Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G and AMD Radeon RX 580 reveal a steep performance cliff as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 52.6 FPS average, but dropping to 2560x1440 Low reduces that to 42.7 FPS, and at 3840x2160 Low it falls to exactly 30 FPS. That represents a 43% loss from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, which is a substantial hit that points directly at the GPU as the primary limiter.

The pattern holds across every settings tier. Moving from 1080p Medium at 40.3 FPS to 1440p Medium at 35.7 FPS to 4K Medium at 25.7 FPS shows consistent degradation. High settings tell the same story: 30.9 FPS at 1080p, 23.7 FPS at 1440p, and 18.1 FPS at 4K. Ultra is the most punishing, going from 31.5 FPS at 1080p down to 24.3 FPS at 1440p and 18.4 FPS at 4K. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is nearly identical in percentage terms to Low, which confirms that resolution, rather than settings complexity, dominates the performance curve.

What this says about the limiting component is clear. The RX 580's 256-bit memory bus and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are being saturated as pixel count rises. The GPU sits in the 53rd percentile among all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 and GTX 950, both of which are older architectures. The data shows that at 4K, even Low settings cannot hold 30 FPS consistently, as the average lands exactly at 30.0 FPS. For a flight simulator where smooth panning matters, this is marginal. The Ryzen 7 5700G, by contrast, has ample headroom — its 8 cores and 16 threads are far beyond what this workload demands at these frame rates, so the GPU is unquestionably the bottleneck.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo playable at 1080p?

A: At Low settings, yes — the average is 52.6 FPS. Medium drops to 40.3 FPS, and both High and Ultra hover around 31 FPS. For a flight simulator, 30 FPS is borderline but workable.

Q: What is the best resolution for this hardware?

A: 1920x1080 is the only resolution where any settings tier exceeds 50 FPS. At 2560x1440, even Low settings only reach 42.7 FPS, and at 3840x2160, no setting breaks 30 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 580 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 580's average benchmark score is 13559, which is essentially tied with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 at 13564 (0% delta) and the GTX 950 at 13549 (0.1% faster). The AMD Radeon Pro 455 trails by 1.1%.

Q: Does the CPU hold back the GPU in this game?

A: No. The Ryzen 7 5700G ranks in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs and delivers a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 20755. The frame rates are far too low to stress this CPU, so the GPU is the limiting factor.

Q: What FPS can I expect at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average is 18.4 FPS. That is below playable for most users, and the data shows that even dropping to Low only raises this to 30.0 FPS.

Q: Is the 8 GB VRAM sufficient?

A: The 8 GB GDDR5 memory on the RX 580 is present, but the bottleneck is bandwidth, not capacity. The 256.0 GB/s bandwidth is the constraint, as evidenced by the steep FPS drops at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the dominant factor in this combo's performance, and the data makes that unambiguous. Its base clock is 1257 MHz with a boost of 1340 MHz, and it carries 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus. The memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s is the key specification to understand here. As resolution climbs, the demand on that bandwidth grows faster than the shading units can compensate, which is why 4K performance collapses.

The GPU's 14 nm Polaris 20 chip provides 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units. The pixel rate is 42.88 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 193.0 GTexel/s. In synthetic benchmarks, the RX 580 scores 8813 in PassMark G3D and 1005 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. Its percentile rank is 53, putting it squarely in the middle of the GPU distribution. The nearest rival data reinforces this: the GTX 570 matches it exactly at 0% delta, while the GTX 950 is 0.1% faster, and the Radeon Pro 455 is 1.1% slower.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically, the RX 580's role is to render vast terrain and weather systems, which are heavy on fill rate and memory bandwidth. The measured results show that at 1080p, the GPU can keep up with Low settings at 52.6 FPS, but High and Ultra both dip below 32 FPS. At 1440p, the average FPS for Low is 42.7, which is still playable, but Medium drops to 35.7, and High and Ultra fall to 23.7 and 24.3 respectively. At 4K, the GPU is overwhelmed regardless of settings, with all presets landing between 18.1 and 30.0 FPS. The memory clock of 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective) is fixed, so there is no headroom there either. This is a GPU that was designed for 1080p gaming in 2017, and the data shows it should stay there.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates are comprehensive across three resolutions and four settings presets, totaling twelve data points. At 1920x1080, Low settings deliver 52.6 FPS, Medium delivers 40.3 FPS, High delivers 30.9 FPS, and Ultra delivers 31.5 FPS. Note the anomaly: Ultra is slightly faster than High at 1080p, by 0.6 FPS, which is within measurement noise but still worth flagging. The 1080p results are the only ones where any preset exceeds 50 FPS, and only Low achieves that.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers drop across the board. Low is 42.7 FPS, Medium is 35.7 FPS, High is 23.7 FPS, and Ultra is 24.3 FPS. Again, Ultra edges out High slightly, this time by 0.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 1440p is 7.0 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 12.0 FPS, suggesting that High settings impose a significant extra load. The difference between High and Ultra is minimal, which means Ultra is not the primary cost — High is where the rendering budget breaks.

At 3840x2160, the results are stark. Low is 30.0 FPS, Medium is 25.7 FPS, High is 18.1 FPS, and Ultra is 18.4 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs 4.3 FPS, and from Medium to High costs 7.6 FPS. The High to Ultra delta is again negligible at 0.3 FPS. Across all resolutions, the data shows a consistent pattern: Low settings provide roughly 1.7x the frame rate of High settings. At 1080p, that ratio is 52.6 to 30.9 (1.70x); at 1440p, it is 42.7 to 23.7 (1.80x); and at 4K, it is 30.0 to 18.1 (1.66x). This consistency indicates that the GPU's workload scales predictably with settings, but resolution changes have a more dramatic impact because they affect the entire frame buffer.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G is a Zen 3 part on the Cezanne architecture, built on TSMC's 7 nm process. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. The 16 MB L3 cache and 512 KB L2 per core provide ample on-die storage. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU scores 20755 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2930 in single-core, with a PassMark multi-thread score of 24419. It ranks in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25626.

The nearest rivals for the 5700G are telling. The AMD Ryzen 7 6800U scores 25706, which is 0.3% higher. The Intel Xeon D-2752TER scores 25532, which is 0.4% lower. The Intel Core 5 210H is 0.5% lower at 25490, and the AMD Ryzen 5 7640U is 0.6% lower at 25485. This puts the 5700G in a tight cluster where no rival is more than 0.6% away, indicating that this CPU is very competitive for its class.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to manage flight physics, AI traffic, and terrain streaming. The measured FPS shows that even at the lowest GPU-bound scenario — 1080p Low at 52.6 FPS — the CPU is not the constraint. If the CPU were limiting, we would expect to see frame rates plateau across different resolutions. Instead, the FPS drops by roughly 20% from 1080p to 1440p and another 30% from 1440p to 4K at the same settings. This is classic GPU-bound behavior. The 5700G's 16 threads are more than enough for this simulation, and its single-thread performance of 2930 in Cinebench R23 ensures that the main simulation thread has ample headroom. The data supports the conclusion that the CPU is not a bottleneck; it is the RX 580 that determines the experience.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS, the optimal settings depend on the resolution target. At 1920x1080, Low settings provide the best experience with 52.6 FPS, which is smooth for a flight simulator. Medium at 40.3 FPS is also playable and offers a better visual balance. High and Ultra at roughly 31 FPS are borderline; they work for slow, steady flight but will struggle during fast maneuvers or dense scenery. For the best balance of visual fidelity and smoothness at 1080p, Medium is the recommended preset.

At 2560x1440, the picture changes. Low at 42.7 FPS is the only preset that clears the 40 FPS threshold. Medium at 35.7 FPS is acceptable but not ideal, while High at 23.7 and Ultra at 24.3 are too choppy for comfortable flight. The data suggests that 1440p users should stick with Low settings unless they can tolerate sub-30 FPS. The gap between Medium and High at 1440p is 12.0 FPS, which is the largest single settings jump in the entire dataset, so High is clearly a heavy preset.

At 3840x2160, no preset is truly playable. Low at 30.0 FPS is the only option that hits the 30 FPS mark, and it does so barely. Medium drops to 25.7 FPS, and High and Ultra are both below 19 FPS. For 4K, the recommendation is to either accept Low settings at 30 FPS or drop the resolution entirely. Across all resolutions, the data shows that Low settings offer the most consistent frame rate, while Ultra provides almost no benefit over High in terms of FPS cost — the differences are 0.6 FPS at 1080p, 0.6 FPS at 1440p, and 0.3 FPS at 4K. This means that if you are going to use High, you might as well use Ultra, since the performance penalty is negligible.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database for Microsoft Flight Simulator, this combination of AMD Ryzen 7 5700G and AMD Radeon RX 580 ranks 1667 out of 1795 tested combos. That places it in the bottom 7% of all configurations. The rank is heavily influenced by the GPU, which sits at the 53rd percentile, while the CPU sits at the 83rd percentile. The disparity between the two components is stark: the CPU is well above average, but the GPU drags the overall ranking down.

The data indicates that this combo is at the lower end of playable performance. At 1080p Low, it achieves 52.6 FPS, which is better than many lower-end combos, but the 4K results are among the worst in the database. The rank of 1667 out of 1795 means there are 128 combos that perform worse, but the vast majority of tested systems outperform this one. The nearest GPU rivals — the GTX 570 and GTX 950 — are both older and less capable in modern titles, which suggests that the RX 580 is holding its own relative to its generation, but the generation itself is outdated.

For context, the combo's performance is consistent with what the component benchmarks predict. The CPU's average benchmark score of 25626 is 0.3% off the top rival, while the GPU's average score of 13559 is within 0.1% of the GTX 570. In a game as demanding as Microsoft Flight Simulator, this hardware combination is best suited for 1080p gaming at Medium to Low settings. The data shows that pushing to 1440p or 4K results in a significant loss of smoothness, and the overall rank of 1667 reflects that limitation. If frame rate is the priority, this combo delivers at 1080p; if resolution is the priority, it falls short.