bandwidth, the card has enough memory bandwidth for 1080p but struggles with the larger textures and higher-resolution rendering demands of Microsoft Flight Simulator. The 2048 shading units and 32 ROPs, clocked at 1168 MHz base and 1244 MHz boost, provide 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 compute — a figure that was competitive in 2017 but is now far behind modern cards.

The GPU's 74th percentile ranking among all GPUs (average benchmark score 30158) seems respectable, but the aggregate scores mask its age. In the Geekbench tests, the card scores 44915 in Metal, 32084 in OpenCL, and 42752 in Vulkan — showing consistency across APIs but at a performance level that modern flight simulators have moved past. The nearest rival comparisons show the RX 570 within 0.2% of the RTX 5060 and RX 7700 XT in average scores, but those are composite numbers; in a real-world game like Microsoft Flight Simulator, the 4 GB VRAM ceiling and GCN 4.0 architecture limit performance more severely than those aggregate deltas suggest.

The resolution scaling data confirms the GPU bottleneck. The 4K results — 18.2 to 29.3 FPS across settings — show a card that cannot handle the pixel throughput required at that resolution. Even at 1080p, the drop from Low (45.4 FPS) to High (27.3 FPS) represents a 39.9% performance penalty, indicating that the GPU's shading and texture units are overwhelmed by higher-quality settings. The RX 570's 150 W TDP and 450 W suggested PSU are modest, but the card's architecture simply lacks the efficiency and memory capacity to run this 2020-era sim at high quality. The 4 GB VRAM is particularly problematic — Microsoft Flight Simulator streams detailed terrain and aircraft textures that easily exceed 4 GB at higher settings, causing the card to fall back to slower memory management.