Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 show a steep and consistent performance collapse as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo averages 48.8 FPS. Dropping to 2560x1440 Low yields 37.8 FPS, a reduction of roughly 22.5%. Moving further to 3840x2160 Low produces 25.8 FPS, which is only about 53% of the 1080p Low figure. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the dominant limiting factor at every resolution tier.

The gap between resolution steps narrows slightly at higher quality presets, but the overall trajectory remains downward. At High settings, the jump from 1080p to 1440p costs 7.4 FPS (27.0 to 19.6), while the move from 1440p to 4K costs only 2.8 FPS (19.6 to 16.8). This diminishing penalty at the top end suggests that the game is already so heavily GPU-bound that additional pixel count has less marginal impact when the frame rate is already in the teens. The Ultra preset tells a similar story: 24.7 FPS at 1080p, 19.4 FPS at 1440p, and 14.0 FPS at 4K.

What the data clearly shows is that this combination is not viable for 4K play under any settings. Even the Low preset at 3840x2160 barely reaches 25.8 FPS, which falls well short of smooth gameplay thresholds. The 1440p results are playable only at Low (37.8 FPS) and marginal at Medium (29.2 FPS). At 1080p, the Low preset (48.8 FPS) is the only configuration that approaches acceptable fluidity, with Medium (38.3 FPS) and High (27.0 FPS) trailing significantly. The scaling behavior points to a system where the GTX 1650's 4 GB GDDR5 memory and 128-bit bus are overwhelmed by the simulator's demand for texture bandwidth and fill rate as resolution increases.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT brings six cores and twelve threads to the pairing, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. This Zen 3 Cezanne part, built on TSMC's 7 nm process, posts a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 17272 and a single-core score of 2438. In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is known for heavy single-threaded simulation logic, the single-core performance is arguably more relevant than the raw multicore throughput.

The benchmark data supports this interpretation. The CPU's Geekbench single-core score of 2035 and 3DMark single-thread score of 913 are respectable for a mid-range desktop chip. However, the frame rates in this game do not appear to be constrained by the processor at typical gaming resolutions. The fact that FPS drops by roughly half when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings — for instance, 48.8 to 25.8 FPS on Low — indicates that the GPU is the bottleneck, not the CPU. If the processor were limiting, the frame rate would remain relatively flat across resolutions.

The 5600GT's 16 MB L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support (with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth) are adequate for feeding the GTX 1650, but the CPU's 78th percentile standing among all processors suggests it is a competent mid-tier part. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-10700 (deltaPct 0%), the Intel Core i5-12490F (deltaPct -0.3%), and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (deltaPct 0.3%). These are all similarly performing chips, meaning the 5600GT is not a weak link in this combo. The CPU's role here is to keep up with the GPU's demands, and the data shows it does so without becoming the primary constraint — the frame rate scaling is purely a function of graphics load.

How This Combo Ranks

In the comprehensive database of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator, this pairing of the Ryzen 5 5600GT and GTX 1650 ranks 1759 out of 1795 total combos. That places it in the bottom 2% of all tested systems, a stark indication of how poorly suited this hardware is for the simulator's demanding rendering engine. The rank is not a reflection of the CPU, which performs near its class expectations, but rather the GPU's inability to handle the game's heavy draw calls and texture streaming.

The GTX 1650's 43rd percentile standing among all GPUs, combined with an average benchmark score of 8713, puts it in the lower third of graphics cards. Its nearest rivals — the RTX 3050 A Mobile (deltaPct -0.4%), Radeon 550X (deltaPct -0.4%), Quadro P2200 (deltaPct 0.5%), and Radeon Pro WX 5100 (deltaPct -0.5%) — are all similarly low-performing parts. This context explains the 1759 rank: the combo is essentially at the floor of what can run the game at all, and the measured FPS numbers confirm that even the best-case scenario (1080p Low at 48.8 FPS) is barely playable.

The data indicates that this combo sits in a performance tier where users must make severe compromises. With only 36 combinations ranked below it, the 5600GT + GTX 1650 is nearly the worst possible pairing for this specific title. The fact that the CPU is a 2024 release while the GPU is a 2019 part (now end-of-life) creates a fundamental imbalance — the processor is capable, but the graphics card holds the entire system back to a level that is competitive only with entry-level laptops and older workstation cards.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates provide a complete picture of this combo's capabilities across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 48.8 FPS, which is the highest figure recorded for this pairing. Medium drops to 38.3 FPS, High falls to 27.0 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 24.7 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 24.1 FPS, showing that quality settings have a substantial impact at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset produces 37.8 FPS, Medium yields 29.2 FPS, High manages 19.6 FPS, and Ultra trails at 19.4 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows significantly at this resolution, with only 0.2 FPS separating the two presets. This suggests that the Ultra preset's additional effects are largely GPU-bound and provide minimal visible benefit when the hardware is already saturated.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor. Low averages 25.8 FPS, Medium drops to 22.6 FPS, High falls to 16.8 FPS, and Ultra collapses to 14.0 FPS. No preset at 4K reaches even 30 FPS, confirming that this resolution is not viable for this combo. The scaling from 1080p Low to 4K Low represents a 47% performance loss, while the same resolution jump at Ultra costs 43% of the frame rate. These numbers indicate that the GTX 1650's 4 GB VRAM buffer is likely being exceeded at higher resolutions and settings, causing the GPU to spill into slower memory operations.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is the clear bottleneck in this pairing. With 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus providing 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth, this Turing-architecture card (TU117 chip, 12 nm process) is simply outclassed by Microsoft Flight Simulator's requirements. The GPU's 896 shading units, 56 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs deliver 2.984 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and a pixel rate of 53.28 GPixel/s. These specifications place the card in the 43rd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 8713.

The measured FPS data reinforces the GPU-bound nature of the combo. At any given resolution, the difference between Low and Ultra settings is substantial — 24.1 FPS at 1080p, 18.4 FPS at 1440p, and 11.8 FPS at 4K. This sensitivity to quality settings is characteristic of a GPU that is running out of raw fill rate and memory bandwidth. The GTX 1650's boost clock of 1665 MHz and base clock of 1485 MHz are modest, and the card draws only 75 W with no auxiliary power connectors, indicating its entry-level positioning.

The GPU's nearest rivals include the RTX 3050 A Mobile (deltaPct -0.4%), Radeon 550X (deltaPct -0.4%), and Quadro P2200 (deltaPct 0.5%), all of which perform within a fraction of a percent. This tight clustering shows that the GTX 1650 is at the bottom of the performance ladder for contemporary gaming. For a simulator like Microsoft Flight Simulator, which renders dense scenery, dynamic weather, and complex aircraft models, the 4 GB frame buffer is insufficient at higher resolutions. The data shows that even at 1080p Medium (38.3 FPS), the experience is below the 60 FPS target, and users must accept either Low settings or lower resolutions to achieve playable frame rates. The GPU, not the CPU, defines this combo's ceiling.