Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator presents a demanding workload that stresses both the CPU and GPU heavily. The measured performance of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D shows a system capable of high frame rates across all tested presets, with the data indicating that the optimal balance of visual quality and performance is found at the Medium setting for most resolutions. This combination ranks 59th out of 2996 tested combos in this game, placing it in the top 2% of systems. The following analysis breaks down the measured results, offering specific recommendations and interpreting the data to understand the role each component plays in delivering these scores.

Settings Recommendations

Analyzing the measured FPS data, the Medium preset emerges as the recommended starting point for this combination. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers an average of 169 FPS, which is only 16 FPS lower than the Low preset's 185 FPS but represents a significant visual upgrade. Moving to High yields 149 FPS, a 20 FPS drop from Medium, while Ultra further reduces performance to 142 FPS. The data shows that the scaling from Low to Medium costs only 16 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High costs another 20 FPS, and High to Ultra costs only 7 FPS. This suggests that Medium provides the most efficient balance, as it captures a large portion of the visual fidelity gains without the disproportionate performance hit seen when moving to High.

At 2560x1440, the trend becomes even more pronounced. The Medium preset achieves an average of 157 FPS, which is 15 FPS higher than High (120 FPS) and 43 FPS higher than Ultra (114 FPS). The Low preset runs at 172 FPS, but the 15 FPS difference between Low and Medium is a worthwhile trade for the enhanced detail. The gap between Medium and High here is 37 FPS, which is a substantial penalty for the next visual tier. This indicates that at 1440p, the system is starting to feel more GPU-bound, and the higher settings place a significant load on the graphics card, making Medium the clear sweet spot.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset delivers an average of 118 FPS, with a recorded minimum of 100 FPS and maximum of 135 FPS. This is the only 4K preset with a recorded minimum FPS, suggesting stable performance. The High preset drops to 88 FPS, and Ultra further reduces to 84 FPS. The Low preset runs at 151 FPS, but the 33 FPS difference between Low and Medium is a larger cost than at lower resolutions, yet the Medium preset's 118 FPS average remains well within a playable range for a flight simulator. Therefore, for the best experience per the measured rows, the Medium preset offers the most consistent and high-quality performance across all resolutions, avoiding the significant frame rate drops associated with High and Ultra while providing a substantial visual improvement over Low.

FAQ

Q: How does this system's performance at 4K Ultra compare to its performance at 1080p Ultra?

A: The measured data shows a significant drop when moving to the highest resolution. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 142. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 84. This represents a 58 FPS decrease, or approximately a 40% reduction in frame rate when scaling from 1080p to 4K at the same settings.

Q: Is the frame rate difference between High and Ultra settings more significant at 1440p or 4K?

A: The difference is more significant at 1440p. At 2560x1440, the average FPS drops from 120 on High to 114 on Ultra, a 6 FPS difference. At 3840x2160, the average FPS drops from 88 on High to 84 on Ultra, a 4 FPS difference. The data indicates that the performance gap between these two high-end presets is relatively small at both resolutions, but slightly larger at 1440p.

Q: What is the lowest average frame rate recorded for this combination?

A: The lowest average frame rate recorded in the measured data is 84 FPS, which occurs at 3840x2160 resolution with Ultra settings. This is the most demanding configuration tested and represents the system's performance floor in this benchmark suite.

Q: How does the system's rank in this game compare to its overall component rankings?

A: The combo ranks 59th out of 2996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, which places it in the top 2% of systems tested. The CPU (AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D) has a percentile rank of 89 against all CPUs, while the GPU (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D) has a percentile rank of 92 against all GPUs. The combo's in-game rank is higher than either individual component percentile, indicating that the pairing is particularly effective for this specific title.

Q: At which resolution and settings does the system achieve its highest average FPS?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 185 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the least demanding configuration in the benchmark set, allowing the system to reach its maximum measured frame rate.

Q: Does the Medium preset show a more stable performance window at 4K compared to other resolutions?

A: The data shows that the 3840x2160 Medium preset is the only configuration with a recorded minimum and maximum FPS, showing a range of 100 to 135 FPS. While this doesn't directly measure stability, it provides a specific performance window. The 2560x1440 Medium preset shows a range of 133 to 181 FPS, and the 1920x1080 Medium preset shows a range of 143 to 194 FPS. The relative range (max-min)/avg is 0.30 for 4K, 0.31 for 1440p, and 0.30 for 1080p, suggesting similar consistency across resolutions for this preset.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of performance scaling as resolution increases, which provides insight into the system's bottleneck characteristics. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at the Medium preset, the average FPS drops from 169 to 157, a decrease of 12 FPS or about 7%. This relatively modest drop indicates that at these resolutions, the system is not heavily limited by the GPU, as the increase in pixel count does not proportionally reduce performance.

The scaling from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 at the Medium preset shows a more substantial drop, from 157 FPS to 118 FPS, a decrease of 39 FPS or about 25%. This larger drop suggests that the GPU is becoming a more significant limiting factor at 4K resolution. The pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K, but the FPS does not drop by a similar factor, indicating that the CPU still has considerable headroom.

Examining the Low preset scaling provides further clarity. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 185 FPS. At 1440p Low, it drops to 172 FPS, a 7% decrease. At 4K Low, it drops to 151 FPS, a 12% decrease from 1440p and an 18% decrease from 1080p. The relatively small drops at Low settings, even at 4K, suggest that the CPU is the primary limiter at lower graphical loads, as the GPU is not being fully utilized. The system's ability to maintain high frame rates even at 4K Low indicates a strong CPU capable of feeding the GPU adequately.

The trend across all settings shows that the frame rate drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistently smaller than the drop from 1440p to 4K. For example, at High settings, the drop from 1080p (149 FPS) to 1440p (120 FPS) is 29 FPS, while the drop from 1440p to 4K (88 FPS) is 32 FPS. This pattern indicates that while the GPU becomes more influential at higher resolutions, the CPU still plays a critical role in maintaining high frame rates, particularly at 1080p and 1440p where the system can exceed 150 FPS on lower presets.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates high performance across all settings. The Low preset yields an average of 185 FPS, the highest recorded in the entire benchmark set. The Medium preset delivers 169 FPS with a minimum of 143 FPS and a maximum of 194 FPS. The High preset achieves 149 FPS, and the Ultra preset produces 142 FPS. The data shows a performance spread of 43 FPS between the lowest and highest settings, with the most significant single drop occurring between Low and Medium (16 FPS).

At 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but shows a clear differentiation between presets. The Low preset runs at 172 FPS, while the Medium preset achieves 157 FPS with a range of 133 to 181 FPS. The High preset drops to 120 FPS, and the Ultra preset further reduces to 114 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 37 FPS, which is the largest single-setting drop at this resolution, indicating that the High preset introduces a significant graphical load increase.

At 3840x2160, the system shows the greatest sensitivity to settings. The Low preset achieves 151 FPS, the Medium preset delivers 118 FPS with a range of 100 to 135 FPS, the High preset drops to 88 FPS, and the Ultra preset produces 84 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium is 33 FPS, and the difference between High and Ultra is only 4 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset offers diminishing returns over High at this resolution. The 4K data shows that the system is capable of maintaining playable frame rates even at the highest settings, though the 84 FPS Ultra average is significantly lower than the 142 FPS seen at 1080p Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, this specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D achieves a rank of 59 out of 2996 tested combos. This places the system in the top 1.97% of all configurations tested for this game, indicating that it is a high-performing setup relative to the broader database. The rank is derived from the measured FPS data across all tested resolutions and settings, providing a composite score of the system's capability.

The combo's rank of 59 is notably strong when compared to the individual component benchmarks. The CPU's average benchmark score is 44573, with a percentile rank of 89, meaning it outperforms 89% of all CPUs in the database. The GPU's average benchmark score is 77712, with a percentile rank of 92, outperforming 92% of all GPUs. The combo's in-game rank of 59 out of 2996 (top 2%) is higher than either component's percentile, suggesting that the pairing of this specific CPU and GPU is particularly synergistic for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which likely benefits from the CPU's large cache and the GPU's raw compute power.

The nearest rivals for the CPU include the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H, which has an average score of 44466 and is 0.2% slower, and the Intel Core i9-13950HX, which scores 44342 and is 0.5% slower. The AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 is 0.6% slower, while the Intel Core i5-14600 is 0.7% faster. For the GPU, the nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT, which is 1.1% slower, and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT, which is 1.6% faster. The NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB and 16 GB are 2.1% and 2.4% faster, respectively. These rival comparisons are based on synthetic benchmarks, while the combo rank is specific to this game, highlighting the importance of real-world measured data.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 7000 series, based on the Raphael codename and Zen 4 architecture. It has a base clock of 4.00 GHz and a boost clock of 4.50 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The CPU features a substantial L3 cache of 96 MB shared across all cores, which is a key characteristic for gaming performance. Its synthetic benchmarks show a multithread score of 25047 and a single-thread score of 3494, with an average benchmark score of 44573.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is critical, as the game involves complex physics, AI, and world simulation. The measured data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 185 FPS, which is only 34 FPS higher than at 4K Low (151 FPS). This relatively small difference at low graphical settings suggests that the CPU is the primary limiter, as the GPU is not heavily tasked at Low settings. The CPU's high single-thread performance, as indicated by its Passmark single-thread score of 3494, contributes to its ability to handle the game's simulation logic efficiently.

The 96 MB L3 cache is particularly beneficial for this type of workload, as it allows for faster access to frequently used data, reducing latency. The CPU's boost clock of 4.50 GHz ensures that it can respond quickly to demanding scenarios. The data shows that the system can maintain high frame rates even at 4K Low (151 FPS), which indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck at lower graphical settings. However, as settings increase, the GPU becomes more dominant, and the CPU's influence on frame rates diminishes, as seen by the decreasing FPS at higher presets across all resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a powerful graphics card from the GeForce 50-series, based on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture and the GB202 chip. It features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. The GPU has a base clock of 2017 MHz and a boost clock of 2407 MHz, with a TDP of 575 W. Its compute capabilities include 21760 shading units, 680 tensor cores, and 170 RT cores, delivering 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

The GPU's role in Microsoft Flight Simulator becomes increasingly important as resolution and settings increase. At 1080p, the GPU has ample headroom, as evidenced by the high frame rates across all settings (142-185 FPS). The data shows that at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is only 43 FPS, suggesting that the GPU can handle the increased graphical load without significant frame rate penalties. This indicates that the CPU is more of a limiting factor at this resolution.

At 1440p, the GPU's workload increases, and the performance gap between settings widens. The difference between Low (172 FPS) and Ultra (114 FPS) is 58 FPS, showing that the GPU is now more heavily tasked. At 4K, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck, with the performance spread between Low (151 FPS) and Ultra (84 FPS) reaching 67 FPS. The 32 GB of VRAM ensures that memory capacity is not an issue at any resolution or setting, allowing the GPU to focus on compute and rendering tasks. The boost clock of 2407 MHz and the high memory bandwidth are crucial for maintaining the high texture detail and complex rendering required by the game at 4K Ultra, where the system still manages an average of 84 FPS.