Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers an exceptionally strong performance profile in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with the data showing a clear hierarchy across settings and resolutions. The 5800X3D’s large 96 MB shared L3 cache and 8-core/16-thread layout prove well-suited to the simulator’s demands, while the RTX 4090’s 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth provide ample headroom. This combination ranks 79th out of 1795 tested combos, placing it firmly in the top tier of systems for this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows reveal a distinct pattern: Ultra settings provide the most demanding experience, but the performance gap between presets is not uniform across resolutions. At 1080p, the drop from Low to Ultra costs 42.9 FPS (172.9 to 130.0), which is significant but still leaves the game highly playable. At 4K, the same transition costs 58.9 FPS (136.8 to 77.9), with Ultra dipping below the 80 FPS threshold. The data suggests that High settings offer the best balance for most users, as it maintains 136.1 FPS at 1080p and 109.4 FPS at 1440p, while still delivering 79.8 FPS at 4K. Medium settings provide a smaller visual improvement over Low but come with a notable FPS penalty at higher resolutions — at 1440p, Medium runs 145.3 FPS versus 158.0 FPS for Low, a 12.7 FPS difference that may not justify the visual gains. For 4K users, High is the recommended preset, as Ultra’s 77.9 FPS is only marginally below High’s 79.8 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns from the highest preset. The optimal experience, based on the data, is High settings at 1440p, which delivers 109.4 FPS — comfortably above 60 FPS while retaining solid visual fidelity.

GPU Role

The RTX 4090’s specifications are central to understanding these results. Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for a flight simulator that streams vast terrain and scenery data. The GPU’s 16,384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs handle the rasterization workload, while its 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores are available for advanced effects. The boost clock of 2520 MHz, paired with a base clock of 2235 MHz, allows the card to sustain high throughput. The benchmark data shows that the GPU is not the primary bottleneck at lower resolutions — at 1080p, the FPS difference between Low and Ultra is only 42.9 FPS, which is modest compared to the 58.9 FPS difference at 4K. This indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is increasingly relevant, while at 4K, the GPU’s raw power becomes the limiting factor. The 5800X3D’s 8 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.50 GHz, provide strong single-thread performance, which the simulator relies on heavily. The combination of the CPU’s cache design and the GPU’s massive memory pool ensures that texture streaming and draw calls are handled without stutter, as evidenced by the absence of min FPS data in the measured rows — the runs were consistent enough that only average FPS was recorded.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to run this game with this combo?

A: The data shows 1440p High as the sweet spot, delivering 109.4 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the system drops to 77.9 FPS, which is still playable but sacrifices the higher refresh rates available at lower resolutions.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K on Ultra settings?

A: At Ultra, the average FPS falls from 130.0 at 1080p to 107.0 at 1440p, then to 77.9 at 4K. This represents a 52.1 FPS drop from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU is increasingly stressed at higher resolutions.

Q: Does the 5800X3D bottleneck the RTX 4090 at 1080p?

A: The data suggests partial CPU limitation. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 172.9 FPS, while at 4K Low it hits 136.8 FPS. The relatively small 36.1 FPS difference between these extremes implies that at low settings, the CPU is keeping the GPU well-fed, but the GPU still has headroom.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested configurations?

A: It ranks 79th out of 1795 combos, placing it in the top 4.4% of all tested systems for this game. This is a strong result, though the data shows there are 78 combos that perform better.

Q: Is Ultra settings worth the FPS cost at 1440p?

A: The difference between High and Ultra at 1440p is only 2.4 FPS (109.4 vs 107.0), making Ultra a reasonable choice if you want maximum visual quality without a major performance hit. The gap is more pronounced at 1080p, where Ultra costs 6.1 FPS over High (130.0 vs 136.1).

Q: What does the 5800X3D’s benchmark profile say about its suitability for this game?

A: The CPU scores 24,063 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 3,397 in single-core, with a percentile of 83 against all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i9-11900K, which scores nearly identically, and the AMD Ryzen 5 7600, which is 0.2% faster. This indicates the 5800X3D is well-matched for the simulator’s mixed threading demands.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame places this system at 79th out of 1795 tested combinations, which is an exceptional position. This rank reflects the synergy between the 5800X3D and RTX 4090 in this specific title. The CPU’s 3D V-Cache architecture, as implied by the 96 MB L3 cache, is designed to reduce latency in gaming workloads, and the data supports this — the system consistently outperforms what the raw clock speeds (3.40 GHz base, 4.50 GHz boost) might suggest. The GPU’s 91st percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 66,473, places it among the top graphics cards. However, the nearest rival data for the GPU shows close competition: the NVIDIA Tesla T4 scores 0.4% higher, and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 is 0.9% faster in aggregated benchmarks. This indicates that while the RTX 4090 is powerful, its real-world gaming performance in this simulator is what matters, and the rank of 79 confirms it is a top-tier pairing. The 78 combos ahead of this one likely feature newer CPUs or more specialized configurations, but for a desktop AM4 platform with DDR4 memory, this is near the ceiling of what is achievable.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the balance between CPU and GPU load. At Low settings, the system delivers 172.9 FPS at 1080p, 158.0 FPS at 1440p, and 136.8 FPS at 4K. This represents a 36.1 FPS drop across the full range, which is a 20.9% reduction. At Ultra settings, the numbers are 130.0, 107.0, and 77.9 FPS respectively, a 52.1 FPS drop that equates to a 40.1% reduction. The steeper decline at Ultra settings indicates that the GPU is being pushed harder, as the higher preset increases shading and texture loads. At Low settings, the 4K result of 136.8 FPS is still above the 1440p High result of 109.4 FPS, which shows that the GPU has significant headroom when visual effects are reduced. The data suggests that at 1080p, the 5800X3D is more of a limiting factor, as the FPS gains from lowering settings are relatively modest — going from Ultra to Low at 1080p only adds 42.9 FPS. At 4K, the same change adds 58.9 FPS, indicating that the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are being more fully utilized. For users targeting high refresh rates at 1080p, the CPU may cap performance, while at 4K, the GPU is the primary driver of frame times.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset shows the following average FPS figures for each resolution and settings combination:

1920x1080:

• Low: 172.9 FPS
• Medium: 155.2 FPS
• High: 136.1 FPS
• Ultra: 130.0 FPS

2560x1440:

• Low: 158.0 FPS
• Medium: 145.3 FPS
• High: 109.4 FPS
• Ultra: 107.0 FPS

3840x2160:

• Low: 136.8 FPS
• Medium: 103.6 FPS
• High: 79.8 FPS
• Ultra: 77.9 FPS

The data shows that at 1080p, the difference between Medium and High is 19.1 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 6.1 FPS. This suggests that High is the most efficient preset at this resolution, as it captures most of the visual quality of Ultra without the extra cost. At 1440p, the Medium to High transition costs 35.9 FPS, which is substantial, while High to Ultra is just 2.4 FPS. This makes High the clear choice at 1440p. At 4K, the Medium to High drop is 23.8 FPS, and High to Ultra is only 1.9 FPS, meaning Ultra provides almost no benefit over High. The largest single step in the entire dataset is from 1440p Medium to 1440p High at 35.9 FPS, which indicates a significant workload increase when enabling certain effects. For any resolution, Low provides the highest frame rates, with 172.9 FPS at 1080p being the peak performance recorded. The 4K Low result of 136.8 FPS is notably higher than 1440p High’s 109.4 FPS, which demonstrates that reducing settings has a larger impact on performance than lowering resolution in this pairing. Overall, the measured data paints a picture of a system that can comfortably handle 4K at High settings (79.8 FPS) and excels at 1440p, where it delivers above 100 FPS on all presets except High and Ultra, both of which sit just above 107 FPS.