Microsoft Flight Simulator

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 paired with the Intel Arc B570 ranks 2406th out of 2996 tested combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the combo in the 20th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly four out of every five tested configurations deliver higher average frame rates in this title. The ranking reflects a pairing that sits firmly in the lower-middle tier of the database, which is consistent with the individual component profiles: the CPU ranks in the 78th percentile among all processors, while the GPU ranks in the 65th percentile among all graphics cards.

What stands out from the rank data is the gap between component potential and in-game outcome. The Ryzen 5 7600's synthetic benchmark average of 26324 places it within 0.5% of several strong rivals, including the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX (deltaPct 0.2), the AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS (deltaPct -0.3), and the Intel Core i9-11900KF (deltaPct 0.4). The Arc B570's average benchmark score of 20556 sits within 0.5% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile and the Intel Arc A750. Despite these respectable synthetic standings, the in-game rank of 2406 out of 2996 suggests that Microsoft Flight Simulator's specific workload characteristics do not favor this combination as much as general-purpose benchmarks would imply.

The data shows that this is a combination where neither component becomes a clear bottleneck across all settings, but the overall ceiling is constrained. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 86 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset. Yet at 4K Ultra, it falls to 28 FPS. This wide spread indicates that the system responds predictably to both resolution and settings changes, but the absolute performance ceiling is modest for a flight simulator known for demanding rendering workloads.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 brings 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, yielding a memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. The GPU's base and boost clocks are both 2500 MHz, with memory running at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective). The shader configuration includes 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. The architecture is Xe2-HPG, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with a transistor count of 19,600 million on a 272 mm² die.

The GPU's FP32 performance is rated at 11.52 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 23.04 TFLOPS (2:1). Pixel rate is 200.0 GPixel/s and texture rate is 360.0 GTexel/s. These specifications place the Arc B570 in a performance class where it competes closely with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (deltaPct 0.1) and the Intel Arc A750 (deltaPct -0.1), according to average benchmark scores. The GPU's percentile ranking of 65 among all GPUs indicates it outperforms the majority of graphics cards in the database, but it is not positioned near the top tier.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically, the GPU's role becomes evident when examining the FPS scaling across settings at a fixed resolution. At 1080p, moving from Low to Ultra drops the average frame rate from 86 to 48 FPS, a reduction of 38 FPS. At 1440p, the same settings change drops from 69 to 39 FPS, a 30 FPS reduction. At 4K, the drop from Low to Ultra is from 51 to 28 FPS, a 23 FPS reduction. The diminishing absolute impact of settings at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU is increasingly the limiting factor as pixel count rises, but even at 1080p the settings penalty is substantial, indicating the GPU is not overpowered for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of resolution scaling. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings, the average FPS drops from 86 to 69, a reduction of 19.8%. From 1440p to 4K at Low, the average drops from 69 to 51, a further reduction of 26.1%. At High settings, the scaling is similar: 1080p to 1440p drops from 50 to 41 FPS (18% reduction), and 1440p to 4K drops from 41 to 30 FPS (26.8% reduction). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the limiting component scales predictably with resolution.

The data indicates that the CPU is more heavily involved at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 86 FPS, which is the highest score in the dataset. The fact that this is nearly double the 4K Low score of 51 FPS suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU enough frames to approach its limits, while at 4K the GPU's pixel throughput becomes the dominant constraint. The gap between 1080p and 4K at Low settings is 35 FPS, while at Ultra settings the gap narrows to 20 FPS (48 vs 28). This narrowing gap at higher settings indicates that as graphical load increases, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck, reducing the relative impact of resolution changes.

For Medium settings, the dataset provides minimum and maximum FPS values. At 1080p Medium, the range is 57 to 77 FPS with an average of 67. At 1440p Medium, the range is 46 to 62 FPS with an average of 54. At 4K Medium, the range is 34 to 46 FPS with an average of 40. The consistent spread of roughly 20 FPS between minimum and maximum at each resolution suggests stable frame pacing with no severe hitches, which is notable for a flight simulator where terrain streaming can cause variability.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 86 FPS on Low settings, 67 FPS on Medium (with a range of 57 to 77 FPS), 50 FPS on High, and 48 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Medium and High is 17 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 2 FPS. This indicates that the jump from High to Ultra at 1080p provides minimal additional visual benefit relative to the performance cost, as the system is already approaching its GPU limit.

At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 69 FPS, Medium produces 54 FPS (range 46 to 62), High produces 41 FPS, and Ultra produces 39 FPS. The Medium-to-High drop is 13 FPS, while High-to-Ultra drops only 2 FPS. The pattern mirrors 1080p, with Ultra offering a marginal decrease over High. The 1440p Low score of 69 FPS is still above the 60 FPS threshold, but High and Ultra fall below it.

At 3840x2160, Low settings achieve 51 FPS, Medium achieves 40 FPS (range 34 to 46), High achieves 30 FPS, and Ultra achieves 28 FPS. The Low-to-Medium drop is 11 FPS, Medium-to-High drops 10 FPS, and High-to-Ultra drops only 2 FPS. At 4K, even Low settings fall below 60 FPS, and Ultra approaches the 30 FPS threshold where gameplay becomes noticeably less fluid.

The data reveals a consistent pattern: the performance penalty from High to Ultra is minimal across all resolutions (2 FPS at 1080p, 2 FPS at 1440p, 2 FPS at 4K). This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces settings that this GPU cannot fully utilize, making it an inefficient choice. Conversely, the gap between Low and Medium is substantial at every resolution (19 FPS at 1080p, 15 FPS at 1440p, 11 FPS at 4K), indicating that Medium provides a significant visual upgrade for a moderate performance cost.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture (Raphael), built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3. Memory support is DDR5 with dual-channel configuration, providing 83.2 GB/s bandwidth. The CPU uses the AMD Socket AM5 and supports PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes.

Synthetic benchmarks show a balanced profile. The Cinebench R23 multicore score is 12735, while single-core is 1852. Geekbench multicore is 13413 and single-core is 2521. The 3DMark scores scale from 999 single-thread to 6503 max threads, with 16-thread at 6499. PassMark multithread is 27058 and single-thread is 3910. The CPU's average benchmark score is 26324, placing it in the 78th percentile of all CPUs.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is most evident at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 86 FPS, which is the highest score in the dataset. This suggests that at this resolution, the CPU is able to drive the GPU to its maximum output. The fact that the 1080p Low score is 35 FPS higher than the 4K Low score (86 vs 51) indicates that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at lower resolutions, as the GPU's pixel throughput limits performance as resolution increases.

However, the CPU's 6-core, 12-thread configuration may be a limiting factor in this title. Microsoft Flight Simulator is known for heavy single-threaded workloads, and the Ryzen 5 7600's single-core performance, while respectable (Cinebench R23 single-core 1852), may not be sufficient to maintain higher frame rates in complex scenes. The data shows that at 1080p, the High and Ultra settings both hover around 50 FPS, suggesting that the CPU may be preventing the GPU from reaching higher frame rates even at lower graphical loads. The closeness of High (50 FPS) and Ultra (48 FPS) at 1080p, despite the significant difference in graphical complexity, supports this interpretation.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Microsoft Flight Simulator with this combo?

A: The data shows that 1080p provides the most playable experience, with Low achieving 86 FPS, Medium 67 FPS, and High 50 FPS. At 1440p, only Low (69 FPS) and Medium (54 FPS) stay near playable levels. At 4K, all settings fall below 51 FPS, with Ultra at 28 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from High to Ultra settings?

A: At every resolution, the drop from High to Ultra is only 2 FPS. At 1080p, High averages 50 FPS and Ultra 48 FPS; at 1440p, High averages 41 FPS and Ultra 39 FPS; at 4K, High averages 30 FPS and Ultra 28 FPS. This suggests Ultra provides minimal additional performance cost but also minimal visual benefit for this GPU.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 86 FPS, which drops to 51 FPS at 4K Low, a 35 FPS reduction. However, at 1080p, the small difference between High (50 FPS) and Ultra (48 FPS) suggests the CPU may limit performance in more demanding scenes, as the GPU cannot fully utilize its capabilities.

Q: What are the minimum and maximum FPS values recorded?

A: The dataset provides minimum and maximum values only for Medium settings. At 1080p, the range is 57 to 77 FPS with an average of 67. At 1440p, the range is 46 to 62 FPS with an average of 54. At 4K, the range is 34 to 46 FPS with an average of 40. No min/max values are provided for Low, High, or Ultra settings.

Q: How does this combo compare to similar hardware in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 26324 is within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX (26274, deltaPct 0.2) and the Intel Core i9-11900KF (26212, deltaPct 0.4). The GPU's average benchmark score of 20556 is within 0.1% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534, deltaPct 0.1) and the Intel Arc A750 (20582, deltaPct -0.1).

Q: Is the 10 GB VRAM sufficient for 4K gaming in this title?

A: The measured data shows that at 4K, the combo achieves 51 FPS on Low and 28 FPS on Ultra. The maximum FPS recorded at 4K is 46 FPS at Medium settings. While VRAM capacity is not directly measured in the FPS data, the performance at 4K suggests that the GPU's overall capabilities, including its 160-bit memory bus and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth, are not sufficient for smooth 4K gameplay in this simulator.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the user's resolution and frame rate target. At 1080p, Medium settings provide the best balance, with an average of 67 FPS and a range of 57 to 77 FPS. This keeps the frame rate above 60 FPS on average while offering a significant visual improvement over Low (86 FPS). High settings at 1080p drop to 50 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold, but may still be acceptable for a flight simulator where precise timing is less critical than in action games.

At 1440p, Medium settings are the most viable option, with an average of 54 FPS and a range of 46 to 62 FPS. Low settings at 1440p achieve 69 FPS, but the visual quality reduction may be noticeable. High settings at 1440p fall to 41 FPS, which is likely too low for a smooth experience. The data suggests that Medium at 1440p is the highest playable preset, as it maintains an average above 50 FPS.

At 4K, no settings preset achieves a consistently smooth experience. Low settings average 51 FPS, Medium averages 40 FPS, High averages 30 FPS, and Ultra averages 28 FPS. For users willing to accept lower frame rates in exchange for visual fidelity, Medium at 4K (40 FPS average) may be preferable to Low, as the 11 FPS difference (51 vs 40) is significant. However, the minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 34, which may result in noticeable stutters in dense areas.

The data consistently shows that the Ultra preset provides only a 2 FPS improvement over High at every resolution, making Ultra an inefficient choice. The jump from Medium to High costs between 13 and 17 FPS depending on resolution, while High to Ultra costs only 2 FPS. This suggests that users should either stay at Medium for smoother performance or move to High for better visuals, but should avoid Ultra as it offers negligible gains over High for the same settings class.

For the best overall experience, Medium settings at 1080p or 1440p provide the most balanced performance. Users prioritizing frame rate over visuals should select Low at their chosen resolution, while those prioritizing visuals should select High but accept frame rates below 60 FPS. The minimum FPS data for Medium settings (57 at 1080p, 46 at 1440p, 34 at 4K) provides a useful guide for users who require consistent frame pacing, as these values represent the worst-case scenario in the measured runs.