Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator — AMD Ryzen 7 5700 + AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT

This combination places 1305th out of 1795 tested hardware pairings for Microsoft Flight Simulator, a result that reflects a mid-pack standing for a flight sim known for demanding both CPU and GPU resources. The measured data shows a system that can handle the game at playable framerates in most settings, but with clear limitations emerging at higher resolutions and quality presets. The AMD Ryzen 7 5700, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, appears well-suited to the simulation's CPU-heavy workload, while the Radeon RX 5700 XT, with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, becomes the primary constraint as resolution scales upward.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average framerate this system achieves in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The highest measured average is 97.9 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This drops to 58.5 FPS at 3840x2160 with Low settings, showing a substantial resolution penalty.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 7 5700 has an average benchmark score of 27220, which is 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i9-9900K, 0.8% higher than the Intel Core i7-12700H, and 1.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen AI 5 340. It sits in the 84th percentile of all CPUs.

Q: What is the GPU's standing relative to other graphics cards?

A: The Radeon RX 5700 XT ranks in the 68th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 24731. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile, scores 24763, a delta of -0.1%, meaning the RX 5700 XT is essentially tied with it.

Q: Does raising settings from Medium to High have a consistent impact across resolutions?

A: No. At 1920x1080, the drop from Medium (79.9 FPS) to High (58 FPS) is 21.9 FPS, while at 2560x1440 it drops from 61.7 to 46.2 FPS (15.5 FPS), and at 3840x2160 from 46.2 to 32.8 FPS (13.4 FPS). The absolute penalty shrinks as resolution increases.

Q: Is the system more CPU-limited or GPU-limited in this game?

A: The data suggests GPU limitation dominates at higher resolutions. From 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 at High settings, framerate falls from 58 to 32.8 FPS, a 43% reduction. The GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth appear to be the bottleneck.

Q: What is the launch MSRP for each component?

A: The CPU has a launch MSRP of $179, and the GPU has a launch MSRP of 399 USD. The CPU was released on 2022-04-03, while the GPU launched on 2019-07-06.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and smoothness. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 97.9 FPS, which is the highest average recorded for this pairing. Medium drops to 79.9 FPS, still comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, while High (58 FPS) and Ultra (57.8 FPS) fall just below it. For a flight simulator where camera panning over terrain and dense scenery can cause stutter, the Medium preset at 1080p offers the best balance: it maintains a 79.9 FPS average while providing a substantial improvement over Low's visual quality.

At 2560x1440, the recommendation shifts. Medium produces 61.7 FPS, which is playable but leaves little headroom for complex scenes. Low at 80.4 FPS is the only preset that provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. High (46.2 FPS) and Ultra (44.7 FPS) are both below playable thresholds for most users. Therefore, at 1440p, Low is the recommended preset for consistent smoothness, while Medium is acceptable for users who prioritize visuals over framerate stability.

At 3840x2160, no preset achieves 60 FPS. Low averages 58.5 FPS, which is close but not quite there, while Medium (46.2 FPS), High (32.8 FPS), and Ultra (34.9 FPS) all fall well short. For 4K, Low is the only viable option, and even then, users should expect occasional dips below 60 FPS. The data indicates that this system is not suited for high-fidelity 4K flight simming.

Resolution Scaling

The framerate drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is steep and consistent across all settings. At Low, the average falls from 97.9 to 58.5 FPS, a 39.4 FPS reduction (roughly 40% lower). At Medium, it drops from 79.9 to 46.2 FPS, a 33.7 FPS loss. At High, the decline is from 58 to 32.8 FPS, a 25.2 FPS reduction. At Ultra, it goes from 57.8 to 34.9 FPS, a 22.9 FPS drop.

The pattern is telling: the absolute FPS loss between 1080p and 4K shrinks as settings increase. At Low, the system loses 39.4 FPS going to 4K; at Ultra, it loses only 22.9 FPS. This indicates that at lower settings, the GPU has headroom to render more pixels, so the resolution increase has a larger absolute impact. At higher settings, the GPU is already heavily loaded at 1080p, so the additional pixel count produces a smaller absolute change.

The scaling also reveals the limiting component. From 1080p to 1440p at High, the framerate drops from 58 to 46.2 FPS (a 20.3% reduction). From 1440p to 4K at High, it drops from 46.2 to 32.8 FPS (a 29% reduction). The increasing percentage loss at higher resolutions points to the GPU as the primary constraint, as pixel throughput demands exceed what the Radeon RX 5700 XT can deliver.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings is usable. Low produces 97.9 FPS, Medium 79.9 FPS, High 58 FPS, and Ultra 57.8 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is negligible at just 0.2 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset adds little measurable performance cost but also little benefit in this configuration.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low 80.4 FPS, Medium 61.7 FPS, High 46.2 FPS, and Ultra 44.7 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to 1.5 FPS, continuing the trend seen at 1080p. Medium remains above 60 FPS, but High and Ultra both sit below that threshold.

At 3840x2160, the numbers are: Low 58.5 FPS, Medium 46.2 FPS, High 32.8 FPS, and Ultra 34.9 FPS. Notably, Ultra (34.9 FPS) outperforms High (32.8 FPS) by 2.1 FPS at this resolution. This anomaly suggests that the Ultra preset may alter certain rendering paths in a way that is less demanding on the GPU at 4K, or that the measurement variance is within a small margin.

The data shows that the step from Low to Medium costs roughly 18-20 FPS at 1080p and 1440p, but only about 12 FPS at 4K. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is so saturated that additional settings changes have a diminished impact on framerate.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 5700 XT is built on the RDNA 1.0 architecture with a Navi 10 chip, fabricated on a 7 nm process with 10,300 million transistors. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator that streams large textures for terrain and aircraft. The GPU's boost clock of 1905 MHz and game clock of 1755 MHz, with a base clock of 1605 MHz, determine its peak throughput.

The measured FPS data shows the GPU becoming the bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 97.9 FPS, but at 4K Low, it drops to 58.5 FPS. This 39.4 FPS loss is primarily due to the GPU's pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth limits. The GPU's pixel rate is 121.9 GPixel/s and texture rate is 304.8 GTexel/s, which at 4K resolution (8.3 million pixels) translates to roughly 14.7 full-screen passes per second at peak, but real-world performance is lower due to other overheads.

The GPU's 68th percentile standing among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 24731, places it just 0.1% below the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile and 0.9% above the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000. This mid-range positioning explains why the system struggles to maintain 60 FPS at 1440p High and above. The 8 GB VRAM is likely sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K with high-quality textures, it may be a limiting factor, as the framerate drops to 32.8 FPS at High settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700 is a Zen 3 architecture processor with a Cezanne codename, built on a 7 nm process at TSMC with 10,700 million transistors. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. The CPU's 16 MB of L3 cache and 64 KB L1 cache per core, along with 512 KB L2 per core, provide the fast data access needed for flight simulation's complex physics and AI calculations.

The CPU's synthetic benchmark scores show strong multi-threaded performance. In Cinebench R23, it scores 20655 in multicore and 2916 in single-core. In 3DMark, it scores 6628 with 16 threads and 901 single-threaded. These numbers place the CPU in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27220. This is 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i9-9900K, 0.8% higher than the Intel Core i7-12700H, and 1.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen AI 5 340.

In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle the simulation's world-building logic, including terrain generation, weather systems, and aircraft physics. The measured data suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the framerate drops significantly with resolution increases. However, at 1080p Low, the 97.9 FPS result indicates that the CPU can keep up with the GPU's output at lower settings. The 84th percentile CPU standing, combined with the GPU's 68th percentile ranking, suggests the CPU has more headroom than the GPU for this game. The system's overall rank of 1305 out of 1795 combos reflects this imbalance, where the GPU holds back the pair's potential.