Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT reveals a clear pattern: the game scales in a predictable manner as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop varies significantly by settings preset. At Low settings, the combo delivers 160.4 FPS at 1920x1080, which falls to 133.3 FPS at 2560x1440, and then to 97.9 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 17% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 27% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The overall drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 39%, indicating that even at the lowest graphical load, the GPU is still the primary scaling factor.

Moving to Medium settings, the frame rates are 125.3 FPS at 1080p, 102.7 FPS at 1440p, and 72.8 FPS at 4K. The percentage declines are steeper here: an 18% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 29% drop from 1440p to 4K. The cumulative loss from 1080p to 4K at Medium is 42%, slightly worse than Low. This trend continues at High settings, where 1080p produces 97 FPS, 1440p produces 75.9 FPS, and 4K produces 53.3 FPS. The 1080p-to-1440p decline is 22%, and the 1440p-to-4K decline is 30%, for a total loss of 45% from 1080p to 4K.

Ultra settings show the most dramatic scaling behavior. At 1080p, the combo achieves 88.8 FPS; at 1440p, it drops to 75.6 FPS; and at 4K, it falls to 51.6 FPS. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 15%, which is actually the smallest relative decline among all presets, but the 1440p-to-4K drop is 32%, the largest single step in the entire dataset. The cumulative 1080p-to-4K loss at Ultra is 42%, nearly identical to Medium. This suggests that at Ultra settings, the CPU starts to become a limiting factor at lower resolutions, compressing the gap between 1080p and 1440p, while the GPU becomes increasingly dominant as pixel count rises.

The data shows that resolution scaling in this title is not linear. The steepest relative penalties occur when moving from 1440p to 4K, regardless of settings preset. At Low settings, the 4K result is still above 60 FPS, making it playable, while at High and Ultra, 4K dips below 60 FPS. The 1080p results are uniformly high, with even Ultra staying above 88 FPS, indicating that the combo is never CPU-bound at that resolution in a way that hurts playability. Overall, the limiting component shifts from the CPU at 1080p (where the Ryzen 5 5600's 6 cores and 12 threads handle the simulation logic) to the GPU at 4K (where the RX 9070 XT's rendering load dominates).

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this specific CPU-GPU combination ranks 494 out of 1,795 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. That places it in the top 27.5% of all configurations tested, which is a solid showing for a mid-range processor paired with a high-end graphics card. The rank reflects the overall measured performance across all resolutions and settings, and the data indicates that the combo is well-balanced for this title, though not at the very top tier.

To contextualize the CPU's contribution, the Ryzen 5 5600 has an average benchmark score of 21,765 across all tests, placing it in the 79th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon D-1746TER (average score 21,635, which is 0.6% lower), the AMD EPYC 9554P (average score 21,899, which is 0.6% higher), and the AMD EPYC 9534 (average score 21,900, also 0.6% higher). The Intel Core i7-11700F sits 0.9% ahead with an average score of 21,957. These deltas are small, meaning the Ryzen 5 5600's compute performance is statistically on par with those server and desktop parts in general benchmarks, though Flight Simulator's specific workload may favor certain architectures.

On the GPU side, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT achieves an average benchmark score of 39,647, placing it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon Pro 575 (average score 39,703, 0.1% lower), the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (average score 39,568, 0.2% higher), and the AMD Radeon Pro 575X (average score 39,836, 0.5% higher). The AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 sits 0.6% ahead with an average score of 39,879. Again, the deltas are minimal, indicating that the RX 9070 XT's raw compute performance is competitive with those professional and older gaming cards, but the measured FPS in Flight Simulator will depend heavily on driver optimization and architectural features like ray tracing cores.

The combo rank of 494 out of 1,795 suggests that while the individual components are strong, there are many other combinations that achieve higher frame rates in this specific game. This is likely due to Flight Simulator's heavy reliance on single-threaded CPU performance for simulation logic, where the Ryzen 5 5600's single-thread score of 882 in 3DMark (or 2,584 in Cinebench R23) may pale against newer or higher-clocked processors. The GPU's 16 GB of VRAM and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth are ample for this title, but the overall rank indicates that the CPU is the more limiting factor in many scenarios.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 88.8 FPS. This is the lowest 1080p result among all presets, but still comfortably above 60 FPS, indicating good playability at that resolution.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K with High settings compared to 1440p?

A: At 3840x2160 with High settings, the average FPS is 53.3, while at 2560x1440 with High settings, it is 75.9. This represents a 30% drop when moving from 1440p to 4K, showing that the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher pixel counts.

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

A: The data suggests the CPU is more limiting at lower resolutions. For example, at 1080p Low, the combo hits 160.4 FPS, but at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 88.8 FPS, indicating that the GPU load increases with settings. At 4K Ultra, the 51.6 FPS result shows the GPU is heavily taxed. The Ryzen 5 5600's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for the simulation, but the single-thread performance (3DMark single-thread score of 882) may hold back higher frame rates in CPU-bound scenes.

Q: What is the best resolution for maintaining above 60 FPS at High settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with High settings, the combo achieves 75.9 FPS, which is above 60 FPS. At 3840x2160 with High settings, it drops to 53.3 FPS, which is below 60 FPS. Therefore, 1440p is the highest resolution that maintains 60+ FPS at High settings in this dataset.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 494 out of 1,795 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the top 27.5% of all configurations, which is a strong result, but there are many other combos that achieve higher frame rates, likely due to faster CPUs.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 133.3 FPS, while Ultra delivers 75.6 FPS. This is a 43% reduction, showing that the Ultra settings significantly increase the graphical load on the GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). No minimum or maximum FPS values are provided, so the analysis relies solely on average frame rates.

At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low delivers 160.4 FPS, Medium delivers 125.3 FPS, High delivers 97 FPS, and Ultra delivers 88.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 71.6 FPS, or a 45% reduction. The step from Low to Medium is a 22% drop, from Medium to High is a 23% drop, and from High to Ultra is a 9% drop. The relatively small High-to-Ultra delta suggests that Ultra adds less marginal load than the jump from Medium to High.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low delivers 133.3 FPS, Medium delivers 102.7 FPS, High delivers 75.9 FPS, and Ultra delivers 75.6 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra reduction is 43%, slightly less than at 1080p. Notably, the High and Ultra results are nearly identical (75.9 vs 75.6 FPS), differing by only 0.3 FPS. This indicates that at 1440p, the Ultra preset's additional effects are not significantly taxing the GPU, or that the CPU is preventing further scaling.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low delivers 97.9 FPS, Medium delivers 72.8 FPS, High delivers 53.3 FPS, and Ultra delivers 51.6 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra reduction is 47%, the largest percentage drop across all resolutions. The High-to-Ultra gap is only 1.7 FPS, again showing diminishing returns from High to Ultra. The Medium-to-High drop is 27%, which is steeper than at lower resolutions, confirming that the GPU is becoming the dominant bottleneck at 4K.

Comparing across resolutions, the Low preset at 4K (97.9 FPS) is nearly identical to the High preset at 1080p (97 FPS), illustrating how resolution has a similar impact to a significant settings change. Similarly, the Medium preset at 1440p (102.7 FPS) is close to the Low preset at 1080p (160.4 FPS), showing that resolution scaling is more impactful than preset scaling in some cases. The data shows that the combo is capable of high frame rates at 1080p across all settings, but only Low and Medium presets achieve 60+ FPS at 4K.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT plays a critical role in this combo's performance, particularly at higher resolutions and settings. The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s. This is sufficient for Microsoft Flight Simulator's large textures and terrain data, even at 4K with Ultra settings, where the measured FPS of 51.6 indicates the GPU is working near its limit.

The GPU's clock speeds are notable: a base clock of 1660 MHz, a game clock of 2400 MHz, and a boost clock of 2970 MHz. The boost clock is 79% higher than the base clock, which allows the GPU to ramp up significantly under load. The memory clock runs at 2518 MHz, or 20.1 Gbps effective, which is high for GDDR6 and contributes to the 644.6 GB/s bandwidth. These clocks, combined with the 4096 shading units and 128 ROPs, deliver a pixel rate of 380.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 760.3 GTexel/s.

In Flight Simulator, the GPU's role becomes more prominent as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the CPU is likely the limiting factor, as the GPU can render frames quickly (160.4 FPS). At 4K Ultra, the GPU's workload becomes the bottleneck, with the frame rate dropping to 51.6 FPS. The 16 GB VRAM is unlikely to be exceeded at any settings in this game, as Flight Simulator's highest texture packs typically require less than that, even at 4K. The measured data shows that the GPU's performance scales well with resolution, but the High-to-Ultra gap at 4K (53.3 vs 51.6 FPS) suggests that the Ultra preset's additional effects (like volumetric clouds and advanced shadows) have a modest impact on the GPU.

The RX 9070 XT's architecture, RDNA 4.0, includes 64 ray tracing cores, which can handle the game's dynamic lighting and reflections. However, Flight Simulator is primarily rasterization-bound, so the ray tracing hardware may not be heavily utilized. The GPU's FP32 performance of 48.66 TFLOPS is high, but the game's engine is more dependent on memory bandwidth and texture throughput, both of which are strong on this card. The GPU's percentile rank of 82 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 39,647, confirms that it is a capable performer, but the measured FPS data in this specific title shows that it is not the primary constraint at lower resolutions.