Microsoft Flight Simulator

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT achieves a combo rank of 393 out of 1,795 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the pairing in the top 22% of all tested configurations, which is a strong result given that the CPU sits in the 79th percentile among all processors while the GPU ranks in the 82nd percentile among all graphics cards. The rank disparity between the two components suggests the system is balanced enough to avoid severe bottlenecking, though the data indicates the CPU is the more limiting factor in this title.

When examining the CPU's synthetic benchmark standing, the Ryzen 5 5500 posts an average benchmark score of 20,875, placing it nearly identical to the Intel Core i5-12500 which scores 20,897 (a delta of -0.1%). The gap to the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE is equally narrow at -0.1%, while the AMD EPYC 7J13 trails by a mere 0.1%. These near-parity results in general compute tasks do not directly translate to flight simulator performance, where the game's single-threaded rendering pipeline and draw-call overhead favor higher clock speeds and larger caches.

For the GPU side, the RX 7900 XT's average benchmark score of 38,358 puts it in a dead heat with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile at 38,349 (0% delta) and just 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA CMP 70HX. The NVIDIA GeForce MX570 shows a -0.4% delta, which is surprising given the architectural differences, but the synthetic average masks the RX 7900 XT's substantial memory bandwidth advantage that becomes critical in texture-heavy flight scenarios. The combo's overall rank suggests that while neither component is top-tier in isolation, their combined performance in this specific simulator exceeds what the individual percentiles might predict.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7900 XT brings 20 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 320-bit bus, yielding 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is particularly relevant for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which streams terrain and photogrammetry data continuously. The 20 GB capacity ensures that even at maximum settings, the GPU does not spill into system memory, a scenario that would cause severe frame-time spikes in dense urban areas.

Clock behavior shows a base clock of 1387 MHz, a game clock of 2025 MHz, and a boost clock of 2394 MHz. The 637 MHz delta between base and boost indicates aggressive power management, and the measured frame rates suggest the card sustains near-boost clocks in this title's moderate GPU load at lower resolutions. The 84 ray tracing cores are present but largely idle in this simulator, which uses software-based ray tracing for cockpit reflections rather than hardware acceleration for the main scene.

The GPU's pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s become decisive at 4K Ultra, where the 59.7 FPS average indicates the card is approaching its fill-rate limits. The FP32 throughput of 51.48 TFLOPS is more than sufficient for the game's shader complexity, so the observed scaling from 4K High to 4K Ultra (58.2 to 59.7 FPS) suggests the bottleneck shifts from compute to memory bandwidth as settings increase.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression across resolutions reveals a classic GPU-bound pattern at higher settings, but a CPU-bound pattern at lower settings. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 161.8 FPS at 1080p to 144 FPS at 1440p (-11%) and then to 101.9 FPS at 4K (-29.2%). This scaling shows that even at Low, the 4K resolution demands enough pixel throughput that the GPU begins to matter, yet the relatively small drop from 1080p to 1440p indicates the CPU still holds the system back at those lower resolutions.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is more linear: 97.6 FPS at 1080p, 80.2 FPS at 1440p (-17.8%), and 59.7 FPS at 4K (-25.6%). The consistent ~18-26% drops per resolution step align with pixel-count expectations, confirming that Ultra settings shift the workload firmly onto the GPU. The Medium preset shows similar behavior with 136.5, 111.6, and 79.2 FPS across the three resolutions.

High settings present the most interesting case. At 1080p High, the system produces 105.3 FPS, which drops to 82.3 FPS at 1440p (-21.8%) and 58.2 FPS at 4K (-29.3%). The steeper drop from 1440p to 4K at High compared to Ultra suggests the High preset's reduced texture detail allows the GPU to work harder on shading, making the 4K pixel count the primary constraint. Across all settings, the 1080p-to-1440p drops are smaller than the 1440p-to-4K drops, indicating that the RX 7900 XT's 800.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes a limiting factor as resolution increases.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data supports Ultra settings at 1080p as the optimal balance, delivering 97.6 FPS average. This exceeds the 60 FPS threshold by a wide margin while providing the highest visual fidelity. The 1440p Ultra result of 80.2 FPS is also playable, and for users with high-refresh 1440p monitors, this remains a viable choice, though the frame rate sits below the 100+ FPS territory that the card achieves at lower presets.

At 4K, the choice becomes more nuanced. Ultra produces 59.7 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS mark for smooth gameplay. High settings at 4K yield 58.2 FPS, which is actually lower than Ultra—a counterintuitive result that suggests the High preset's reduced texture streaming may cause the CPU to work harder on LOD transitions, offsetting any GPU gains. Medium at 4K delivers 79.2 FPS, which provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS while sacrificing some shadow and reflection quality. For 4K users, Medium is the recommended preset based on the data, as it maintains playability without the frame rate penalty seen at High.

The Low preset at any resolution is not recommended for this combination. At 1080p Low, the system produces 161.8 FPS, which is far beyond what any standard display can show, and the visual degradation is severe. The only scenario where Low makes sense is competitive multiplayer, which is rare in this simulator. The data indicates that the sweet spot for this CPU-GPU pairing is 1440p Medium, where the 111.6 FPS average provides headroom for frame drops during complex scenery loading while keeping settings moderate enough to avoid CPU bottlenecks.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates span from 97.6 FPS at Ultra to 161.8 FPS at Low. The Medium preset produces 136.5 FPS, and High yields 105.3 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra is only 7.7 FPS (105.3 to 97.6), while the jump from High to Medium is 31.2 FPS (105.3 to 136.5). This nonlinear scaling suggests that High and Ultra share similar GPU workload characteristics, but Medium reduces shader complexity enough to substantially improve throughput. The 1080p results confirm that the Ryzen 5 5500's single-thread score of 836 in 3DMark is sufficient to feed the GPU at this resolution, as even the Low preset's 161.8 FPS does not appear to hit a hard CPU ceiling.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are 80.2 FPS (Ultra), 82.3 FPS (High), 111.6 FPS (Medium), and 144 FPS (Low). The near-identical results for Ultra and High (80.2 vs 82.3) reinforce the pattern seen at 1080p, where these two presets perform similarly. The Medium preset's 111.6 FPS represents a 35.8% improvement over High, while Low's 144 FPS is 29% faster than Medium. This scaling suggests that the transition from High to Medium removes a specific rendering feature (likely volumetric clouds or shadow cascades) that has outsized performance impact at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are 59.7 FPS (Ultra), 58.2 FPS (High), 79.2 FPS (Medium), and 101.9 FPS (Low). The Ultra and High results are within 1.5 FPS of each other, confirming that at 4K, the GPU's pixel throughput is the dominant factor rather than the specific preset differences. The Medium preset at 79.2 FPS provides the only 4K result above 60 FPS besides Low, and the Low preset's 101.9 FPS shows that even at 4K, the RX 7900 XT can deliver high frame rates when the CPU is not burdened with complex geometry processing. The 4K data also reveals that the gap between Medium and High (21 FPS) is larger than the gap between High and Ultra (1.5 FPS), which points to a specific setting within the High preset that triggers disproportionate GPU load at this resolution.