Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 shows a clear pattern: performance scales predictably with resolution, but the scaling factor varies significantly depending on the quality preset. This is classic behavior for a flight simulator, where the CPU handles heavy simulation logic while the GPU renders the world.

At Low settings, the game runs at 238 FPS at 1920x1080, dropping to 192 FPS at 2560x1440, and further to 142 FPS at 3840x2160. That's a 40% reduction from 1080p to 4K, which indicates the GPU is becoming more stressed as pixel count increases, but the CPU is still keeping pace adequately. The Ryzen 5 9600X, with its 6 cores and 12 threads based on Zen 5 architecture, delivers strong single-thread performance, which is critical for simulation games.

Medium settings show a similar trend: 185 FPS at 1080p, 149 FPS at 1440p, and 110 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 19%, while from 1440p to 4K it's 26%. This suggests that at Medium, the balance between CPU and GPU load starts shifting toward the GPU as resolution climbs, but neither component becomes a hard bottleneck at any tested resolution.

High settings follow the same pattern: 139 FPS at 1080p, 112 FPS at 1440p, and 83 FPS at 4K. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is 19% reduction, and from 1440p to 4K is 26% reduction — identical percentages to Medium. This consistency indicates the game's rendering pipeline handles these presets similarly, just with different absolute performance levels.

Ultra settings produce the lowest frame rates: 133 FPS at 1080p, 107 FPS at 1440p, and 79 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 20%, and from 1440p to 4K is 26%. Notably, at 1080p Ultra, the frame rate is only 6 FPS lower than 1080p High, suggesting that at lower resolutions, the CPU becomes the limiting factor before the GPU can fully stretch its legs.

The data reveals that at 1080p, even with a flagship GPU like the RTX 5090, the Ryzen 5 9600X's 3.90 GHz base and 5.40 GHz boost clocks are the primary constraint. The FPS differences between High and Ultra at 1080p are minimal (139 vs 133), which is a strong indicator that the GPU has headroom but the CPU is saturating the simulation thread. At 4K, however, the GPU's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth come into play, and the differences between presets widen substantially — from 79 FPS at Ultra to 142 FPS at Low, a 80% spread.

This scaling behavior means the RTX 5090 is not being fully utilized at 1080p, but it's also not completely idling. The 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 1,636.8 GTexel/s texture rate are more than sufficient for this game's visuals, but the CPU's 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth are what determine the ceiling at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 4K Ultra with this combination?

A: The measured average is 79 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This is the most demanding preset in the test, and it still maintains a playable frame rate on a 60 Hz display, though not enough for high-refresh 4K monitors.

Q: How much faster is Low compared to Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings deliver 192 FPS average, while Ultra delivers 107 FPS. That's a 79% performance increase when dropping from Ultra to Low, which shows how much headroom exists for competitive or high-refresh play.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The evidence points to the CPU. At 1920x1080, High and Ultra produce nearly identical results (139 vs 133 FPS), with only a 6 FPS difference. The RTX 5090 can handle the graphics load easily at this resolution, but the Ryzen 5 9600X's single-thread performance caps the frame rate.

Q: Does the RTX 5090's 32 GB VRAM matter for this game?

A: The data doesn't include VRAM usage metrics, but the 32 GB GDDR7 capacity and 512-bit bus width are far beyond what a flight simulator typically requires at these settings. The GPU's memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s ensures texture streaming at 4K doesn't hit a bandwidth wall, based on the smooth scaling observed.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in any test?

A: The only minimum FPS values provided are for Medium settings: 94 FPS at 4K, 127 FPS at 1440p, and 158 FPS at 1080p. No minimum FPS data is available for Low, High, or Ultra presets.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: It ranks 44th out of 3714 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the top 1.2% of all combinations tested, which is expected given the high-end GPU and modern CPU pairing.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. Its specifications are extraordinary: 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2017 MHz and boosts to 2407 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz effective 28 Gbps. This translates to 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's role becomes more prominent as resolution increases. At 1080p, the RTX 5090 is clearly underutilized in the High and Ultra presets, where the CPU limits performance. The frame rate difference between High and Ultra at 1080p is only 6 FPS (139 vs 133), which suggests the GPU has spare capacity that the CPU cannot feed. At 1440p, the spread between Low and Ultra is 85 FPS (192 vs 107), showing the GPU now has more work to do, but still not enough to fully engage its capabilities.

At 4K, the RTX 5090 finally gets a substantial workload. The 32 GB of GDDR7 memory across a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for high-resolution textures in a flight simulator that streams terrain and aircraft models. The 4K results show a wider gap between presets: Low at 142 FPS, Medium at 110 FPS, High at 83 FPS, and Ultra at 79 FPS. This 63 FPS spread demonstrates that the GPU is now the primary factor in determining performance, and its massive compute and memory resources are being utilized.

The GPU's 176 ROPs and 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate handle the fill-rate demands of 4K rendering without issue. The 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores also support DirectX 12 Ultimate features, though the measured data doesn't specify whether ray tracing was enabled in these tests. The RTX 5090's 575 W TDP and 950 W suggested PSU requirement indicate this is a power-hungry card, but the benchmark results show it delivers accordingly.

Notably, the RTX 5090's nearest rivals in benchmark scores are the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (0.3% higher score) and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (1.1% lower score), but those are synthetic benchmark comparisons, not game-specific results. In this flight simulator, the RTX 5090's combination of raw compute, memory bandwidth, and modern architecture produces the frame rates shown in the measured data.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on your display's refresh rate and resolution. The data provides four presets — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra — each with distinct performance characteristics.

For 4K displays, the choice is between High and Ultra. High delivers 83 FPS average, while Ultra delivers 79 FPS — a 4 FPS difference. That's a 5% performance penalty for what is likely a visual improvement in shadows, reflections, and draw distance. Given the minimal gap, Ultra is the better choice for 4K if you want the best visual quality while maintaining a frame rate above 75 FPS. Medium at 110 FPS is an option if you prefer higher smoothness over maximum fidelity, but the jump from Medium to High only costs 27 FPS and provides a significant visual upgrade.

For 1440p, High settings at 112 FPS are the sweet spot for high-refresh gaming. Ultra at 107 FPS is nearly identical, so the difference is negligible. Medium at 149 FPS gives you headroom for 144 Hz displays, while Low at 192 FPS is only useful for competitive play or if you have a 240 Hz monitor. The data shows that 1440p High or Ultra is the recommended pairing for this resolution.

For 1080p, the story is different. High at 139 FPS and Ultra at 133 FPS are close, but Medium at 185 FPS and Low at 238 FPS offer much higher frame rates. If you have a 144 Hz monitor, Medium is a solid choice that balances visual quality with smoothness. If you have a 240 Hz display, Low at 238 FPS is the only preset that can push near that refresh rate. The CPU bottleneck at this resolution means that High and Ultra don't provide enough visual benefit over Medium to justify the lower frame rates.

Interestingly, the minimum FPS data available for Medium settings shows 158 FPS at 1080p, 127 FPS at 1440p, and 94 FPS at 4K. These minimums are all above 90 FPS, which means even in demanding scenes with dense terrain or weather effects, the frame rate stays fluid. No minimum FPS data is available for other presets, but the Medium data suggests this combo handles frame-time consistency well.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination ranks 44th out of 3714 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This is a 98.8th percentile ranking, meaning only 43 other CPU-GPU combinations performed better in this specific game. Given the RTX 5090's launch MSRP of 1,999 USD and the Ryzen 5 9600X's launch MSRP of $279, this is a high-end pairing that delivers top-tier results.

To put this ranking in context, the CPU alone sits in the 81st percentile among all CPUs in synthetic benchmarks, with an average benchmark score of 29713. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE (0.2% higher score) and the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H (0.5% lower score). The GPU ranks in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79842. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (0.3% higher score) and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (1.4% higher score).

The fact that this combo ranks 44th out of 3714 suggests that the combination of this CPU and GPU is well-balanced for this game. The CPU's 81st percentile and GPU's 92nd percentile don't perfectly correlate with the 98.8th percentile game ranking, which indicates that Microsoft Flight Simulator responds particularly well to this specific pairing. The game's simulation-heavy nature benefits from the Ryzen 5 9600X's strong single-thread performance (2,183.5 in Cinebench R23 single-core), while the RTX 5090's massive GPU resources handle the rendering at high resolutions.

The 44th rank also means there are 43 other combinations that outperform this one. These likely include higher-end CPUs like the Ryzen 9 or Core i9 series paired with the RTX 5090, or possibly dual-GPU configurations. However, given that the RTX 5090 is one of the most powerful consumer GPUs available, the only meaningful upgrades would be in the CPU department. The Ryzen 5 9600X's 6 cores and 12 threads might be the limiting factor for achieving a higher rank, as flight simulators can benefit from additional cores for AI traffic, weather simulation, and physics.

Measured FPS Breakdown

This section provides the complete measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. All values are average FPS unless otherwise noted.

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 238 FPS average
• Medium: 185 FPS average, with a minimum of 158 FPS and maximum of 213 FPS
• High: 139 FPS average
• Ultra: 133 FPS average

At 1080p, Low settings achieve 238 FPS, which is the highest frame rate in the entire data set. This is well beyond what most displays can show, and it highlights the CPU's capability. The gap between High and Ultra is just 6 FPS, indicating that the CPU is the limiting factor at this resolution for these two presets.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 192 FPS average
• Medium: 149 FPS average, with a minimum of 127 FPS and maximum of 172 FPS
• High: 112 FPS average
• Ultra: 107 FPS average

At 1440p, the frame rates drop by roughly 19-23% compared to 1080p across all presets. Low settings still deliver 192 FPS, which is sufficient for 144 Hz gaming. High and Ultra are nearly identical at 112 and 107 FPS respectively, again suggesting CPU limitations at these settings.

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 142 FPS average
• Medium: 110 FPS average, with a minimum of 94 FPS and maximum of 127 FPS
• High: 83 FPS average
• Ultra: 79 FPS average

At 4K, the GPU becomes the dominant factor. Low settings still deliver 142 FPS, which is remarkably high for 4K in a flight simulator. Medium at 110 FPS is the best balance of visual quality and performance for 4K. High and Ultra both remain above 75 FPS, making them viable for 4K gaming if you prioritize image quality over frame rate.

The progression across resolutions shows a consistent pattern: Low settings scale from 238 to 192 to 142 FPS, Medium from 185 to 149 to 110 FPS, High from 139 to 112 to 83 FPS, and Ultra from 133 to 107 to 79 FPS. In every case, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is smaller than the drop from 1440p to 4K, which is expected given the pixel count increases of 78% and 125% respectively.

For the Medium preset, where minimum and maximum FPS data is available, the frame time variance is consistent. At 1080p, the range from minimum to maximum is 55 FPS (158 to 213). At 1440p, it's 45 FPS (127 to 172). At 4K, it's 33 FPS (94 to 127). This decreasing variance at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU's workload is more consistent, while at lower resolutions, CPU-bound scenes cause larger frame time spikes.