Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 shows a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop is heavily dependent on the settings preset. At Low settings, the frame rate falls from 125 FPS at 1920x1080 to 103.5 FPS at 2560x1440, a drop of roughly 17%, and then to 75.1 FPS at 3840x2160, a further decline of about 27% from the 1440p figure. This indicates that at Low settings, the system retains substantial headroom even at 4K, suggesting the GPU is not the sole limiting factor at the lower resolution.

Switching to Medium settings, the numbers compress: 98 FPS at 1080p, 77.1 FPS at 1440p, and 58.2 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K here is approximately 41%, which is a more pronounced scaling curve. At High settings, the pattern continues with 71.7 FPS at 1080p, 61.3 FPS at 1440p, and 43.3 FPS at 4K, representing a 40% reduction from the lowest to highest resolution. The Ultra preset shows the tightest absolute range: 67.7 FPS at 1080p, 57.7 FPS at 1440p, and 42.2 FPS at 4K, a 38% drop overall.

The data reveals that the scaling from 1440p to 4K is consistently steeper than from 1080p to 1440p across all presets. For instance, at High settings, the 1080p-to-1440p decline is about 14.5%, while the 1440p-to-4K decline is about 29.4%. This nonlinear behavior points to the RTX 5060's 8 GB GDDR7 memory and 128-bit bus becoming progressively more stressed as pixel count grows. The 4K results, particularly at High and Ultra (43.3 and 42.2 FPS respectively), hover near the edge of playability for a flight simulator, where smooth panning is critical. The limiting component at 4K is clearly the GPU, as the CPU's role diminishes at higher resolutions, but the fact that Low preset at 4K still delivers 75.1 FPS demonstrates that the combination can handle the resolution when the visual load is reduced.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, housing 21,900 million transistors on a 181 mm² die. Its boost clock is rated at 2497 MHz, with a base clock of 2280 MHz. The GPU's memory configuration consists of 8 GB of GDDR7 on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. This memory bandwidth is a critical factor in Microsoft Flight Simulator, a game that streams vast amounts of terrain and photogrammetry data.

Benchmark results position this GPU at the 73rd percentile among all tested GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30109. Its nearest rivals in aggregate performance are the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT with a score of 30097 and a deltaPct of 0, the AMD Radeon RX 570 at 30158 (deltaPct -0.2), and the NVIDIA Tesla M60 at 29969 (deltaPct 0.5). This near-identical scoring among rivals indicates the RTX 5060 sits in a dense performance cluster, meaning its specific features—like the 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores—may matter more than raw throughput in this title.

In the measured FPS data, the GPU's VRAM capacity appears to be a constraint at the highest settings. The difference between Medium and High at 4K is 14.9 FPS (58.2 vs 43.3), while the difference between High and Ultra at 4K is only 1.1 FPS (43.3 vs 42.2). This minimal gap between High and Ultra suggests that the 8 GB frame buffer is saturated, and the game is likely swapping or reducing textures, capping performance regardless of the additional GPU work required by the Ultra preset. The GPU's 48 ROPs and 19.18 TFLOPS FP32 throughput are sufficient for the lower presets, as evidenced by the 125 FPS result at 1080p Low, but the architecture's 128-bit memory interface becomes a bottleneck for the highest quality textures at high resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 5000 series, based on the Zen 3 architecture (Cezanne) on a 7 nm process. It operates at a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU features 16 MB of L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus providing 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth. Its integrated Radeon Vega 7 graphics are irrelevant here since a discrete GPU is present, but the CPU's overall capability is measured by a 78th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20740.

Its nearest rivals in aggregate CPU benchmarks are the Intel Core i7-10700 at 20746 (deltaPct 0), the Intel Core i5-12490F at 20794 (deltaPct -0.3), and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X at 20680 (deltaPct 0.3). The Ryzen 5 5600GT's single-thread performance, as indicated by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2438, is adequate for flight simulation, which typically relies on a primary simulation thread. The multi-threaded score of 17272 in Cinebench R23 shows the 12 threads can handle background tasks like AI traffic and weather calculations.

In the context of this game, the CPU's role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions. The jump from 1080p Medium (98 FPS) to 1080p Low (125 FPS) is 27 FPS, which is a larger relative gain than the corresponding jump at 4K (58.2 to 75.1 FPS, a 16.9 FPS gain). This suggests that at 1080p, the CPU has more influence on the frame rate ceiling, as the GPU is less burdened and can deliver frames faster than the CPU can feed it. However, the 4.60 GHz boost clock is sufficient to avoid severe bottlenecks, as evidenced by the system still achieving over 100 FPS at 1440p Low. The PCIe Gen 3 interface (16 lanes) could theoretically limit data transfer to the GPU, but the measured results do not show an obvious penalty at lower settings, indicating the CPU and memory subsystem are keeping pace.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 ranks 870th out of 1795 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the combo in the 48th percentile of all combinations, meaning slightly more than half of the tested combos perform better in this specific title. Given that the CPU ranks in the 78th percentile and the GPU in the 73rd percentile individually, the combo's lower relative ranking suggests that the pairing is not optimally balanced for this game's demands.

The rank implies that while each component is above average on its own, the system as a whole falls behind many other pairings in this simulator. This is likely due to the combination's limitations at higher settings, where the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and the CPU's older PCIe Gen 3 interface may not synergize well with the game's streaming requirements. For context, the combo's aggregate CPU score of 20740 is nearly identical to its rivals (Intel Core i7-10700 at 20746), yet those rivals paired with different GPUs may rank higher because their platform features (like PCIe Gen 4) could better support the RTX 5060's PCIe 5.0 interface, albeit at a reduced x8 link.

The data shows that the combo's best performance is at 1080p Low, where it achieves 125 FPS, but this is not representative of the experience at higher visual fidelity. The rank of 870 suggests that users seeking maximum quality in Microsoft Flight Simulator may find this pairing underwhelming compared to alternatives, despite the individual components' respectable benchmark standings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain a 60 FPS average?

A: At 2560x1440 High settings, the combo achieves 61.3 FPS, which is the lowest resolution and preset pair that stays above 60 FPS. At 4K, only the Low preset (75.1 FPS) exceeds 60 FPS, while Medium drops to 58.2 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5060 compare to its closest GPU rivals in aggregate performance?

A: The RTX 5060 scores 30109 on average, matching the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (30097, deltaPct 0) and the AMD Radeon RX 570 (30158, deltaPct -0.2). The NVIDIA Tesla M60 is also close at 29969 (deltaPct 0.5).

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 5600GT a bottleneck for the RTX 5060 at 1080p?

A: The data shows a 27 FPS difference between 1080p Low and Medium, indicating the CPU has headroom. However, at 1080p Low (125 FPS), the CPU's single-thread performance may limit the GPU from reaching even higher frame rates, though the measured scores do not confirm a hard bottleneck.

Q: What is the CPU's average benchmark score and percentile ranking?

A: The Ryzen 5 5600GT has an average benchmark score of 20740 and ranks in the 78th percentile among all CPUs. Its closest rival, the Intel Core i7-10700, scores 20746 with a deltaPct of 0.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 5060 have, and does it affect 4K performance?

A: The RTX 5060 has 8 GB of GDDR7 memory. At 4K, the difference between High (43.3 FPS) and Ultra (42.2 FPS) is just 1.1 FPS, suggesting the VRAM cap limits performance at the highest settings.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank in this game?

A: The combo ranks 870th out of 1795 tested combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the middle of the pack among all tested systems.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following data is directly measured for this specific combo in Microsoft Flight Simulator. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 125 FPS, the Medium preset delivers 98 FPS, the High preset delivers 71.7 FPS, and the Ultra preset delivers 67.7 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 57.3 FPS, showing significant scaling with visual quality.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves 103.5 FPS, Medium drops to 77.1 FPS, High reaches 61.3 FPS, and Ultra falls to 57.7 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at this resolution is only 3.6 FPS, indicating diminishing returns from the highest setting. The 1440p results show that the combo can comfortably handle medium settings above 60 FPS, but High and Ultra hover near the 60 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset produces 75.1 FPS, Medium produces 58.2 FPS, High produces 43.3 FPS, and Ultra produces 42.2 FPS. The 4K data reveals a steep drop-off; only the Low preset maintains a playable frame rate above 60 FPS. The gap between Medium and High at 4K is 14.9 FPS, which is substantial, while the gap between High and Ultra is negligible at 1.1 FPS. Across all resolutions, the Low preset always provides the highest frame rate, with the delta between Low and Ultra widening from 57.3 FPS at 1080p to 32.9 FPS at 4K, confirming that the GPU is the primary limiter at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. For 1920x1080, the Ultra preset at 67.7 FPS is playable, but the High preset at 71.7 FPS offers a 4 FPS improvement with only a minor reduction in visual fidelity. Given that the CPU and GPU both score above the 70th percentile individually, the 1080p Medium preset at 98 FPS provides a substantial margin over the 60 FPS threshold, making it the best balance for smooth performance without sacrificing too much detail.

For 2560x1440, the Medium preset at 77.1 FPS is the recommended choice, as it delivers 15.8 FPS more than High (61.3 FPS) while still maintaining a solid visual experience. The Ultra preset at 57.7 FPS dips below 60 FPS, so it is not ideal for consistent smoothness. The High preset is acceptable if visual quality is prioritized over a small frame rate buffer, but Medium is the safer option.

For 3840x2160, the Low preset at 75.1 FPS is the only setting that stays comfortably above 60 FPS. The Medium preset at 58.2 FPS is borderline, and the High and Ultra presets (43.3 and 42.2 FPS) are not recommended for a responsive experience. Users targeting 4K should use Low settings to ensure smooth gameplay, or consider lowering the resolution to 1440p with Medium settings for a better visual-to-performance trade-off. Overall, the data suggests that the combo's sweet spot is 1440p Medium, where it achieves 77.1 FPS, balancing the GPU's 8 GB VRAM constraints and the CPU's capable single-thread performance.