Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates across resolutions tell a clear story about where Microsoft Flight Simulator's bottleneck sits with this AMD Ryzen 7 5700 and AMD Radeon RX 9070 pairing. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 154.9 FPS, but dropping to 4K Low reduces that to 88.9 FPS, a 42.6% performance hit that indicates the GPU is being progressively loaded as pixel count rises.

The scaling behavior becomes more telling when examining the High preset. At 1080p High, the system delivers 89.2 FPS, while 1440p High drops to 75.1 FPS (a 15.8% reduction), and 4K High falls to 55.6 FPS (a 37.7% reduction from the 1080p figure). These deltas suggest that at 1080p, the Ryzen 7 5700's eight Zen 3 cores are keeping pace adequately, but the RX 9070's rendering workload grows substantially with each resolution step.

The Ultra preset shows the tightest resolution scaling curve. From 85.6 FPS at 1080p Ultra to 70.9 FPS at 1440p Ultra (17.2% lower), then to 52.4 FPS at 4K Ultra (38.8% lower than 1080p). The consistent proportional drops across presets confirm that resolution scaling follows expected GPU-bound behavior once the settings demand more from the RDNA 4.0 architecture.

Notably, the gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 36.5 FPS (from 88.9 down to 52.4 FPS), whereas at 1080p that same settings delta spans 69.3 FPS (from 154.9 down to 85.6 FPS). The compressed range at 4K indicates the RX 9070 becomes the primary limiter at higher resolutions, while at 1080p the CPU has more headroom to express differences between presets. The data shows 4K Ultra barely clears 52 FPS, which sits below the 60 FPS threshold many users target, while 4K Low comfortably exceeds it at 88.9 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide clear guidance for optimizing the experience. At 1080p, every preset delivers playable frame rates, with Low hitting 154.9 FPS, Medium at 122.1 FPS, High at 89.2 FPS, and Ultra at 85.6 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra costs only 3.6 FPS at 1080p, making Ultra the sensible choice for users who want maximum visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness at this resolution.

Moving to 1440p shifts the calculus. Low produces 126.5 FPS, Medium delivers 97.7 FPS, High manages 75.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 70.9 FPS. The delta between High and Ultra narrows to 4.2 FPS, suggesting that the extra visual detail in Ultra is nearly free at this resolution. However, users prioritizing frame rate headroom for dense scenery or add-on aircraft may prefer Medium, which keeps the frame rate near triple digits.

At 4K, the recommendations change dramatically. Low runs at 88.9 FPS, Medium at 72.9 FPS, High at 55.6 FPS, and Ultra at 52.4 FPS. The 17.3 FPS gap between Low and Medium at 4K is substantial, but the 2.5 FPS difference between High and Ultra is negligible. For 4K users, Medium offers the best balance, delivering 72.9 FPS while retaining enough visual quality for a flight simulator where terrain and cockpit readability matter. High and Ultra at 4K dip below 60 FPS, which may introduce noticeable judder in a game that relies on smooth panning across landscapes.

The benchmark results indicate that Medium is the sweet spot across all three resolutions when considering the marginal returns from higher presets. At 1080p Medium delivers 122.1 FPS, at 1440p it hits 97.7 FPS, and at 4K it maintains 72.9 FPS — all respectable figures that leave headroom for the simulation's dynamic weather and traffic systems to cause occasional frame dips.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 brings 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration proves adequate for Microsoft Flight Simulator's vast streaming world, where terrain textures and photogrammetry data load continuously during flight. The 128 ROPs and 224 TMUs handle the rasterization workload, while the 56 ray tracing cores are present but less critical for a title that primarily relies on traditional rendering.

Clock behavior shows the GPU's boost clock of 2520 MHz with a game clock of 2070 MHz, indicating that sustained gaming workloads settle near the latter figure. The 4 nm process node from TSMC allows the RX 9070 to maintain these clocks within a 220 W TDP, which is reasonable for the performance delivered. The PCIe 5.0 x16 interface provides ample bandwidth for the 16 GB frame buffer, though the game's data streaming patterns are unlikely to saturate even PCIe 4.0.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 79th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 34780. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA A2 at 34866 (0.2% higher), NVIDIA Quadro GV100 at 34677 (0.3% lower), AMD Radeon HD 7970 at 34541 (0.7% lower), and AMD Radeon PRO W6400 at 34511 (0.8% lower). These tight margins suggest the RX 9070 sits in a competitive bracket, though the measured FPS in this flight simulator show it performing admirably at 1080p and 1440p.

The PassMark G3D score of 25381 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 165532 reflect strong compute and graphics capabilities. The FP32 throughput of 36.13 TFLOPS provides ample raw compute for the physics and weather simulation that Flight Simulator runs alongside rendering. At 4K, the GPU's role becomes dominant, as evidenced by the compressed FPS range across presets at that resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 154.9 FPS average, making this the only preset that approaches high-refresh-rate territory. Medium settings reduce the average to 122.1 FPS, still comfortably above 120 FPS. High settings yield 89.2 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 85.6 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p spans 69.3 FPS, demonstrating that the Ryzen 7 5700's 16 threads and the RX 9070's rendering power combine to keep even the heaviest preset well above playability thresholds.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages shift downward but remain robust. Low settings achieve 126.5 FPS, Medium reaches 97.7 FPS, High drops to 75.1 FPS, and Ultra settles at 70.9 FPS. The 1440p Ultra figure represents a 17.2% reduction from the 1080p Ultra result, a reasonable penalty for the 78% increase in pixel count. The 1440p Low result at 126.5 FPS shows that users willing to sacrifice visual fidelity can still push high refresh rates at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the RX 9070's workload becomes evident. Low settings average 88.9 FPS, Medium achieves 72.9 FPS, High falls to 55.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 52.4 FPS. The 4K results reveal that only Low and Medium presets maintain averages above 60 FPS. The 4K High and Ultra numbers, while below 60 FPS, remain smooth enough for a flight simulator where typical gameplay involves gradual camera movements rather than fast-paced action.

The combination ranks 552nd out of 1795 total combinations in this game, placing it in the upper third of tested systems. The data indicates that the Ryzen 7 5700, with its 16 MB L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth, provides sufficient CPU throughput to avoid bottlenecking the RX 9070 at most settings, except perhaps at 1080p Low where the 154.9 FPS result approaches the limits of what the CPU can feed to the GPU.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Microsoft Flight Simulator at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but only with reduced settings. The measured data shows 4K Low averaging 88.9 FPS and 4K Medium averaging 72.9 FPS. Both 4K High (55.6 FPS) and 4K Ultra (52.4 FPS) fall below 60 FPS averages.

Q: What is the best preset to use at 1440p?

A: Medium offers the strongest balance at 1440p, delivering 97.7 FPS. High at 75.1 FPS and Ultra at 70.9 FPS are also playable, but Medium provides nearly 23 FPS more than High while still maintaining solid visual quality.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K on the High preset?

A: The High preset drops from 89.2 FPS at 1080p to 75.1 FPS at 1440p and 55.6 FPS at 4K. This represents a 37.7% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating the GPU becomes increasingly stressed at higher resolutions.

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 7 5700 holding back the RX 9070 in this game?

A: The benchmark data suggests the CPU keeps pace reasonably well. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 154.9 FPS, which is near the practical limit for smooth gameplay. The CPU's 3DMark single-thread score of 901 and max-thread score of 6617 indicate adequate performance for a simulation that relies on both single-thread and multi-thread workloads.

Q: What frame rate can users expect with Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: Ultra settings at 1080p average 85.6 FPS, which is 3.6 FPS lower than High at 89.2 FPS. The small delta suggests Ultra is essentially free at 1080p, making it the recommended preset for users at this resolution who want maximum visual detail.

Q: How does the RX 9070 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 9070's average benchmark score of 34780 places it within 0.8% of four rivals: NVIDIA A2 (34866, 0.2% higher), NVIDIA Quadro GV100 (34677, 0.3% lower), AMD Radeon HD 7970 (34541, 0.7% lower), and AMD Radeon PRO W6400 (34511, 0.8% lower). This clustering indicates the card sits in a competitive performance tier.