Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator — AMD Ryzen 7 5700 + AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

Microsoft Flight Simulator presents a demanding workload that stresses both CPU and GPU heavily, and the measured results for this AMD pairing reveal a system that scales predictably across resolutions while maintaining playable frame rates at most settings. The data shows a clear hierarchy: at 1080p the CPU becomes the primary constraint, while at 4K the GPU takes over as the limiting factor. This Ryzen 7 5700 and RX 7700 XT combination ranks 1378th out of 3714 tested combos in this game, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all configurations. The benchmark rows provided include average FPS at three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) across four quality presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), offering a complete picture of how this system behaves under varying loads.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, indicating a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 139 FPS at 1080p to 112 FPS at 1440p (a 19% reduction) and then to 82 FPS at 4K (a 41% drop from 1440p). This pattern—where each resolution step costs roughly 20-27% of the remaining performance—is characteristic of a graphics card reaching its fill-rate and bandwidth limits. The RX 7700 XT, with its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 432.0 GB/s, clearly has enough bandwidth for 1080p but struggles to maintain the same efficiency at 4K where pixel throughput demands rise exponentially.

At Medium settings, the scaling story is similar but with slightly different percentages. The average FPS goes from 108 at 1080p to 87 at 1440p (a 19.4% drop) and then to 64 at 4K (a 26.4% drop from 1440p). Interestingly, the 4K-to-1440p penalty at Medium is less severe than at Low, suggesting that the medium preset's additional shading work helps mask some of the memory bandwidth limitations. The High preset shows the same trend: 81 FPS at 1080p, 65 FPS at 1440p (19.8% drop), and 48 FPS at 4K (26.2% drop). Ultra settings follow suit with 77, 62, and 46 FPS respectively, though the 1440p-to-4K drop here is only 25.8%, the smallest relative penalty of all presets.

What this resolution scaling data implies is that the RX 7700 XT is the dominant bottleneck at 4K, regardless of quality preset. The fact that 4K Ultra (46 FPS) is only slightly below 4K High (48 FPS) suggests the GPU is already saturated and additional settings have diminishing returns. Conversely, the large gap between 1080p Low (139 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (77 FPS) indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU can feed the GPU fast enough that the graphics card's workload becomes the differentiator. The Ryzen 7 5700's 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 3 architecture, appear sufficient to avoid becoming a hard bottleneck at 1080p, though the single-thread score of 901 in 3DMark (compared to a max-thread score of 6617) suggests that flight simulation's physics and scenery processing may not scale perfectly across all cores.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting 60 FPS as a playable baseline, the data shows that Medium settings at 1440p (87 FPS average) and High settings at 1080p (81 FPS) both comfortably exceed this threshold. However, the most balanced experience appears to be Medium at 1440p, which offers a 25.8% improvement over High at the same resolution (87 vs 65 FPS) while still maintaining visual quality that is meaningfully above Low. The Medium preset at 1440p also has the only recorded min/max FPS values (74 min, 100 max) among the non-1080p rows, providing a window of 26 FPS fluctuation that suggests stable frame pacing.

At 4K, the situation is more constrained. Ultra (46 FPS) and High (48 FPS) both fall below the 60 FPS threshold, while Medium (64 FPS) barely clears it. For 4K users, Medium is the only preset that delivers playable performance, and even then the average of 64 FPS leaves little headroom for complex scenery or weather effects. Low at 4K (82 FPS) is playable but sacrifices significant visual fidelity. The data suggests that 1440p Medium is the sweet spot for this combination: it provides a 36% FPS improvement over 1440p High, a 64% improvement over 4K Medium, and remains well above the 60 FPS target with a minimum observed of 74 FPS.

For 1080p users, the choice is between Ultra (77 FPS) and High (81 FPS), with only a 5.2% difference between them. Given that Ultra likely adds substantial visual complexity, the marginal FPS cost (4 FPS) makes Ultra a reasonable choice for those with 1080p displays. However, if competitive or smooth-flight performance is prioritized, High at 1080p offers the best balance of visual quality and headroom. Low at 1080p (139 FPS) is only useful for players seeking maximum frame rates or testing CPU limits, as the visual degradation is significant.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Microsoft Flight Simulator at 60 FPS in 4K?

A: Only at Medium settings, where the average FPS is 64. High and Ultra presets at 4K produce 48 and 46 FPS respectively, both below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: What is the best resolution and setting combination for smooth gameplay?

A: The data shows 1440p Medium as the standout option, with an average of 87 FPS and a minimum of 74 FPS. This provides the highest frame rate above 60 FPS while maintaining a medium visual preset.

Q: How does the CPU affect performance at different resolutions?

A: At 1080p Low, the system reaches 139 FPS, which is likely CPU-limited given the GPU's capability. As resolution increases to 4K, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, evidenced by the sharp FPS drops (e.g., 82 FPS at 4K Low vs 139 FPS at 1080p Low).

Q: Is there a large difference between High and Ultra settings?

A: The average FPS difference is small: 4 FPS at 1080p (81 vs 77), 3 FPS at 1440p (65 vs 62), and 2 FPS at 4K (48 vs 46). This suggests Ultra adds minimal performance cost but may not provide significant visual gains in this game.

Q: What frame rates can be expected at 1440p with different presets?

A: Low averages 112 FPS, Medium 87 FPS, High 65 FPS, and Ultra 62 FPS. Medium provides the best balance, with High and Ultra falling below the 70 FPS mark.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: It ranks 1378th out of 3714 combos, placing it in the 62.9th percentile (above average). The GPU's percentile rank (67th) is higher than the CPU's (78th percentile), indicating the graphics card is the stronger component in this pairing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080 (1080p): The system delivers its highest performance here. Low settings produce an average of 139 FPS, which is the fastest recorded result across all resolutions and settings. Medium settings reduce this to 108 FPS with a min/max range of 92 to 124 FPS, showing a 32 FPS spread that indicates moderate frame pacing variability. High settings average 81 FPS, a 25% reduction from Medium. Ultra settings yield 77 FPS, the smallest step-down (4 FPS) between any adjacent presets at this resolution. The transition from Low to Medium costs 31 FPS (22.3% reduction), while the High-to-Ultra step costs only 4.9%.

2560x1440 (1440p): This resolution shows the most balanced overall performance. Low averages 112 FPS, which is 19.4% lower than 1080p Low. Medium averages 87 FPS with a min of 74 and max of 100 FPS, representing a 26 FPS range—the tightest of any Medium preset across resolutions. High averages 65 FPS, a 25.3% drop from Medium. Ultra averages 62 FPS, nearly identical to High with only a 3 FPS difference. Notably, the gap between Low and Medium at 1440p is 25 FPS (22.3% reduction), similar to the 1080p Low-to-Medium gap of 31 FPS (22.3%), indicating consistent scaling.

3840x2160 (4K): This resolution pushes the GPU to its limits. Low averages 82 FPS, which is 26.8% lower than 1440p Low. Medium averages 64 FPS with a min of 55 and max of 74 FPS, the lowest recorded minimum across all settings. High averages 48 FPS, a 25% drop from Medium. Ultra averages 46 FPS, the lowest recorded average. The Low-to-Medium transition costs 18 FPS (22% reduction), while the High-to-Ultra transition costs only 2 FPS. At 4K, the difference between High and Ultra is negligible, suggesting the GPU is fully saturated.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5700 and RX 7700 XT achieves a rank of 1378 out of 3714 total tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the system in the top 37.1% of all configurations, which is a respectable position given the game's demanding nature. The CPU alone ranks at the 78th percentile among all processors, while the GPU ranks at the 67th percentile among all graphics cards. This discrepancy suggests that the CPU is relatively stronger than the GPU in this pairing, which aligns with the observed resolution scaling where the GPU becomes the bottleneck at 4K.

Comparing to nearest rivals, the CPU's average benchmark score of 25517 is nearly identical to the Intel Xeon D-2752TER (25530, -0.1% delta) and AMD Ryzen 5 6600H (25550, -0.1% delta). The Ryzen 5 7640U (25485, +0.1% delta) and Ryzen 7 5825U (25446, +0.3% delta) are also extremely close, indicating the 5700 sits in a tight cluster of mid-range performers. For the GPU, the RX 7700 XT's average score of 22549 is close to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile (22435, +0.5% delta) and RTX 4060 Mobile (22729, -0.8% delta), while the RTX 2080 (22895, -1.5% delta) and RX 5700 (22170, +1.7% delta) bracket it.

The rank of 1378 in this specific game, however, is not directly predicted by synthetic benchmarks. Microsoft Flight Simulator's unique rendering of terrain and weather may favor certain architectures. The 1378th rank out of 3714 combos means the system outperforms 63.7% of tested configurations, which is slightly below what the individual component percentiles might suggest. This could indicate that the game is particularly sensitive to memory bandwidth or cache behavior, areas where the Ryzen 7 5700's 16 MB L3 cache and the GPU's 432.0 GB/s bandwidth may be limiting factors compared to higher-tier combos.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700 is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (codenamed Cezanne), manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process. It operates at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosts up to 4.60 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The CPU's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 20655 and a Passmark multithread score of 24303. Single-thread performance is also respectable, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2916 and a 3DMark single-thread score of 901.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is particularly critical for physics calculations, AI traffic, and scenery loading. The 8 cores provide ample parallelism for the game's multi-threaded tasks, as evidenced by the 3DMark 16-thread score of 6628 being nearly identical to the max-thread score of 6617—this indicates the processor saturates all available threads efficiently. The 16 MB L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth (dual-channel DDR4) are sufficient for feeding the GPU at 1080p, where the system achieves 139 FPS on Low settings.

However, the data suggests the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 4K, the FPS drops are consistent with GPU limitations rather than CPU constraints. The CPU's percentile rank (78th) exceeds the GPU's (67th), and the fact that 1080p Low reaches 139 FPS—well above the GPU's capability at 4K—indicates the CPU can push frame rates much higher than the GPU can render at high resolutions. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1762 and 4-thread score of 3382 suggest that single-threaded performance, while not top-tier, is adequate for the game's core simulation loop.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture (Navi 32 chip) using TSMC's 5 nm process, featuring 28,100 million transistors on a 346 mm² die. It operates at a base clock of 1435 MHz, a boost clock of 2544 MHz, and a game clock of 2171 MHz, with a TDP of 245 W. The GPU has 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its 3456 shading units, 216 TMUs, and 96 ROPs provide substantial rasterization power, while 54 ray tracing cores offer some RT capability.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's performance is directly observable in the resolution scaling. At 1080p, the GPU can render up to 139 FPS on Low settings, but this drops to 82 FPS at 4K—a 41% reduction. The memory bandwidth of 432.0 GB/s appears to be a limiting factor at 4K, where larger textures and higher pixel counts demand more data transfer. The 12 GB VRAM capacity is likely sufficient for the game's textures, but the 192-bit bus width may constrain throughput at high resolutions.

The GPU's benchmark scores reflect its mid-range positioning: a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3316 and a Passmark G3D score of 22547. Its percentile rank of 67th among all GPUs places it slightly above average, and it sits close to the RTX 5060 Mobile (+0.5%), RTX 4060 Mobile (-0.8%), and RTX 2080 (-1.5%) in synthetic tests. The observed FPS data aligns with this positioning: the GPU delivers playable frame rates at 1440p Medium (87 FPS) but struggles to maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra (46 FPS). The narrow gap between High (48 FPS) and Ultra (46 FPS) at 4K suggests the GPU is fully saturated and additional settings have minimal impact, confirming the GPU as the limiting component at high resolutions.