Microsoft Flight Simulator

The benchmark data for Microsoft Flight Simulator, paired with the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and Intel Arc B580, reveals a configuration that is heavily constrained by the graphics card. The measured frames per second (FPS) across resolutions and settings indicate that while the CPU provides a stable foundation, the GPU dictates the overall experience, making settings management crucial for playability.

Settings Recommendations

The data shows a clear hierarchy in performance scaling across the four tested presets: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 94.8 FPS, while Medium drops to 75.7 FPS, High to 55.9 FPS, and Ultra to 52.6 FPS. For smooth gameplay at this resolution, the Medium preset offers the best balance, delivering a substantial frame rate that remains well above the 60 FPS threshold without sacrificing the visual fidelity that the High and Ultra presets provide. The jump from Low to Medium costs roughly 19 FPS, but the visual improvement in a flight simulator is significant, making Medium the recommended starting point.

At 2560x1440, the performance curve shifts downward. Low averages 74.6 FPS, Medium 60.9 FPS, High 45.9 FPS, and Ultra 44.5 FPS. Here, Medium remains the optimal choice, as it maintains an average just above the 60 FPS target. High and Ultra dip below the 50 FPS mark, which can introduce noticeable stutter in a simulation that requires precise camera control. The data suggests that users prioritizing frame rate consistency should select Medium, while those with adaptive sync displays might tolerate the High preset.

For 3840x2160, the situation becomes more demanding. Low averages 54 FPS, Medium 43.8 FPS, High 33.8 FPS, and Ultra 29.8 FPS. None of the presets achieve a consistent 60 FPS experience at this resolution. The Low preset is the only one that stays above the 30 FPS playability floor for most users, though it still falls short of a smooth 60 FPS. Given the data, the Low preset is the only viable option for 4K gameplay, as Medium and above result in frame rates that compromise the fluidity required for landing approaches and low-altitude maneuvers. Users with high-refresh-rate 4K displays will need to consider resolution scaling rather than relying on settings alone.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580’s role in this configuration is paramount, as its memory and clock specifications directly influence the measured results. The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s. This memory capacity is sufficient for the high-resolution textures used in Microsoft Flight Simulator, preventing texture streaming issues that could cause hitches. The GPU’s base and boost clock are both listed at 2670 MHz, which is a modest clock speed for a modern discrete card, yet it sustains the frame rates observed in the data.

The Arc B580’s architecture, Xe2-HPG, is built on a 5 nm process and contains 20 ray tracing cores, though the game’s benchmark results do not show a ray tracing workload. The GPU’s FP32 performance is rated at 13.67 TFLOPS, which aligns with its position in the benchmark percentile at 66, indicating it performs better than a majority of GPUs but is not a top-tier part. The data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing. When comparing the 1080p Ultra result (52.6 FPS) to the 1080p Low result (94.8 FPS), the performance difference of 42.2 FPS is substantial, but the CPU’s role in feeding the GPU becomes evident at lower settings.

The Ryzen 5 8400F, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, has a boost clock of 4.70 GHz and a multi-threaded Cinebench R23 score of 20851. This CPU is more than capable of handling the simulation’s physics and AI calculations. The benchmark results indicate that the GPU’s 12 GB VRAM is not exhausted at 1080p or 1440p, as the frame rate drops are consistent with compute limitations rather than memory capacity issues. The GPU’s 190 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest it is a mid-range power draw, but the data confirms that the Arc B580 is the bottleneck across all tested resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand dataset of tested hardware combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and Intel Arc B580 ranks 1419 out of 1795 combos. This places it in the lower percentile of tested systems, indicating that while it is functional, it does not deliver top-tier performance for this specific title. The combo’s rank is a direct consequence of the GPU’s limitations, as the CPU’s standalone benchmarks show it to be a capable processor.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in general benchmark scores include the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, which has an average score of 25057 with a deltaPct of 0, and the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F, which scores 24993 with a deltaPct of 0.3. This indicates the 8400F is performing as expected for its class, with a negligible performance difference from its peers. However, the GPU’s position is weaker; its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, which has a deltaPct of -0.7, meaning the RTX 4060 scores 0.7% higher on average. This small gap in synthetic benchmarks translates to a more significant gap in real-world gaming, but the data for this specific game shows the Arc B580 holding its own in the low-to-medium preset range.

The rank of 1419 out of 1795 suggests that users with this combo will experience frame rates that are below the median for all tested systems. This is expected for a mid-range GPU paired with a mid-range CPU, but the data indicates that the combo is not underperforming relative to its components’ individual standings; it is simply limited by the GPU’s absolute performance ceiling.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of the combo’s behavior. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the average FPS is 94.8. This is the highest recorded result across all configurations, showing that the CPU can push the GPU to near its maximum output when the graphical load is light. Moving to Medium at the same resolution yields 75.7 FPS, a drop of 19.1 FPS, while High yields 55.9 FPS and Ultra yields 52.6 FPS. The step from High to Ultra is only 3.3 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset’s additional effects are not heavily taxing the GPU compute units but are instead limited by other factors.

At 2560x1440, the results are 74.6 FPS for Low, 60.9 FPS for Medium, 45.9 FPS for High, and 44.5 FPS for Ultra. The drop from Low to Medium is 13.7 FPS, which is less severe than the 1080p drop, indicating that the GPU is becoming more saturated. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to 1.4 FPS, further suggesting that the Ultra preset’s marginal visual gains are not worth the performance cost at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the data shows 54 FPS for Low, 43.8 FPS for Medium, 33.8 FPS for High, and 29.8 FPS for Ultra. The Low preset is the only one that remains above 50 FPS, while Ultra falls below 30 FPS, which is often considered the minimum for a playable experience in a simulator. The scaling from Low to Medium costs 10.2 FPS, from Medium to High costs 10 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs 4 FPS. This pattern indicates that at 4K, the GPU’s fill rate is the primary constraint, and the settings have a diminishing impact on performance as the resolution increases.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component’s nature. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 94.8 at 1080p to 74.6 at 1440p, a reduction of 20.2 FPS, and then to 54 at 4K, a further reduction of 20.6 FPS. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is approximately 43%, which is significant but not linear, as the pixel count quadruples. This suggests that the GPU is not purely fill-rate limited, but also that the CPU’s single-thread performance, which has a 3dmark single-thread score of 951, is sufficient to keep the GPU busy at lower resolutions.

At Ultra settings, the drop from 1080p (52.6 FPS) to 1440p (44.5 FPS) is 8.1 FPS, and from 1440p to 4K (29.8 FPS) is 14.7 FPS. The larger drop at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU’s compute resources are being exhausted by the Ultra preset’s effects, such as volumetric clouds and shadows. The data shows that the scaling is more aggressive at 4K regardless of settings, which is a hallmark of GPU-bound scenarios.

The resolution scaling analysis confirms that the Intel Arc B580 is the limiting component in this system. When the resolution increases, the CPU’s load remains relatively constant, but the GPU’s workload grows exponentially. The Ryzen 5 8400F’s boost clock of 4.70 GHz and its 16 MB of shared L3 cache are adequate for maintaining frame pacing, as evidenced by the consistent FPS values without major stutters. However, the GPU’s 13.67 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is simply not enough to maintain high frame rates at 4K with this game’s demanding visuals. Users seeking higher resolutions will need to reduce the preset to Low or accept sub-30 FPS averages, as the data shows no configuration achieves a 60 FPS average at 4K.