Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator with AMD Ryzen 7 5700G + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

This pairing of AMD's 8-core Zen 3 APU and NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace flagship delivers a remarkably consistent experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with the measured data showing a combo that ranks 321st out of 3,714 tested configurations. The RTX 4080's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth prove decisive across all settings, while the Ryzen 7 5700G's 8 cores and 16 threads keep pace admirably given its PCIe Gen 3 interface and 65 W TDP. The benchmark results reveal a system that can handle the simulator's demanding world-streaming workloads at high framerates, though the choices you make in the settings menu will materially affect whether you prioritize visual fidelity or raw smoothness.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data points to Medium settings as the sweet spot for this combination, but the reasoning differs by resolution in ways that matter. At 1080p, Medium produces a 158 FPS average with a minimum of 135 FPS and maximum of 182 FPS, which represents a 35 FPS improvement over High while only sacrificing moderate visual detail. The gap between Medium and Low at this resolution is a mere 16 FPS, meaning you gain substantial visual quality for a relatively small performance cost when stepping up from Low to Medium.

At 1440p, the Medium preset delivers 132 FPS average with a 112 FPS minimum and 152 FPS maximum, maintaining a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold that flight simulators generally benefit from given the dense ground detail and cockpit instruments. The step from Medium to High at this resolution costs 33 FPS, while the step from High to Ultra costs only 4 FPS, which suggests that Ultra's added effects are relatively inexpensive at 1440p once you've already committed to High.

The 4K results tell a different story. Ultra at 3840x2160 produces a 70 FPS average, which is playable but leaves little headroom for complex scenery or weather. High at 4K yields 73 FPS, a marginal improvement, but Medium jumps to 97 FPS with an 83 FPS minimum and 112 FPS maximum. This 24 FPS gap between Medium and High at 4K is the largest settings-based delta in the entire dataset, indicating that the High preset's additional texture and shadow workloads significantly tax the GPU at this resolution. For most users, Medium at 4K is the pragmatic choice, as it provides a 97 FPS average that comfortably exceeds display refresh targets while the visual difference from High is less noticeable at this pixel density.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 5700G is a Zen 3 part built on TSMC's 7 nm process, featuring 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 4.60 GHz. Its 16 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support at 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for feeding a high-end GPU in most scenarios, and the benchmark data confirms this in Microsoft Flight Simulator's less demanding resolutions.

At 1080p, the CPU's influence is most apparent. The jump from Low to Medium to High to Ultra shows a progressive framerate decline from 174 FPS to 158 FPS to 123 FPS to 117 FPS, which is a relatively shallow curve compared to what a weaker processor would produce. The 3DMark results for this CPU show a single-thread score of 899 and a 16-thread score of 6,629, indicating balanced multi-threading capability that aligns with the simulator's known appetite for multiple cores during terrain and traffic processing.

The Cinebench R23 scores of 1,494 single-core and 12,830.5 multi-core place this processor in a competitive position, with its nearest rivals including the Intel Core i9-9900K at a 0.2% average score delta and the Intel Core i5-14400T at a 0.4% delta. The 5700G's 79th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it is not the bottleneck in most scenarios, but the data at 1080p Low reveals its limits: 174 FPS is the ceiling here, and the framerate does not scale higher even though the GPU has ample headroom at this resolution.

The CPU's integrated Radeon Vega 8 graphics are irrelevant in this configuration, but the processor's PCIe Gen 3 interface is worth noting. The RTX 4080 is a PCIe 4.0 x16 card, and while the bandwidth reduction from Gen 3 does not appear to cripple performance in the measured results, it may contribute to the smaller-than-expected gains at lower resolutions where CPU and bus overhead play a larger role.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is an Ada Lovelace part with 9,728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output pipelines, built on TSMC's 5 nm process with 45,900 million transistors. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for Microsoft Flight Simulator's streaming of high-resolution terrain textures and photogrammetry data.

The GPU's 86th percentile ranking among all graphics cards is reflected in the measured results, where it demonstrates clear scaling headroom as resolution increases. At 1080p, the GPU is not the primary constraint, as evidenced by the 174 FPS Low result that leaves performance on the table. At 4K, however, the GPU becomes the dominant factor, with the Ultra preset dropping to 70 FPS and High to 73 FPS, indicating that the RTX 4080's 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is being fully utilized by the simulator's rendering workload.

The nearest rivals to the RTX 4080 in the benchmark database include the RTX 4080 SUPER at a 0.1% delta and the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X at a 1.1% delta, which contextualizes the GPU's position as a high-end part with no meaningful competition from below. The 320 W TDP and 700 W suggested PSU are engineering realities, but the measured data shows the card delivering consistent framerates across all four settings presets at every resolution, with the minimum FPS values at Medium settings (83 FPS at 4K, 112 FPS at 1440p, 135 FPS at 1080p) indicating stable frame pacing rather than occasional stutters.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5700G and RTX 4080 achieves a rank of 321 out of 3,714 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the top 8.6% of all configurations. This rank reflects the GPU's strength more than the CPU's, as the 5700G's 79th percentile CPU ranking and the RTX 4080's 86th percentile GPU ranking suggest a slight imbalance in favor of the graphics card.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the general benchmark database include the Intel Core i9-9900K at a 0.2% average score delta and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 445 at a 0.4% delta, while the GPU's nearest rival is the RTX 4080 SUPER at a 0.1% delta. These tight margins indicate that the combo's rank is not driven by an unusually strong or weak individual component, but rather by the synergistic fit of a capable 8-core CPU with a top-tier GPU in a simulator that benefits from both single-threaded responsiveness and massive parallel throughput.

The 3,714-combo comparison pool includes systems ranging from budget APUs to dual-flagchip workstations, and this pairing's 321st place suggests that it outperforms the majority of configurations while not quite reaching the upper echelon where newer CPUs with PCIe Gen 4 or Gen 5 interfaces and higher memory bandwidth might edge it out. The data does not indicate any thermal or power-related throttling that would explain a lower rank, as the 65 W CPU and 320 W GPU are both within their intended operating envelopes.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear resolution scaling pattern that shifts the bottleneck from CPU to GPU as pixel count increases. At Low settings, the framerate drops from 174 FPS at 1080p to 161 FPS at 1440p to 125 FPS at 4K, representing declines of 7.5% and 22.4% respectively. This relatively mild scaling at Low settings indicates that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p, and the GPU has sufficient headroom to maintain high framerates even at 4K when the visual workload is minimal.

At Medium settings, the scaling is steeper: 158 FPS at 1080p, 132 FPS at 1440p, and 97 FPS at 4K, with the 1440p to 4K drop of 35 FPS being the largest single-resolution transition in the dataset. This suggests that the Medium preset's texture and shading requirements begin to stress the GPU's memory bandwidth at 4K, though the 97 FPS result remains highly playable.

The High and Ultra presets show the most pronounced resolution sensitivity. High drops from 123 FPS at 1080p to 99 FPS at 1440p to 73 FPS at 4K, while Ultra drops from 117 FPS to 95 FPS to 70 FPS. The convergence of High and Ultra framerates at 4K (73 vs 70 FPS) indicates that the GPU is becoming fully saturated at this resolution, and the marginal cost of Ultra over High is minimal because the rendering pipeline is already at its limit.

The implication for users is clear: at 1080p and 1440p, the CPU's single-thread performance and the PCIe Gen 3 interface create a ceiling around 170 FPS, while at 4K, the GPU's compute and memory resources govern performance. The 5700G's 3.80 GHz base and 4.60 GHz boost clocks are sufficient for the simulator's engine, but the data shows that pushing beyond 1080p Low settings requires the GPU to work progressively harder.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results span a 57 FPS range across settings. Low produces a 174 FPS average, Medium delivers 158 FPS with a minimum of 135 FPS and maximum of 182 FPS, High achieves 123 FPS, and Ultra reaches 117 FPS. The 35 FPS gap between Medium and High is the largest settings-based jump at this resolution, suggesting that High's additional draw distance and shadow quality are computationally expensive relative to their visual benefit.

At 2560x1440, the framerates shift downward across the board. Low averages 161 FPS, Medium averages 132 FPS with a minimum of 112 FPS and maximum of 152 FPS, High averages 99 FPS, and Ultra averages 95 FPS. The Medium preset's 132 FPS average represents a 32% reduction from the 161 FPS Low result, while the High to Ultra transition costs only 4 FPS, indicating diminishing returns from the highest preset tier.

At 3840x2160, the performance envelope tightens considerably. Low averages 125 FPS, Medium averages 97 FPS with a minimum of 83 FPS and maximum of 112 FPS, High averages 73 FPS, and Ultra averages 70 FPS. The 4K Low result of 125 FPS demonstrates the GPU's raw capability, while the 4K Ultra result of 70 FPS shows that the simulator's most demanding settings can still stress this high-end card. The Medium preset at 4K, with its 83 FPS minimum, offers the best balance of smoothness and visual fidelity for users with 60 Hz displays, while those with 120 Hz panels may need to settle for Low or accept the 73 FPS High result.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset's minimum FPS values (135 at 1080p, 112 at 1440p, 83 at 4K) are consistently strong, indicating that this settings tier provides the most stable frame delivery for this hardware combination. The Ultra preset's lack of minimum FPS data in the dataset does not allow for a full assessment of its frame pacing, but the average FPS figures suggest it is only marginally more demanding than High at every resolution.