Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti pairing in Microsoft Flight Simulator presents a classic high-end GPU with a mid-range CPU scenario. The measured frame rates show a system that is clearly capable of smooth flight, but the scaling patterns reveal where the bottlenecks lie and how to best configure the experience.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K shows how the workload shifts between the CPU and GPU. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 162.7 FPS, but this drops to 128.6 FPS at 2560x1440 and further to 96.2 FPS at 3840x2160. This is a steep decline of roughly 21% from 1080p to 1440p, and another 25% from 1440p to 4K. The pattern indicates that even at Low settings, the RTX 3080 Ti is being fed enough data to keep the Ryzen 5 5500 from being the sole limiting factor, though the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are likely preventing higher peak numbers.

Moving to High settings, the drop is even more pronounced: 93.3 FPS at 1080p falls to 77.4 FPS at 1440p (a 17% reduction) and then to 57.1 FPS at 4K (a 26% reduction). This steeper decline at higher resolutions suggests the GPU is becoming the primary constraint as pixel count increases. The gap between Low and High at 4K is 39.1 FPS, while at 1080p that same settings gap is 69.4 FPS. The data makes it clear: at 1080p, the CPU is holding back the GPU, but by 4K, the RTX 3080 Ti is working near its limit.

Ultra settings tell the most interesting story. At 1080p, the combo hits 88.7 FPS; at 1440p, it drops to 72 FPS; at 4K, it reaches 55.4 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is only a 23% reduction, which is smaller than what we see with High settings. This suggests that at Ultra, the game's heavy draw calls and object density are starting to tax the CPU more evenly across resolutions, meaning the Ryzen 5 5500's single-thread performance is becoming a more consistent factor.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy for choosing a preset. For a smooth 4K experience, High settings at 57.1 FPS is the only option that stays above 60 FPS. Ultra at 4K drops to 55.4 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a flight simulator where smooth panning matters. Medium at 4K offers 76.8 FPS, a 34% improvement over High, and is the recommended choice for 4K users who want a buffer above the 60 FPS threshold.

At 2560x1440, the situation improves considerably. High settings deliver 77.4 FPS, while Medium hits 99.4 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra costs 5.4 FPS (from 77.4 to 72), which is a modest penalty for the visual upgrade. For 1440p users, High is the sweet spot—it stays comfortably above 60 FPS and leaves headroom for demanding scenery. Ultra is viable at 72 FPS, but the 7% loss over High is not worth it unless visual fidelity is the top priority.

At 1920x1080, all presets are playable, with Low hitting 162.7 FPS and Ultra still reaching 88.7 FPS. There is no reason to use Low at this resolution, as even Medium at 128.4 FPS provides a massive improvement in visual quality while staying far above 100 FPS. The recommendation is Medium for 1080p, as it balances the CPU load and GPU usage well, though High at 93.3 FPS is also acceptable for those who prefer higher detail.

GPU Role

The RTX 3080 Ti brings 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth. This is a significant asset for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which streams large textures for terrain and aircraft. The measured results show the GPU's strength: at 4K, the difference between Low and Medium is 19.4 FPS (from 96.2 to 76.8), and between Medium and High is another 19.7 FPS. These are substantial gaps that indicate the GPU is not starved for memory bandwidth or raw compute.

The boost clock of 1665 MHz and the 34.10 TFLOPS of FP32 performance help the card maintain high frame rates even at 4K Ultra, where it still produces 55.4 FPS. The 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present, though flight simulators typically do not rely heavily on ray tracing. The 186.5 GPixel/s pixel rate and 532.8 GTexel/s texture rate are more relevant here, as the game's heavy texture streaming and draw call processing benefit from these figures.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 83 places it above most other cards, and its nearest rival, the RTX 3090, scores only 0.5% higher on average. This data confirms that the RTX 3080 Ti is not the limiting factor in most scenarios tested. The 12 GB memory size is sufficient for 4K Ultra textures, and the bandwidth ensures that data can be fed to the shading units without stutter.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 96.2 FPS, Medium 76.8 FPS, High 57.1 FPS, and Ultra 55.4 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 19.4 FPS, but from High to Ultra it is only 1.7 FPS, showing diminishing returns at the top end.

At 2560x1440, the numbers are: Low 128.6 FPS, Medium 99.4 FPS, High 77.4 FPS, and Ultra 72 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 22 FPS, which is the largest step in this resolution. The Ultra preset costs 5.4 FPS over High, a smaller penalty than at 4K.

At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 162.7 FPS, Medium 128.4 FPS, High 93.3 FPS, and Ultra 88.7 FPS. Here, the step from Low to Medium is 34.3 FPS, and from Medium to High is 35.1 FPS. The High to Ultra drop is only 4.6 FPS, making Ultra a viable option for 1080p users with high refresh rate monitors.

The data shows a consistent pattern: the largest FPS penalties occur when moving from Medium to High, while High to Ultra is relatively cheap across all resolutions. This suggests that High settings introduce significant compute and texture loads that Ultra does not proportionally increase.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Ryzen 5 5500 and RTX 3080 Ti ranks 490 out of 1795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the top 27% of all systems. This rank reflects the balance of the pairing: the GPU is strong enough to push high frame rates, but the CPU's position as a 6-core, 12-thread part with a 3.60 GHz base clock limits the overall score.

The CPU's nearest rivals show how close the performance margins are. The Intel Core i5-12500 is only 0.1% faster on average, and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE matches it at 0.1% slower. The AMD EPYC 7J13 is 0.1% faster, and the Intel Core i5-12600T is 0.2% slower. These tiny deltas indicate that the Ryzen 5 5500 is well-positioned in its class, but it is not a top-tier performer. The combo rank of 490 suggests that many systems with slower GPUs but faster CPUs achieve similar or better results in this specific game.

The GPU's rank is more favorable: the RTX 3080 Ti sits at the 83rd percentile, with its nearest rival, the RTX 3090, only 0.5% ahead. This means the GPU is doing most of the heavy lifting in this pairing, and any frame rate limitations in the measured data are more attributable to the CPU than the GPU.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor built on the Zen 3 architecture (Cezanne codename) using a 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, with 16 MB of L3 cache. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is known for its single-threaded simulation logic, the CPU's single-core performance is critical. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2319 and the 3DMark single-thread score of 836 reflect a decent but not exceptional single-thread capability.

The measured FPS data reveals the CPU's influence. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 162.7 FPS, which is a high number, but the 4K Low result of 96.2 FPS suggests the GPU is still being fed adequately. However, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p at High settings shows a 17% drop, which is steeper than what a purely GPU-bound system would show. This indicates that the CPU is starting to limit the frame rate as the GPU's workload increases.

The multi-threaded performance is more robust, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16429 and a 3DMark max-threads score of 5411. This helps with background tasks and terrain loading, but the game's main thread still relies on the 3.60 GHz base clock. The 65W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support (51.2 GB/s bandwidth) are adequate, but the PCIe Gen 3 interface may slightly limit data transfer to the GPU, though this is not directly measured in the FPS data.

The CPU's percentile of 79 against all CPUs places it above most, but the nearest rivals are all within 0.2% of its average score. This tight grouping means that swapping to a slightly faster CPU would have minimal impact on the overall frame rates. The real bottleneck in this combo is the CPU's clock speed, not its core count, as evidenced by the relatively small FPS differences between settings at 4K compared to the larger gaps at 1080p.