Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator is an exceptionally demanding title, and the combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and AMD Radeon RX 570 produces a very specific performance profile. The measured data shows this pairing sits at rank 3538 out of 3714 tested combos in the game, placing it in the bottom 5% of all systems. This is not a setup for high-fidelity flight, but rather a configuration that requires careful settings management to achieve a playable experience. The following analysis breaks down exactly what the benchmark results indicate about this pairing's strengths and limitations.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a stark and predictable decline as resolution increases, clearly identifying the GPU as the primary bottleneck. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves an average of 48 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 39 FPS, a 19% reduction. At 4K Low, the average falls to 29 FPS, which is a 40% drop from the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU that is running out of pixel processing power, as the RX 570's 32 ROPs and 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are simply overwhelmed by the increasing pixel count.

The trend becomes even more pronounced at higher settings. At Medium settings, the average FPS goes from 38 at 1080p to 30 at 1440p (a 21% drop) and then to 22 at 4K (a 42% drop from 1080p). The High preset shows a similar trajectory: 28 FPS at 1080p, 23 at 1440p, and 17 at 4K. The data suggests that the performance ceiling is being set almost entirely by the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth. The RX 570's 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth is a fixed resource, and as the resolution increases, the demand for texture data and pixel data grows faster than the card can supply it.

Looking at the 4K results specifically, the frame rates collapse to a range of 16 to 29 FPS across all settings. The difference between Low (29 FPS) and Ultra (16 FPS) at 4K is 13 FPS, which shows that even the most aggressive settings reduction cannot rescue playability at this resolution. The limiting component here is unambiguously the GPU. The Ryzen 5 8400F, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is not the constraining factor in these scenarios, as even the most CPU-intensive flight simulation logic cannot compensate for the GPU's inability to render the scene.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is less punishing than the jump to 4K, but the pattern is consistent. The system is playable at 1080p on Low, marginally playable at 1440p on Low, and effectively not playable at any setting at 4K. The benchmark results indicate that users should treat 1080p as the only viable resolution for this combo, with 1440p being a stretch that only works on the lowest preset, and 4K being out of the question for smooth gameplay.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the dominant factor in this system's Flight Simulator performance. Its specifications paint a clear picture of a legacy card struggling with a modern, demanding title. The GPU features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is a critical weakness for Flight Simulator, which is known for loading vast amounts of high-resolution terrain and aircraft textures. The 4 GB capacity is likely to be exhausted at higher settings and resolutions, leading to texture streaming issues that can cause stutters and frame drops beyond the average FPS numbers.

The clock speeds are modest by modern standards, with a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz. The memory runs at 1750 MHz, or 7 Gbps effective. These clocks, combined with the GCN 4.0 architecture, yield a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s. When compared to its nearest rivals in the benchmark database, the RX 570's average score of 28766 is just 0.4% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6800M and 0.8% behind the AMD Radeon RX 470. This places it in the 74th percentile of all GPUs, which is surprisingly high for a card from 2017, but the Flight Simulator results show that raw compute benchmarks do not translate to playability in this specific title.

The GPU's 150 W TDP and 1x 6-pin power connector indicate a power-efficient design for its era, but this does not help in Flight Simulator. The card's DirectX 12 (12_0) support is present, but the GCN architecture lacks the hardware features that newer games increasingly rely on. The measured FPS data shows that the RX 570 cannot maintain a 30 FPS average at 1080p on any setting above Low. The Ultra preset yields only 27 FPS at 1080p, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The GPU is simply not powerful enough to handle the complex shaders and draw calls required by the flight simulator's detailed environments.

FAQ

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

A: The measured data clearly shows 1920x1080 is the only viable resolution. The system achieves 48 FPS on Low and 38 FPS on Medium at 1080p. At 1440p, the best average is 39 FPS on Low, and at 4K, the best is 29 FPS on Low, both of which are suboptimal for a smooth experience.

Q: Can this system run the game at 4K?

A: Technically yes, but the results are not playable. The highest average FPS at 3840x2160 is 29 on Low settings, dropping to 16 on Ultra. These frame rates are well below what is needed for a playable flight simulation, indicating that the GPU is severely overburdened at this resolution.

Q: How does the RX 570 compare to its closest rivals in overall GPU benchmarks?

A: The RX 570's average benchmark score is 28766. This is 0.4% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 6800M (28874) and 0.8% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 470 (28996). It is 1.2% higher than the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 (28421). This indicates it is a mid-pack performer in general, but its Flight Simulator results are far less competitive.

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

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is the limiting factor. The FPS drops significantly as resolution increases, which is a classic sign of a GPU bottleneck. The Ryzen 5 8400F, with its high single-thread score of 2943 in Cinebench R23, is likely not the constraint at these low frame rates.

Q: What is the difference in performance between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 48 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 27 FPS. This is a 21 FPS difference, representing a 44% performance drop when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings.

Q: What does the rank of 3538 out of 3714 combos mean for this system?

A: This rank places the combo in the bottom 5% of all tested systems for this game. It means that the vast majority of hardware combinations will outperform this pairing in Flight Simulator, and users should have low expectations for high-fidelity performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers its best results. The Low preset achieves an average of 48 FPS, which is the only fully playable result in the entire dataset. The Medium preset averages 38 FPS, with a minimum of 32 FPS and a maximum of 43 FPS, showing some fluctuation but remaining marginally playable. The High preset drops to 28 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 27 FPS, both of which are below the threshold for smooth gameplay.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance degrades further. The Low preset averages 39 FPS, which is a significant drop from the 1080p result. The Medium preset averages 30 FPS, with a minimum of 26 and a maximum of 35 FPS. The High preset averages 23 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 22 FPS. None of these 1440p results are ideal for a flight simulator, where stable frame rates are crucial for precise control.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain playable frame rates across all settings. The Low preset averages 29 FPS, the Medium preset averages 22 FPS (with a min of 19 and max of 26), the High preset averages 17 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 16 FPS. The data shows a clear and consistent pattern: the system is only suitable for 1080p gaming, and even then, only on the Low or Medium presets. The gap between Low and Ultra at each resolution is substantial, but the absolute frame rates at 1440p and 4K are too low to be salvaged by settings adjustments.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this hardware combination are clear. For a playable experience, users should select 1920x1080 resolution with the Low preset, which yields an average of 48 FPS. This is the only configuration that consistently exceeds the 30 FPS threshold that is generally considered the minimum for a smooth simulation. If the user can tolerate slightly lower frame rates, the Medium preset at 1080p offers an average of 38 FPS, which is a reasonable compromise for better visual quality.

The Medium preset at 1080p is the highest quality setting that remains in the playable range, with a minimum FPS of 32. This should be the target for most users who prioritize visual fidelity over absolute smoothness. The High and Ultra presets at 1080p, with averages of 28 and 27 FPS respectively, are not recommended as they fall below the playable threshold and will likely result in a frustrating experience. At 1440p, only the Low preset (39 FPS) is arguably playable, but the 1080p Medium settings provide a better balance of visual quality and performance.

At 4K, no settings preset is recommended. The highest average is 29 FPS on Low, which is too low for a playable experience. The data suggests that users should avoid 4K entirely with this GPU. For the best experience, the recommendation is to run the game at 1080p with the Medium preset, accepting the 38 FPS average as the practical limit of this hardware. This provides a stable enough frame rate for basic flight operations while delivering acceptable visual detail for a simulator.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F plays a supporting role in this system's Flight Simulator performance. The 6-core, 12-thread processor is based on the Zen 4 architecture and operates at a base clock of 4.20 GHz with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its benchmark results are respectable, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 20851 and a single-core score of 2943. These scores place it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, showing that it is a capable processor for general computing tasks. Its average benchmark score of 25005 is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F and 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i7-11850H.

In the context of Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle the complex flight physics, AI traffic, and world generation logic. The Ryzen 5 8400F's 12 threads are sufficient for these tasks, and the high single-thread performance is beneficial for the game's primary simulation thread. The 16 MB of shared L3 cache and 83.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth provide adequate data throughput for the CPU's workloads. However, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this system. The frame rates scale almost entirely with the GPU's capabilities, as evidenced by the dramatic drops at higher resolutions.

The CPU's performance in the 3DMark tests, with a 16-thread score of 6091 and a single-thread score of 951, indicates a balanced processor that can handle both multi-threaded and single-threaded workloads. In Flight Simulator, the CPU is likely running well below its maximum utilization because the GPU cannot render frames fast enough to keep up. This is a classic GPU-bound scenario, where the CPU is waiting for the GPU to finish its work. The Ryzen 5 8400F is not the limiting factor; the RX 570 is. Users should not expect a CPU upgrade to improve Flight Simulator performance with this GPU, as the data clearly points to the graphics card as the primary constraint.