Microsoft Flight Simulator

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

This combination delivers a strong 1080p and 1440p experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with the RTX 4080 SUPER providing ample headroom at lower resolutions while the Ryzen 7 5700G becomes the limiting factor as settings drop. At 4K Ultra, the system still produces playable frame rates, but the scaling pattern reveals a clear shift in bottleneck behavior across the resolution spectrum.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a pronounced resolution-dependent scaling curve. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 175.9 FPS, which drops to 163.7 FPS at 1440p Low and 123.5 FPS at 4K Low. That represents a 29.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings. However, at Ultra settings, the drop is much smaller: 115.5 FPS at 1080p falls to 92.3 FPS at 1440p and 69.9 FPS at 4K — a 39.5% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The pattern indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is the dominant constraint; the GPU has plenty of spare capacity, so resolution increases only modestly impact performance. At Ultra settings, the GPU becomes more heavily loaded, and the frame rate scales more predictably with pixel count.

The Medium preset shows a similar trend: 160 FPS at 1080p, 130 FPS at 1440p, and 94.5 FPS at 4K. The High preset delivers 124.6 FPS at 1080p, 98.4 FPS at 1440p, and 69 FPS at 4K. Notably, the gap between 1080p and 1440p at High is 21.0%, while the gap between 1440p and 4K is 29.9%. This suggests that the RTX 4080 SUPER's 16 GB VRAM and 736.3 GB/s memory bandwidth handle the increased texture and geometry load at 1440p without major hitches, but the transition to 4K begins to saturate the rendering pipeline. The data shows that this combo is most efficient at 1080p and 1440p, where the GPU can maintain high frame rates without being bottlenecked by the CPU's 8-core, 16-thread configuration.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G is a Zen 3 (Cezanne) processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 4.60 GHz. Its 16 MB L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support at 51.2 GB/s are moderate by modern standards, and this shows in the game's frame rates at lower settings. At 1080p Low, the system hits 175.9 FPS — but the fact that this is only 12.6% higher than the 1440p Low result of 163.7 FPS indicates the CPU is already near its limit in this flight simulator, which is known for heavy single-threaded and physics simulation workloads.

The CPU's benchmark results reinforce this interpretation. In Cinebench R23, it scores 20755 multi-core and 2930 single-core. Its PassMark single-thread score is 3283. The nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U, scores an average of 25706 and is only 0.3% behind the 5700G's average benchmark score of 25626. This places the 5700G in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs, which is respectable but not top-tier. For Microsoft Flight Simulator, the data suggests that while the 5700G provides adequate single-thread performance for the game's simulation logic, it cannot fully feed the RTX 4080 SUPER at lower resolutions where the GPU is barely taxed. The evidence is in the scaling: from 1080p Low to 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops by 34.3%, which is a smaller relative drop than what a fully GPU-bound system would exhibit, implying the CPU is capping performance even at Ultra.

The 65W TDP and PCIe Gen 3 interface (16 lanes) are worth noting. The PCIe Gen 3 connection could theoretically limit data transfer to the GPU, but the measured results do not show a catastrophic bottleneck — rather, a gradual limitation that becomes more visible at lower settings. The 5700G's integrated Radeon Vega 8 graphics are irrelevant here since a discrete GPU is present, but the CPU's architecture does not include the 3D V-Cache technology found in some other Ryzen parts, which could have provided additional gaming headroom.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing. With 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, 736.3 GB/s bandwidth, and a boost clock of 2550 MHz, it is clearly a high-end card. Its 10240 shading units and 320 tensor cores provide ample compute throughput, and the 52.22 TFLOPS FP32 performance is substantial. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 34245 places it in the 88th percentile among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 53610 is 0.2% above the nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's role becomes clearer at higher resolutions and settings. At 4K Ultra, the system produces 69.9 FPS — a playable result — while at 4K High it hits 69 FPS. The difference between Ultra and High at 4K is only 1.3%, suggesting the GPU is not the sole limiter; the CPU's simulation overhead is affecting both settings similarly. At 1080p, the RTX 4080 SUPER is clearly underutilized: the jump from Low (175.9 FPS) to Medium (160 FPS) to High (124.6 FPS) to Ultra (115.5 FPS) shows that the GPU has headroom, but the game's engine cannot translate that into higher frame rates because the CPU is busy calculating flight physics and world data.

The 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for this game at any resolution in the measured data. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate of 69.9 FPS indicates the GPU is handling the high-resolution textures and draw distances without memory-related stutters. The 736.3 GB/s bandwidth ensures that the massive terrain data typical of flight simulators can be streamed efficiently. The GPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores — the RX 6900 XT at 53489 and the Radeon Pro W6600M at 53414 — are all within 0.4% of the RTX 4080 SUPER's score, but in this game, the NVIDIA card's performance at 4K Ultra suggests it is well-matched to the title's demands.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of 1795 tested combinations, this pairing ranks 131st overall for Microsoft Flight Simulator. That places it in the top 7.3% of all combos tested, which is a strong showing. The Ryzen 7 5700G's 83rd percentile CPU ranking and the RTX 4080 SUPER's 88th percentile GPU ranking combine to produce a system that is clearly above average, but the CPU is the weaker link in this pairing. The rank of 131 among 1795 combos indicates that many other configurations — likely those with newer or higher-core-count CPUs paired with similar or better GPUs — outperform this setup, particularly at lower resolutions where CPU overhead matters most.

The data shows that the combo's ranking is driven by the GPU's strength at 4K, where it can still deliver 69.9 FPS at Ultra. However, at 1080p Low, the 175.9 FPS result is only 12.6% higher than 1440p Low, which is a telltale sign that the CPU is holding the system back from reaching the 200+ FPS territory that would be expected from a top-tier GPU alone. The 5700G's nearest CPU rivals, such as the Intel Xeon D-2752TER (25532 average score, 0.4% behind) and the Intel Core 5 210H (25490, 0.5% behind), are all within a narrow band, meaning that swapping the CPU for a slightly faster part would not dramatically change this combo's standing — but a more significant CPU upgrade would.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The data shows 1440p High offers 98.4 FPS, which is a good balance of visual quality and smoothness. At 1080p Ultra, the system hits 115.5 FPS, but the CPU limits the scaling above that.

Q: Is the RTX 4080 SUPER bottlenecked by the Ryzen 7 5700G?

A: Yes, at lower settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 175.9 FPS, but going to 1440p Low only drops to 163.7 FPS — a small reduction that indicates the CPU, not the GPU, is the limiting factor.

Q: How does this combo perform at 4K Ultra?

A: It delivers 69.9 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is playable. The 16 GB VRAM and 736.3 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game's high-resolution textures.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between High and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 1440p High, the system runs at 98.4 FPS, while at 1440p Ultra it drops to 92.3 FPS — a 6.2% reduction for the Ultra preset.

Q: Does the CPU's 16 MB L3 cache affect performance?

A: The 16 MB L3 cache is moderate, and the benchmark data suggests the CPU's single-thread performance (2930 in Cinebench R23 single-core) is adequate but not exceptional, contributing to the bottleneck at lower resolutions.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: It ranks 131st out of 1795 combos, placing it in the top 7.3% of tested systems for this game.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution. At 1080p, the High preset (124.6 FPS) offers a better experience than Ultra (115.5 FPS) because the visual difference is small but the frame rate gain is 7.9%. At 1440p, High (98.4 FPS) is again preferable over Ultra (92.3 FPS), as the 6.6% performance gain outweighs the marginal visual upgrade. At 4K, the Ultra preset (69.9 FPS) is essentially tied with High (69 FPS), so there is no reason to drop to High — the extra visual fidelity comes at no measurable cost.

The Medium preset provides a significant frame rate boost at all resolutions: 160 FPS at 1080p, 130 FPS at 1440p, and 94.5 FPS at 4K. For users prioritizing smoothness over fidelity, Medium at 4K offers 35.2% more FPS than Ultra. The Low preset, while reaching 175.9 FPS at 1080p, sacrifices too much visual quality for a flight simulator where terrain detail and cockpit readability matter. The data indicates that High is the sweet spot for this combo, with Ultra being viable at 4K due to the GPU's headroom.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the system delivers 123.5 FPS on Low, 94.5 FPS on Medium, 69 FPS on High, and 69.9 FPS on Ultra. The Low-to-Ultra range spans 53.6 FPS, with the largest drop occurring between Low and Medium (23.5% reduction). At 2560x1440, the results are 163.7 FPS on Low, 130 FPS on Medium, 98.4 FPS on High, and 92.3 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Ultra is 43.6%, showing a more linear scaling than at 4K. At 1920x1080, the system hits 175.9 FPS on Low, 160 FPS on Medium, 124.6 FPS on High, and 115.5 FPS on Ultra. The 1080p Low result is the highest recorded FPS in the dataset, but the gap between Low and Medium is only 9.0%, indicating that the CPU is already limiting even at Medium settings. Across all resolutions, the Ultra preset never exceeds 115.5 FPS, which is a direct consequence of the Ryzen 7 5700G's processing ceiling in this simulation-heavy title.