Microsoft Flight Simulator

FAQ

Q: How does the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X + AMD Radeon RX 9060 combo rank in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: This combination ranks 2,166th out of 3,714 tested combos in the database, placing it in the lower-middle portion of all configurations tested for this game.

Q: What is the best performance this combo achieves at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo delivers an average of 111 FPS. At Ultra settings, the average drops to 62 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 9060 compare to its closest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 9060 sits within 1% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (0.7% slower) and AMD Radeon RX 7700 (1% faster), while running 2.1% ahead of the Radeon Pro W5500.

Q: What is the CPU's multi-threaded performance relative to its peers?

A: The Ryzen 5 5600X scores 11,838 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, which puts it essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 4800H (0.1% faster) and the Intel Core i7-11700 (0.5% faster).

Q: Does the combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 37 (Ultra) to 66 (Low). Medium settings produce 51 FPS average with a minimum of 44 FPS, making 4K playable only at lower settings.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration?

A: The Radeon RX 9060 features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth, with a base clock of 1700 MHz and boost clock of 2990 MHz.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060's memory subsystem and clock speeds directly shape its behavior in Microsoft Flight Simulator. With 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth on a 128-bit bus, the card is positioned as a mid-range solution. The 1700 MHz base clock and 2990 MHz boost clock — with a 2400 MHz game clock — provide the raw throughput needed to drive the simulator's demanding scenery rendering.

The GPU's architectural details matter here. Built on RDNA 4.0 with the Navi 44 chip, the RX 9060 packs 1,792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation units. Its 21.43 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is substantial, but Microsoft Flight Simulator's heavy draw-call overhead and terrain streaming often tax the CPU side before the GPU becomes the sole bottleneck. The 28 ray tracing cores are present, though this simulation title leans more on traditional rasterization.

Benchmark data shows the GPU's overall standing: a PassMark G3D score of 17,631 places it at the 59th percentile among all GPUs. Its closest rival, the RTX 3060 Ti, scores 16,129 on average — a 0.7% delta — meaning the RX 9060 trades blows with that older but well-regarded card. The Radeon R9 370X and RX 7700 sit within 1% on either side, which contextualizes the card's mid-pack positioning.

At 1080p Low settings, the combo hits 111 FPS average, indicating the GPU has headroom when the simulator's visual load is reduced. But at 4K Ultra, the average collapses to 37 FPS. This spread — from 111 FPS down to 37 FPS across the settings ladder — shows the GPU's memory bandwidth and 8 GB capacity becoming strained at higher resolutions and quality presets. The 288.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but 4K textures and high-detail terrain push against the card's limits.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo sits at rank 2,166 out of 3,714 tested configurations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the 58th percentile of all combos — slightly above the median but far from the top. The ranking reflects a balanced pairing: neither component wildly outperforms the other, and the system lands where the CPU's 75th percentile and GPU's 59th percentile standings would suggest.

Breaking down the component contributions, the Ryzen 5 5600X's average benchmark score of 21,771 places it at the 75th percentile of all CPUs. The RX 9060's average benchmark score of 16,014 puts it at the 59th percentile of GPUs. The combo's in-game ranking of 2,166/3,714 suggests Microsoft Flight Simulator's performance is somewhat more dependent on the GPU than the CPU, dragging the combined result closer to the GPU's percentile than the CPU's.

The delta between component percentiles (75th for CPU, 59th for GPU) and the combo's effective standing indicates the simulator's engine scales with both, but the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher quality settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 111 FPS, which is competitive with much higher-ranked combos. At 4K Ultra, the 37 FPS result would place the combo considerably lower in a resolution-specific ranking.

For context, the CPU's nearest rivals — the Ryzen 7 4800H, Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U, Core i7-11700, and EPYC 9554P — all sit within 0.6% of the 5600X's average score. This tight clustering means the CPU is not a differentiator in this game's performance. The GPU's rivals cluster similarly tightly, with the RTX 3060 Ti, R9 370X, and RX 7700 all within 1%. The combo's rank is therefore more a function of how these two mid-pack components interact with the simulator's specific demands.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce an average of 111 FPS, Medium yields 86 FPS (with a minimum of 73 and maximum of 99), High drops to 65 FPS, and Ultra settles at 62 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 49 FPS — a 44% reduction — which shows the GPU handling the quality scaling effectively at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages step down: Low hits 89 FPS, Medium delivers 69 FPS (minimum 59, maximum 80), High reaches 52 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 50 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings is 22 FPS (111 to 89), while at Ultra the drop is only 12 FPS (62 to 50). This narrowing gap at higher settings suggests the CPU begins to share the load more evenly as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the performance envelope tightens considerably. Low settings still manage 66 FPS average, Medium drops to 51 FPS (minimum 44, maximum 59), High falls to 39 FPS, and Ultra struggles to 37 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is just 29 FPS — much tighter than at 1080p. The Medium setting's minimum of 44 FPS indicates occasional dips below the 60 FPS threshold, which in a flight simulator can be noticeable during rapid scenery changes.

The data reveals a clear pattern: this combo is comfortable at 1080p across all settings, acceptable at 1440p with Medium or lower settings, and only playable at 4K with Low or Medium settings. The 62 FPS at 1080p Ultra versus 65 FPS at 1080p High shows diminishing returns at the top quality tiers — only a 3 FPS difference between High and Ultra at this resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K tells a story about system balance. At Low settings, performance falls from 111 FPS at 1080p to 66 FPS at 4K — a 40.5% reduction. At Medium, the drop is from 86 to 51 FPS, a 40.7% reduction. At High, it's 65 to 39 FPS, a 40% reduction. At Ultra, 62 to 37 FPS, a 40.3% reduction.

The consistency of this ~40% drop across all settings is remarkable. It indicates that the scaling penalty from 1080p to 4K is uniform regardless of quality preset. This uniformity suggests the GPU's memory bandwidth is the primary constraint — the 288.0 GB/s bandwidth must serve four times the pixel count at 4K compared to 1080p, and the card responds predictably.

Breaking the scaling further, the transition from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings costs 22 FPS (111 to 89, a 19.8% drop). From 1440p to 4K at Low, the drop is 23 FPS (89 to 66, a 25.8% drop). The second transition is steeper, which aligns with the 1440p-to-4K pixel count increase being proportionally larger than 1080p-to-1440p.

This scaling behavior points to the GPU as the limiting component at higher resolutions. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads — with a 3.70 GHz base and 4.60 GHz boost — are sufficient to feed the GPU at 1080p, but as resolution climbs, the RX 9060's 8 GB memory capacity and 128-bit bus become the binding constraint. The fact that the percentage drop is nearly identical across settings reinforces this: the GPU's throughput ceiling is being hit regardless of how much work the settings demand.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X brings 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture (codenamed Vermeer), manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process. Its base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 4.60 GHz, combined with 32 MB of L3 cache, provide strong single-thread performance that matters in Microsoft Flight Simulator's simulation-heavy workload.

Benchmark results show the CPU's capabilities: Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1,541 and multi-core of 11,838. Geekbench scores of 1,989 single-core and 9,173 multi-core reinforce the picture. The 3DMark single-thread score of 917 and 16-thread score of 5,582 highlight the CPU's scaling efficiency across its 12 threads.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 75th among all CPUs is solidly above average. Its nearest rivals — the Ryzen 7 4800H (0.1% faster), Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U (0.5% slower), Core i7-11700 (0.5% slower), and EPYC 9554P (0.6% slower) — all cluster within a fraction of a percent. This tight grouping means the 5600X offers no meaningful advantage or disadvantage over these alternatives in this game.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle the simulation loop, aircraft physics, and scenery loading. The 4.60 GHz boost clock helps with the single-threaded portions of the engine, while the 12 threads manage background tasks like terrain streaming and AI traffic. The 32 MB L3 cache reduces memory latency, which is beneficial for the simulator's many small data accesses.

The measured FPS data shows the CPU's influence most clearly at 1080p Low settings, where the 111 FPS result suggests the CPU can push the GPU to its limits at that resolution. However, the uniform ~40% FPS drop from 1080p to 4K across all settings indicates the CPU is not the bottleneck at higher resolutions — the GPU takes over as the limiting factor. At 1080p Ultra, the 62 FPS result versus 65 FPS at High suggests the CPU and GPU are more evenly matched, but neither is severely constrained.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and 4,150 million transistors on a 74 mm² die make it an efficient choice. Its PassMark multi-thread score of 21,858 and single-thread score of 3,364 place it well within the range needed for smooth flight simulation at mainstream resolutions. The data indicates the 5600X is a capable partner for the RX 9060, providing enough processing power to avoid becoming the primary constraint until the GPU is pushed to its 4K limits.