Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator — AMD Ryzen 5 8400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

This combo of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 produces a playable but not luxurious experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with the measured frame rates showing clear CPU and GPU interaction points across resolutions. The data set covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four quality presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), with average FPS values ranging from 40 at 4K Ultra to 119 at 1080p Low. The combination ranks 1978th out of 3714 tested combos for this game, placing it just above the median in the database.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep but not catastrophic, indicating a balanced system where both CPU and GPU contribute to the bottleneck depending on settings. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 119 at 1920x1080 to 96 at 2560x1440 (a 19% reduction) and then to 71 at 3840x2160 (a 26% further reduction). This pattern suggests the GPU becomes increasingly dominant as resolution climbs, but the CPU still has headroom at lower resolutions.

At High settings, the scaling is more aggressive: 70 FPS at 1080p drops to 56 FPS at 1440p (a 20% loss) and then to 42 FPS at 4K (a 25% loss). The Ultra preset shows a similar trend but with lower absolute values: 66 FPS at 1080p, 54 FPS at 1440p, and 40 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset, which has min/max FPS data, shows 93 FPS at 1080p (min 79, max 107), 75 FPS at 1440p (min 64, max 86), and 55 FPS at 4K (min 47, max 64).

The resolution scaling behavior indicates that the RTX 4060's 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus with 272.0 GB/s bandwidth are the limiting factors at 4K, particularly at High and Ultra settings where the frame rate compresses into the 40-55 FPS range. At 1080p, the CPU's single-thread performance (3dmark_single_thread score of 951) and 6-core/12-thread configuration appear sufficient to keep frame rates above 66 FPS even at Ultra, but the gap between Low (119 FPS) and Ultra (66 FPS) at 1080p shows the GPU still carries significant load at this resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1978 out of 3714 puts this configuration in the 53rd percentile of all tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This is a mid-pack result, reflecting the RTX 4060's position in the GPU hierarchy — it sits at the 61st percentile vs all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17639. The CPU is stronger relative to its peers, ranking at the 77th percentile vs all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 25005.

Looking at the CPU's nearest rivals, the Ryzen 5 8400F is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F (deltaPct 0.2%), the Intel Core i7-11850H (deltaPct 0.3%), and the Intel Core i7-13620H (deltaPct 0.4%). It also trails the AMD EPYC 9474F by only 0.4%. This clustering means CPU choice is unlikely to be the differentiator in this game's frame rates; the GPU's performance class matters far more.

The GPU's nearest rivals are more disparate: the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (deltaPct -0.2%) and AMD Radeon 780M (deltaPct 0.3%) are close in synthetic benchmarks, but the RTX 4060's architectural advantages (Ada Lovelace, 24 RT cores, 96 tensor cores) likely matter in a flight simulator that uses modern rendering features. The measured FPS shows the RTX 4060 delivering 119 FPS at 1080p Low, which is a strong result for a GPU at the 61st percentile, but the 4K Ultra result of 40 FPS confirms its limitations at high pixel counts.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured rows, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and frame rate across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 93 FPS with a minimum of 79 FPS and maximum of 107 FPS, providing smooth gameplay with headroom for dips. At 2560x1440, Medium drops to 75 FPS (min 64, max 86), which remains playable for a flight simulator where frame pacing matters less than in fast-action titles. At 3840x2160, Medium produces 55 FPS (min 47, max 64), which is borderline but workable for slower-paced flight scenarios.

The High preset is only advisable at 1080p, where it achieves 70 FPS, but at 1440p it falls to 56 FPS and at 4K to 42 FPS — both below the 60 FPS threshold that most users prefer. The Ultra preset is marginal even at 1080p (66 FPS) and becomes difficult at higher resolutions, with 54 FPS at 1440p and 40 FPS at 4K. For users prioritizing smoothness over maximum quality, the Low preset delivers 119 FPS at 1080p, 96 FPS at 1440p, and 71 FPS at 4K, making it the only preset that clears 60 FPS at 4K.

The data suggests that Medium at 1440p is the sweet spot for this combo, offering 75 FPS with a 64 FPS minimum that stays above the 60 FPS line. Users with 4K displays should either accept Medium at 55 FPS or drop to Low to gain 71 FPS, as the jump from Medium to High at 4K costs 13 FPS (25% performance loss) for what is typically a modest visual improvement in flight simulators.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full preset range shows: Low at 119 FPS (no min/max data), Medium at 93 FPS (min 79, max 107), High at 70 FPS, and Ultra at 66 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 53 FPS, indicating that the RTX 4060's shading units (3072) and texture units (96) are heavily taxed by the higher presets even at the lowest resolution. The 4K Ultra result of 40 FPS is exactly 60% of the 1080p Ultra result, showing near-linear scaling with pixel count.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low at 96 FPS, Medium at 75 FPS (min 64, max 86), High at 56 FPS, and Ultra at 54 FPS. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 64 FPS, which is the only preset/resolution combination at 1440p that maintains a 60+ FPS floor. The gap between High (56) and Ultra (54) at 1440p is only 2 FPS, suggesting that Ultra adds visual features that are not proportionally more expensive than High at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low at 71 FPS, Medium at 55 FPS (min 47, max 64), High at 42 FPS, and Ultra at 40 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 47 FPS is notable — it shows that even with adaptive settings, this combo can dip below 50 FPS at 4K. The Low preset at 4K (71 FPS) is actually close to the High preset at 1080p (70 FPS), demonstrating that resolution scaling is roughly linear in this game's workload.

GPU Role

The RTX 4060's memory configuration is central to understanding its performance ceiling. With 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, the memory bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s is modest for 4K gaming, and the measured FPS at 4K High (42) and Ultra (40) reflect this constraint. The GPU's boost clock of 2460 MHz and base clock of 1830 MHz are relatively high for the Ada Lovelace architecture, but the 15.11 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is limited by the 3072 shading units — a count that places this GPU below many of its 40-series siblings.

The GPU's benchmark scores tell a mixed story: PassMark G3D score of 19545 (with DirectX 11 at 175 and DirectX 12 at 76) suggests strong legacy performance, while the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2302 is more representative of modern workloads. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 95057 and Vulkan score of 48643 indicate the GPU handles compute and modern APIs well, which matters for Microsoft Flight Simulator's use of DirectX 12 Ultimate features.

The RTX 4060's pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming but become limiting at 4K, where the fill rate demands of a flight simulator's dense scenery (terrain, clouds, airports) exceed what this GPU can sustain above 60 FPS. The 8 GB memory capacity is adequate for 1080p and 1440p at all presets, but at 4K Ultra, the game's texture streaming likely approaches the VRAM limit, contributing to the 40 FPS average.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Microsoft Flight Simulator at 60 FPS at 1080p?

A: Yes, at Low (119 FPS) and Medium (93 FPS) presets, the average frame rate exceeds 60 FPS. At High (70 FPS) it also clears 60 FPS, but at Ultra (66 FPS) it is just above the threshold.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in this game?

A: 2560x1440 with Medium settings provides 75 FPS average and a 64 FPS minimum, which is the highest resolution/preset combination that maintains a minimum above 60 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 4060's 8 GB VRAM sufficient for 4K in this game?

A: The data shows playable results at 4K Low (71 FPS) and Medium (55 FPS), but High (42 FPS) and Ultra (40 FPS) drop below 45 FPS, indicating VRAM and bandwidth limitations at higher presets.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 8400F compare to its closest rivals?

A: The CPU is within 0.4% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F, Intel Core i7-11850H, and Intel Core i7-13620H in average benchmark scores, and trails the AMD EPYC 9474F by 0.4%, making them statistically equivalent.

Q: What FPS can I expect at 1440p with the Ultra preset?

A: The measured average is 54 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. The Medium preset at 1440p (75 FPS) is recommended over Ultra for smoother gameplay.

Q: Does this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K with any settings?

A: Yes, at Low settings the average is 71 FPS. At Medium the average drops to 55 FPS, so Low is the only 4K preset that sustains 60+ FPS.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 8400F's 6 cores and 12 threads are based on the Zen 4 architecture (Phoenix codename) on TSMC's 4 nm process, with a base clock of 4.20 GHz and boost clock of 4.70 GHz. The 16 MB shared L3 cache and 1 MB per-core L2 cache provide sufficient data locality for flight simulator workloads, which tend to be more memory-latency sensitive than core-count hungry. The 3dmark_single_thread score of 951 (versus 6165 for max threads) shows that single-thread performance is this CPU's strength, which aligns with the game's primary thread usage.

The CPU's Cinebench R23 scores — 20851 multi-core and 2943 single-core — put it in the upper tier of desktop processors, but the game's measured FPS at 1080p Low (119) versus 4K Low (71) suggests that at 1080p the CPU can feed the GPU up to 119 FPS, but beyond that the GPU becomes the limiter. The PassMark scores further illustrate this: multithread score of 24389 and single-thread score of 3685 indicate a balanced processor, while data encryption (16646) and compression (288158) scores show strong integer performance.

The 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (83.2 GB/s bandwidth) are adequate for this workload, and the CPU's 77th percentile ranking vs all CPUs confirms it is not the weak link in this combo. The 3dmark scores — 6091 at 16 threads, 3563 at 4 threads, and 1874 at 2 threads — show that scaling is sub-linear beyond 4 threads, which matches flight simulator behavior where a few threads carry most of the load. For this game, the Ryzen 5 8400F provides enough headroom to avoid CPU-bound frame drops, as evidenced by the 4K Medium result (55 FPS) being within 15% of the 1080p Medium result (93 FPS) despite a 4x pixel increase.