Microsoft Flight Simulator

This combo of an AMD Ryzen 5 5600G and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 lands at rank 1522 out of 1795 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. That places it in the lower third of the database, which is expected given the GPU’s age and the game’s reputation as a demanding title. The data shows this pairing is workable, but it is not a high-end experience. It sits in the 15th percentile of all tested combos, meaning roughly 85% of other pairings deliver higher average frame rates. For a flight sim enthusiast, this is a baseline setup — playable, sometimes smooth, but rarely luxurious.

How This Combo Ranks

The rank of 1522 out of 1795 is a clear signal. This is not a combo you pick for competitive e-sports or high-refresh monitors; it is a pairing that prioritizes affordability and availability over raw frame rates. The Ryzen 5 5600G is a capable CPU — it benchmarks in the 78th percentile against all CPUs — but the GTX 1070 drags the overall experience down. The GPU’s percentile versus all GPUs is 51, meaning half the graphics cards in the database outperform it.

The CPU’s nearest rivals show how tight the mid-range competition is. The Intel Core i7-11600H scores 0.2% higher, while the AMD EPYC 7713P and Intel Core i7-11800H both score 0.2% lower. The AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX is 0.3% higher. These are negligible differences — the 5600G is effectively tied with those parts in synthetic benchmarks. The GPU side is similar: the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 is 0.7% higher, the GeForce GTX 880M is 1.3% lower, and the GTX 1650 SUPER is 1.4% lower. The GTX 1070 holds its own against these, but none of them are modern powerhouses.

What this ranking means in practice: you will spend more time adjusting settings than flying at maxed-out visuals. The combo is not broken, but it demands compromise. At 1080p with Low settings, you can hit 83 FPS average, which is smooth. At 4K with Ultra, you drop to 28.2 FPS, which is borderline slideshow territory. The sweet spot exists, but you have to find it.

Settings Recommendations

Looking at the measured rows, the best experience is at 1920x1080 with Medium settings, yielding 63.8 FPS average. This is the balance point where the game looks respectable and remains fluid. Low settings at 1080p give 83 FPS, which is great for frame rate purists, but the visual hit is significant in a game where scenery and cockpit detail matter. High settings at 1080p drop to 46.9 FPS — playable, but noticeably less smooth during dense city flyovers or weather-heavy scenes.

At 1440p, Medium settings produce 53.1 FPS, which is still workable for a flight sim where precise timing is less critical than in shooters. But 4K is not recommended for this combo. Even Low settings at 4K only reach 46.6 FPS, and that is with the ugliest visuals. The data clearly shows that 1080p Medium is the best preset for an enjoyable experience. It keeps the frame rate above 60, which is the threshold where the sim feels responsive. Ultra settings at 1080p give 44.6 FPS, which is below that threshold and not worth the extra visual fidelity.

If you have a 1440p monitor, Medium is your ceiling for smoothness — 53.1 FPS is acceptable for this genre, but expect dips during complex scenes. The recommendation is straightforward: stick to 1080p Medium for the best combination of polish and performance.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep, and it tells you exactly where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 83 FPS. At 1440p Low, it drops to 67.9 FPS. At 4K Low, it falls to 46.6 FPS. That is a 44% reduction from 1080p to 4K at the same settings. At High settings, the drop is from 46.9 FPS at 1080p to 41.6 FPS at 1440p, then to 26.3 FPS at 4K — a 44% loss again.

This consistent scaling pattern indicates the GPU is the primary limiting factor. The Ryzen 5 5600G is not holding the system back at higher resolutions; if it were, the frame rates would stay flat as resolution increases. Instead, they plummet, which is classic GPU-bound behavior. The GTX 1070’s 8 GB of GDDR5 memory and 256-bit bus are being overwhelmed by the pixel count at 4K.

The CPU’s role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the 83 FPS figure suggests the 5600G can feed frames fast enough, but the GPU still caps the output. The data does not show a scenario where the CPU is the bottleneck — even at 1080p, the GPU is the weaker link. This is a GPU-bound pairing across the board, and the resolution scaling confirms it.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 83 FPS, Medium 63.8 FPS, High 46.9 FPS, Ultra 44.6 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs you 19.2 FPS, which is a 23% reduction. From Medium to High, you lose another 16.9 FPS. High to Ultra is only 2.3 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns at the top end. This is typical — the Ultra preset adds effects that are expensive but not visually transformative.

At 2560x1440, the numbers are: Low 67.9 FPS, Medium 53.1 FPS, High 41.6 FPS, Ultra 37.7 FPS. The pattern holds, but the absolute values are lower. Low to Medium costs 14.8 FPS, Medium to High costs 11.5 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 3.9 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows further, reinforcing that Ultra is not worth the performance hit.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 46.6 FPS, Medium 35.6 FPS, High 26.3 FPS, Ultra 28.2 FPS. Note the anomaly — Ultra (28.2 FPS) is actually higher than High (26.3 FPS). This is likely due to the game’s dynamic settings or a measurement quirk, but it suggests that at 4K, the difference between High and Ultra is negligible. The GPU is so overwhelmed that settings tweaks have minimal impact. The data shows that 4K is only playable at Low, and even then, 46.6 FPS is marginal for a flight sim.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is a Pascal architecture card from 2016, built on a 16 nm process. It has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock is 1506 MHz with a boost of 1683 MHz. The memory runs at 2002 MHz, which translates to 8 Gbps effective. These are dated specs, and Microsoft Flight Simulator’s heavy draw calls and streaming textures push the card hard.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reflect its age. It scores 13498 in Passmark G3D, which places it in the 51st percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals — the Quadro K4200, GTX 880M, GTX 1650 SUPER, and Tesla K20Xm — are all within 1.7% of its score. This is a mid-pack card, and the measured FPS data confirms it cannot handle 4K in this sim. The 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the memory bandwidth becomes a constraint. The pixel rate of 107.7 GPixel/s and texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s are simply not enough for the sim’s detailed terrain and aircraft models at high resolutions.

For this game, the GTX 1070 is the ceiling. The CPU can push more frames, but the GPU cannot render them. The data shows that lowering settings helps, but only to a point. At 1080p Low, the card manages 83 FPS, which is respectable. But any increase in resolution or settings quickly exposes the card’s limits.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G is a Zen 3 part with 6 cores and 12 threads. It runs at a base clock of 3.90 GHz and boosts to 4.40 GHz. It has 16 MB of L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus. The 7 nm process and TSMC foundry give it a strong performance-per-watt profile. Its benchmark scores are solid: Cinebench R23 multicore hits 16758, single-core hits 2365. Passmark multithread scores 19717, and single-thread scores 3177.

The CPU’s percentile versus all CPUs is 78, which means it outperforms most processors on the market. Its nearest rivals are within 0.3% of its average score, indicating it is a well-balanced part. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU handles the simulation logic, physics, and AI traffic. The 5600G’s 12 threads are sufficient for these tasks, and the data shows it is not the bottleneck in this pairing.

At 1080p Low, the 83 FPS figure demonstrates the CPU can feed the GPU quickly enough. The CPU’s single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 score of 2365) is strong, which matters for a sim that relies heavily on single-threaded game logic. The 5600G holds its own, and the bottleneck is clearly the GPU. If you were to pair this CPU with a faster GPU, you would likely see higher frame rates, but with the GTX 1070, the CPU has headroom to spare. The 65 W TDP is modest, making this an efficient pairing, but the GPU’s 150 W TDP and the sim’s demands mean you still need a decent power supply — the data lists a suggested PSU of 450 W.