Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 delivers a strictly entry-level experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with the measured data placing this combination near the bottom of the database. Across all tested resolutions and settings, the average frame rates range from a low of 16.1 FPS to a high of 52.4 FPS, indicating that this combo is best suited for lower graphical presets and modest display resolutions. The data shows a clear pattern: the CPU is not the limiting factor; instead, the GPU's age and performance ceiling dictate the results.

FAQ

Q: What is the best performance this combo achieves in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 52.4 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K resolution?

A: The data shows it struggles significantly. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 33.6 FPS on Low settings down to 16.1 FPS on High settings.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested combinations?

A: It ranks 1674 out of 1795 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 7% of all configurations in the database for this game.

Q: What is the difference in performance between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the average frame rate drops from 52.4 FPS on Low settings to 29.9 FPS on Ultra settings, a reduction of 22.5 FPS.

Q: Which component is more likely to bottleneck the system in this game?

A: The GPU. The RX 580's performance is the primary constraint, as even with a powerful 8-core CPU, the frame rates remain low at higher resolutions and settings.

Q: Is the CPU's performance a concern for this game?

A: No. The Ryzen 7 5800X's benchmark scores are solid, with a multi-threaded score of 23571 in Cinebench R23, suggesting it has ample processing power for the simulation's logic.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is a high-end desktop processor built on the Zen 3 architecture, featuring 8 cores and 16 threads. Its base clock is 3.80 GHz and it can boost up to 4.70 GHz, which is supported by a 32 MB L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU demonstrates strong single-threaded performance, scoring 3327 in Cinebench R23 single-core, which is crucial for a simulation like Microsoft Flight Simulator that relies heavily on main-thread performance for flight physics and AI calculations.

The benchmark results indicate that the CPU is more than capable of handling the game's processing demands. Its average benchmark score of 27606 places it in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, and it sits just 0.3% above the AMD Ryzen 7 5800 and 0.4% below the Intel Core i7-13700H. However, the measured frame rates in the game do not reflect this strength. The data suggests that the CPU's role in this specific combo is to feed frames to the GPU, but the GPU is unable to keep up, making the processor a secondary factor in the final performance outcome.

How This Combo Ranks

The performance of this combination is positioned at the very low end of the spectrum for Microsoft Flight Simulator. With a rank of 1674 out of 1795 tested combos, it outperforms only 121 other configurations. This places it in the bottom 6.7% of all tested systems, indicating that users will have to make significant compromises on visual fidelity and resolution to achieve playable frame rates.

This rank is a direct result of the GPU's limitations rather than the CPU's. The Ryzen 7 5800X is a high-performing processor, but the RX 580's age and modest compute capabilities hold the system back. The data shows a clear bottleneck; the CPU is ready to deliver high frame rates, but the GPU cannot process the frames quickly enough, particularly at higher resolutions. The gap between this combo and more balanced systems is substantial, making it a poor match for a demanding title like Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable scaling pattern tied to both resolution and graphical settings. At 1920x1080, the game is most playable, but still requires lower settings. The average frame rate starts at 52.4 FPS on Low settings, drops to 40.9 FPS on Medium, 32.5 FPS on High, and falls to 29.9 FPS on Ultra. This shows a 22.5 FPS difference between the lowest and highest presets at 1080p, a significant hit to smoothness.

Moving up to 2560x1440, the performance degrades further. The average FPS at this resolution is 42.9 on Low, 31.1 on Medium, 24.8 on High, and 25.6 on Ultra. The difference between High and Ultra is negligible here, suggesting that the GPU is already saturated and the extra load from Ultra settings does not proportionally reduce performance. At 3840x2160, the results are mostly unplayable. The average frame rates are 33.6 FPS on Low, 22.7 FPS on Medium, 18.9 FPS on Ultra, and a very low 16.1 FPS on High. The data indicates that 4K gaming is only possible at the lowest preset, and even then, the frame rate is below the 60 FPS target. The overall trend is a sharp decline in performance as resolution increases, with the GPU being the clear limiting factor at every step.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is a legacy graphics card based on the Polaris 20 chip and GCN 4.0 architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process. It features 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s. Its boost clock is 1340 MHz, and it has a peak FP32 performance of 6.175 TFLOPS. In the GPU benchmark hierarchy, it scores 13559 on average, placing it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs. This puts it in direct competition with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570, which is only 0% faster, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950, which is 0.1% slower.

The data shows that the RX 580 is the primary bottleneck in this system for Microsoft Flight Simulator. The game is graphically demanding, and the GPU's compute power is insufficient for high frame rates at modern resolutions. The measured FPS at 3840x2160, even on Low settings, is only 33.6 FPS, which is a clear indicator that the card cannot handle the pixel load. The performance difference between this GPU and more modern alternatives is stark, and its end-of-life production status further underscores its limitations. The 8 GB of VRAM is not the issue; rather, the raw shading and texture throughput capabilities of the Polaris 20 chip are the deciding factor in the low frame rates observed.