Microsoft Flight Simulator

# FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS for this combo at 1080p Ultra settings?

A: The system delivers an average of 121.9 FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, making it one of the smoother experiences for a flight simulator at high detail.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G scores 25,626 on average, which is 0.3% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (25,706) but 0.4% higher than the Intel Xeon D-2752TER (25,532). The margin is negligible, indicating near-identical multi-threaded performance.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 sits in the 89th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 59,188. Its closest rival, the Intel Arc A570M, scores 58,239, putting the RTX 5080 1.6% ahead.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the average frame rate drops from 129.7 FPS on Low to 74.6 FPS on Ultra. That is a reduction of 55.1 FPS, or roughly 42.5% lower performance when maxing out detail.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 5080 have and what type is it?

A: The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This capacity is well suited for high-resolution textures in a detailed simulator like Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Q: What is the CPU's single-thread benchmark score and how does it affect gaming?

A: The Ryzen 7 5700G scores 899 in the 3DMark single-thread test and 2,930 in Cinebench R23 single-core. These indicate robust single-thread performance, which is critical for flight simulators that often rely on a few heavily loaded threads for physics and AI.

# CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700G is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (Cezanne codename), built on TSMC's 7 nm process with 10,700 million transistors on a 180 mm² die. It operates at a base clock of 3.80 GHz with a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, and it supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel mode with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. The CPU has a 16 MB L3 cache, 512 KB L2 per core, and 64 KB L1 per core, which helps feed the GPU with geometry and simulation data.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a 3DMark 16-thread score of 6,629 and a single-thread score of 899. Cinebench R23 results show 20,755 multi-core and 2,930 single-core. These numbers place the chip in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25,626. Compared to its nearest rivals, the Ryzen 7 5700G is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (delta -0.3%), the Intel Xeon D-2752TER (delta +0.4%), and the Intel Core 5 210H (delta +0.5%). For a flight simulator, single-thread performance is often the limiting factor due to the main game loop's serial nature; the 2,930 Cinebench R23 single-core score indicates strong per-thread capability.

In practice, the CPU's role in Microsoft Flight Simulator is to handle world simulation, aircraft systems, and AI traffic. At 1080p Low settings, the combo reaches 170.4 FPS, which suggests the CPU can feed the GPU well at lower resolutions. However, even at 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 121.9 FPS, implying that at higher settings, the workload shifts toward the GPU, but the CPU still provides enough headroom for playable performance.

# GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU (chip GB203) manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process with 45,600 million transistors. It has 10,752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units, along with 84 ray tracing cores and 336 tensor cores. The GPU runs at a base clock of 2,295 MHz and a boost clock of 2,617 MHz, with memory clocked at 1,875 MHz (30 Gbps effective). It comes with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The card supports PCIe 5.0 x16 and has a TDP of 360 W.

In synthetic tests, the RTX 5080 achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8,637 and a Passmark G3D score of 36,565. It ranks in the 89th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 59,188. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Arc A570M (58,239, delta +1.6%) and the Intel Arc Pro A60 (60,326, delta -1.9%). The GPU's high memory bandwidth and 16 GB capacity are beneficial for streaming large terrain textures and high-resolution cockpit displays in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The GPU's role becomes evident when examining frame rates across settings. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 74.6 FPS, which is playable but not extremely high. At 4K Low, it jumps to 129.7 FPS, indicating that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions and settings. The RTX 5080's 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 879.3 GTexel/s texture rate help maintain smooth rendering in complex scenes, but the simulator's draw calls and geometry processing still require a capable CPU.

# How This Combo Ranks

Among 1,795 tested CPU-GPU combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 5700G and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks 93rd. This places it in the top 5.2% of all tested combos, which is an impressive position given the CPU's older architecture (released in 2021) and mid-range positioning. The CPU's 83rd percentile ranking and the GPU's 89th percentile ranking combine to produce a system that is well above average for this demanding title.

The rank of 93 out of 1,795 suggests that while the RTX 5080 is a high-end GPU, the Ryzen 7 5700G may hold back the system in CPU-bound scenarios, such as dense urban areas or heavy AI traffic. However, the overall rank indicates that the combo still outperforms the vast majority of systems tested. The delta between the CPU and its nearest rivals is minimal (within 0.6%), meaning that swapping the CPU for a similar-tier chip would not significantly alter the ranking. The system's strength lies in the GPU's raw rendering power, which compensates for the CPU's moderate single-thread performance.

# Resolution Scaling

Examining the measured FPS across resolutions reveals clear scaling patterns. At 1080p Low, the system hits 170.4 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low reduces this to 160.9 FPS, a drop of 9.5 FPS (5.6%). At 4K Low, it falls further to 129.7 FPS, which is a 40.7 FPS (23.9%) reduction from 1080p. This indicates that at Low settings, the system is not purely GPU-bound, as the frame rate does not halve when the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is more pronounced. The system achieves 121.9 FPS at 1080p, 101.4 FPS at 1440p, and 74.6 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 47.3 FPS (38.8%), which is closer to the pixel-count scaling, suggesting that at Ultra settings, the GPU becomes the limiting component. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 48.5 FPS (from 170.4 to 121.9), while at 4K it is 55.1 FPS (from 129.7 to 74.6). This indicates that the GPU is more stressed at higher resolutions, and the CPU has less impact on the final frame rate.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed view of performance across three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 170.4 FPS on Low, 162.1 FPS on Medium, 129.6 FPS on High, and 121.9 FPS on Ultra. The difference between Low and Medium is 8.3 FPS, while the drop from Medium to High is 32.5 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 7.7 FPS. This suggests that the High setting introduces a significant rendering load, while Ultra adds a smaller incremental cost.

At 2560x1440, the results are 160.9 FPS on Low, 139.0 FPS on Medium, 105.5 FPS on High, and 101.4 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium is 21.9 FPS, and between Medium and High is 33.5 FPS, while High to Ultra only costs 4.1 FPS. This indicates that at 1440p, the step from Medium to High is the most demanding, while Ultra is relatively close to High.

At 3840x2160, the system produces 129.7 FPS on Low, 100.8 FPS on Medium, 76.2 FPS on High, and 74.6 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Medium is 28.9 FPS, from Medium to High is 24.6 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 1.6 FPS. The minimal difference between High and Ultra at 4K suggests that the GPU is hitting a performance ceiling, and further setting increases yield diminishing returns. Overall, the data shows that the combo is capable of high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p across all settings, while 4K requires either Medium settings for 100+ FPS or Low settings for near-130 FPS.