Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER pairing delivers a playable experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, but the data shows that settings management is critical. At 1080p, the Ultra preset yields an average of 53.9 FPS, which is smooth but leaves little headroom for complex scenery. The High preset at 57 FPS is nearly identical in performance, offering a negligible gain of 3.1 FPS over Ultra. The Medium preset jumps to 80.8 FPS, a substantial 26.9 FPS improvement over Ultra, providing a much safer margin for the frame drops common in this simulator. The Low preset pushes the average to 98 FPS, which is excellent for framerate stability but comes at a severe visual cost. For the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, the Medium preset is the clear recommendation. At 1440p, the pattern holds: Medium delivers 65.9 FPS, which is 22.4 FPS higher than Ultra’s 43.5 FPS and 17.6 FPS higher than High’s 48.3 FPS. At 4K, no preset achieves a locked 60 FPS; Medium is the highest playable option at 47.2 FPS, while Ultra drops to 34.4 FPS. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for this combo, providing a consistent experience across all resolutions without the volatility of the higher presets.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, operating on the AM4 socket. Its base clock is 3.00 GHz with a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, and it features a substantial 96 MB of shared L3 cache. This large cache is a defining characteristic for this chip, as flight simulators are notoriously sensitive to memory latency and cache size. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a 3DMark max-threads score of 6755 and a single-thread score of 804, indicating a strong balance between multi-threaded throughput and single-core agility. Its PassMark multithread score is 26318, with a single-thread score of 2970. The processor's overall average benchmark score is 24673, placing it in the 82nd percentile of all CPUs. This high percentile is reflected in its nearest rivals: the Intel Core i7-1360P scores 24627, a delta of 0.2%, and the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D scores 24605, a delta of 0.3%. The gaming performance of this CPU is further highlighted by its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 22366, which is strong for a gaming-focused chip. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the data shows that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at lower resolutions. The jump from 1080p Low (98 FPS) to 1080p Medium (80.8 FPS) is a 17.2 FPS drop, which is significant but expected. However, the more telling sign is that the CPU's robust 8-core configuration and large cache allow the GPU to be the limiting factor when settings are increased, as indicated by the relatively small performance differences between High and Ultra presets at 1080p.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is a Turing-architecture GPU with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. It operates at a base clock of 1470 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The card features 2176 shading units, 136 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, along with 34 RT cores and 272 tensor cores. Its raw compute performance is rated at 7.181 TFLOPS for FP32. In synthetic tests, the GPU scores 16462 in PassMark G3D and 2011 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. Its average benchmark score is 19774, placing it in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs. The nearest rivals are close: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN scores 19706 (a 0.3% delta), the RTX 2070 scores 19680 (a 0.5% delta), and the Quadro K5200 scores 19623 (a 0.8% delta). In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the 8 GB VRAM is a crucial factor. The data shows that the GPU is heavily stressed at higher settings and resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Medium (80.8 FPS) and High (57 FPS) is a massive 23.8 FPS drop, indicating that the GPU is hitting a performance wall. This is further evidenced at 1440p, where the drop from Medium (65.9 FPS) to High (48.3 FPS) is 17.6 FPS. The GPU’s 63rd percentile ranking suggests it is a mid-range performer, and the data confirms that it struggles to maintain high framerates when the visual workload increases, making it the primary bottleneck in this combo for this specific title.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ranks at 1304 out of 1795 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the combo in the lower third of all configurations tested, which is a direct reflection of the GPU’s relative weakness compared to the CPU. The CPU is a high-end gaming processor, scoring in the 82nd percentile, but the GPU is a mid-range card at the 63rd percentile. This mismatch means the system is often GPU-limited. The benchmark results support this: at 1080p Ultra, the combo achieves 53.9 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it drops to 34.4 FPS. These numbers are not poor, but they highlight that the GPU is the limiting factor. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the performance drop from 1080p to 4K would be less severe. Instead, the scaling shows a clear GPU-bound scenario. The rank of 1304/1795 suggests that many other combinations of CPUs and GPUs deliver higher average FPS in this game. This is not a reflection of the CPU’s capabilities, but rather a signal that the RTX 2060 SUPER, while competent, is outmatched by the demands of the simulator at higher settings, and its 8 GB VRAM may be insufficient for maximum texture quality at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound profile for this combination. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 80.8 at 1080p to 65.9 at 1440p and then to 47.2 at 4K. This represents a 14.9 FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 18.7 FPS drop from 1440p to 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is 41.6%, indicating that the GPU is being progressively more stressed as pixel count increases. The pattern is similar on the High preset: 57 FPS at 1080p, 48.3 FPS at 1440p, and 35.9 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset shows an even steeper decline, falling from 53.9 FPS at 1080p to 43.5 FPS at 1440p and 34.4 FPS at 4K. The Low preset is the only one that remains highly playable at 4K, with an average of 56.5 FPS, but this comes with significant visual compromises. The data strongly suggests that the RTX 2060 SUPER is the limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate would remain relatively constant across resolutions, as the CPU workload does not change significantly with resolution. The fact that FPS drops consistently with each resolution increase is definitive proof that the GPU’s rendering capabilities and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints. For a smoother 4K experience, the data indicates that a more powerful GPU would be necessary, as the current combo can only manage 4K playable framerates on the Low preset.