Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers a commanding performance profile in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with the data showing that this combination ranks 59th out of 1795 tested combos, placing it in the top percentile of systems. The benchmark results reveal a component pairing where the GPU provides immense headroom at lower resolutions, while the CPU maintains a steady floor that prevents bottlenecks even at the highest visual intensities, making this a versatile setup for one of the most demanding simulation titles available.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows across all three resolutions show a clear and consistent hierarchy: the Low preset always delivers the highest average frame rate, followed by Medium, then High, with Ultra trailing closely behind High. At 1080p, the spread from Low to Ultra is 185.1 down to 132.8 FPS, a difference of roughly 52 frames, while at 1440p the range narrows to 168 down to 106.8 FPS, and at 4K it compresses further to 135.4 down to 74.7 FPS. This pattern indicates that the Ultra preset, while visually demanding, is not disproportionately punishing relative to High, as the gap between those two settings remains modest across all resolutions.

For the best experience per the measured data, the High preset at 1440p stands out as the optimal balance, delivering 109.8 FPS while presumably retaining the visual fidelity that flight simulation enthusiasts expect. At 4K, the High preset at 78.8 FPS is playable, but users seeking a smoother experience may prefer Medium at 106.7 FPS, which offers a substantial 28-frame improvement over High while still maintaining a solid visual baseline. The Low preset, while hitting 168 FPS at 1440p and 185.1 FPS at 1080p, sacrifices too much detail for a simulator where terrain and cockpit readability are critical, so it is only recommended for competitive or testing scenarios.

GPU Role

The RTX 4090 brings a formidable specification sheet to this title, with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s 16,384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs are supported by 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores, all running at a boost clock of 2520 MHz. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the data shows that this hardware is rarely the limiting factor until 4K resolution, where the Ultra preset at 74.7 FPS and High at 78.8 FPS suggest the GPU is being pushed closer to its capacity.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reinforce its dominance, with a Passmark G3D score of 38,194 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 317,684, placing it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs. The 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power translates directly to the ability to render the dense geometry and complex lighting of flight simulation environments. At 1080p and 1440p, the RTX 4090 clearly outpaces the CPU’s ability to feed it data, as evidenced by the relatively small FPS gains when moving from High to Low settings, which indicates the GPU is waiting on the processor rather than being fully utilized.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a textbook example of resolution scaling with a high-end GPU. At the Ultra preset, performance drops from 132.8 FPS at 1080p to 106.8 FPS at 1440p, a 26-frame reduction, and then to 74.7 FPS at 4K, another 32-frame drop. This pattern shows that the RTX 4090 loses roughly 44% of its Ultra performance when moving from 1080p to 4K, which is a substantial but expected decline given the fourfold increase in pixel count.

The Low preset tells a different story, with 185.1 FPS at 1080p dropping to 168 at 1440p and then to 135.4 at 4K. The smaller relative decline at lower settings suggests that at 1080p Low, the system is partially CPU-bound, as the GPU could theoretically render more frames than the 185.1 measured. At 4K, the data shows the GPU becoming the primary limiter across all settings, as the gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 60.7 FPS, compared to a 52.3 FPS gap at 1080p. This indicates that for maximum frame rates, the RTX 4090 has ample headroom at 1080p, but at 4K, even this flagship GPU is working hard to maintain high visual quality.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 59 out of 1795 places this system in the top 3.3% of all tested configurations, a position that reflects the synergy between the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 5800X and the RTX 4090. This ranking is particularly notable because the CPU, while capable, is not the absolute fastest available, yet the combination still outperforms 1,736 other pairings in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The data suggests that the game benefits more from the GPU’s raw compute power than from having the absolute highest-end processor, as the RTX 4090’s massive memory bandwidth and shading throughput dominate the rendering pipeline.

Compared to other combos in the benchmark database, this pairing achieves its rank through consistent performance across all settings and resolutions, rather than excelling only in specific scenarios. The Ryzen 7 5800X’s 84th percentile CPU ranking and the RTX 4090’s 91st percentile GPU ranking combine to create a system that has no obvious weak point, which is essential for a game that can vary wildly in demand depending on whether the camera is looking at dense cityscapes or open ocean.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, built on the Zen 3 architecture with a 7 nm process, provides 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its 32 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth are adequate for feeding the RTX 4090, though the data shows that the CPU does become a limiting factor at lower resolutions. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23,571 and single-core score of 3,327 indicate strong per-thread performance, which is critical for a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator that relies heavily on single-threaded simulation logic.

At 1080p, the FPS differences between settings are relatively compressed, with Low at 185.1 and Ultra at 132.8, suggesting that the CPU is holding the system back from achieving even higher frame rates. The GPU’s benchmark scores suggest it could render more than 200 FPS at 1080p, but the measured data caps out at 185.1, indicating the Ryzen 7 5800X is the bottleneck. At 4K, the CPU load decreases relative to the GPU, and the system scales more predictably, with the CPU’s 16 threads providing enough headroom for the simulation’s physics and AI calculations while the GPU handles the increased pixel workload.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS across the four settings shows a consistent progression: Low at 185.1, Medium at 163.6, High at 138.1, and Ultra at 132.8. The gap between High and Ultra is only 5.3 FPS, making Ultra a reasonable choice for users who want maximum visual quality without a significant frame rate penalty at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the same settings produce 168 FPS at Low, 146.7 at Medium, 109.8 at High, and 106.8 at Ultra. The Medium to High transition here is the largest single-step drop at any resolution, losing 36.9 FPS, which suggests that the High preset introduces a significant increase in rendering complexity. At 1440p, the Ultra preset at 106.8 FPS remains highly playable, and the gap between High and Ultra narrows to just 3 FPS, making High the more efficient choice for users targeting 100+ FPS.

At 3840x2160, the measured data shows 135.4 FPS at Low, 106.7 at Medium, 78.8 at High, and 74.7 at Ultra. The 4K results demonstrate the RTX 4090’s capability to handle this demanding resolution, but the 31.9 FPS difference between Low and High indicates that visual fidelity comes at a measurable cost. The Ultra preset at 74.7 FPS is the lowest measured value in the entire dataset, but it still clears the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Overall, the data paints a picture of a system that excels across the board, with the Ryzen 7 5800X providing a solid foundation and the RTX 4090 delivering exceptional performance even at 4K Ultra settings.