Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator with AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

This analysis examines the measured performance of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 in Microsoft Flight Simulator, a flight simulation title released in 2020. The data presents a clear picture of how this combination behaves across three resolutions and four quality settings, revealing a system where the CPU and GPU roles shift dramatically depending on the workload. The combo ranks 69th out of 1,795 tested combinations, placing it in the top 4% of all tested systems for this specific title, a strong result that warrants a detailed breakdown of where its strengths and limitations lie.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that is heavily CPU-limited at lower resolutions, with the GPU taking over as the primary constraint only at 4K. At 1080p with Low settings, the combination produces 170.2 FPS, while the same settings at 1440p yield 159 FPS—a modest drop of 11.2 FPS that suggests the CPU is still the limiting factor. Moving to 4K Low, the average falls to 138 FPS, a further 21 FPS decline that indicates the GPU is beginning to assert its influence. The pattern is consistent across all settings: the gap between 1080p and 1440p is consistently smaller than the gap between 1440p and 4K.

For Ultra settings, the scaling is even more telling. At 1080p Ultra, the system achieves 133.6 FPS, and at 1440p Ultra it drops to 108.5 FPS—a 25.1 FPS reduction. The jump to 4K Ultra brings the average down to 75.7 FPS, a 32.8 FPS drop from 1440p. This increasingly steep decline at higher resolutions and settings confirms that the RTX 5090's massive compute resources are being progressively engaged, while the Ryzen 7 5800X3D remains the bottleneck at 1080p. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system loses only 32.2 FPS going from Low to Ultra, whereas at 4K the same settings change costs 62.3 FPS—nearly double the impact, underscoring how resolution and settings interact to shift the limiting component.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination ranks 69th out of 1,795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the 96th percentile of all configurations tested. This is a strong result for a CPU that was released in 2022 and a GPU that launched in early 2025, but it is not a top-tier ranking. The data indicates that while this pairing is highly capable, there are 68 other combinations that deliver higher average FPS in this specific title. Given that the RTX 5090 sits in the 94th percentile of all GPUs and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D sits in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs, the combined ranking of 69th suggests the CPU is holding back the GPU's full potential in this game.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D's nearest rivals in CPU benchmarks provide context for its performance ceiling. It scores within 0.1% of the AMD EPYC 8024P and Intel Core i9-11900K, and within 0.2% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600, with an average benchmark score of 26,574. These close margins indicate that the 5800X3D is firmly in the middle of the pack for modern processors, despite its 3D V-Cache advantage. For the GPU, the RTX 5090's nearest rival is the RTX 5090 D with a delta of just 0.1%, while the RTX 5050 Mobile sits 0.2% behind, showing that the desktop 5090 is at the top of its class. The fact that this combo still only manages 69th place suggests that Microsoft Flight Simulator rewards combinations with even stronger CPU performance, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU bottleneck is most pronounced.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 brings formidable specifications to this pairing: 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock runs at 2407 MHz with a base clock of 2017 MHz, and the card houses 21,760 shading units alongside 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores. The GPU's FP32 compute reaches 104.8 TFLOPS, and its pixel rate is 423.6 GPixel/s with a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s. In benchmark terms, the RTX 5090 achieves an average score of 84,306 and sits in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, with its nearest rival being the RTX 5090 D at a 0.1% delta.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's role becomes clearly visible in the 4K results. At 4K Ultra, the system produces 75.7 FPS, while 4K High yields 79.5 FPS—a narrow 3.8 FPS gap that suggests the game is hitting a performance ceiling that the GPU alone cannot overcome. The 32 GB VRAM capacity is far beyond what this title requires at any resolution, meaning memory capacity is never a constraint. The bandwidth and compute power of the RTX 5090 are the relevant factors, and the data shows that even this massive GPU cannot fully compensate for the CPU's limitations at lower resolutions. The 4K Low result of 138 FPS demonstrates that when the CPU is given enough breathing room, the GPU can deliver high frame rates, but the 4K Ultra result of 75.7 FPS shows that the game's engine, and likely its CPU dependency, caps performance well below what the GPU could theoretically deliver.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and setting combination for this system in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The data shows that 1440p High delivers 114.9 FPS, which balances visual quality with a frame rate well above 60 FPS. For maximum quality, 4K Ultra produces 75.7 FPS, which remains playable but represents a significant drop from lower settings.

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

A: The system delivers 133.6 FPS at 1080p Ultra and 75.7 FPS at 4K Ultra, representing a loss of 57.9 FPS, or roughly 43% of the 1080p performance. This is the largest resolution penalty observed across all settings.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 fully utilized in this pairing?

A: At 1080p and 1440p, the CPU appears to be the limiting factor, as evidenced by the relatively small FPS differences between resolutions. At 4K, the GPU becomes more engaged, but the 75.7 FPS at Ultra suggests the game's engine still limits the GPU's full potential.

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

A: The combination ranks 69th out of 1,795 tested combos, placing it in the top 4% of all systems tested for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This is a strong result, though not the top-tier performance seen in the highest-ranked configurations.

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

A: At 1080p, the system produces 170.2 FPS on Low settings and 133.6 FPS on Ultra, a difference of 36.6 FPS. This gap is consistent with a CPU-limited scenario where settings changes have a moderate impact.

Q: Does the CPU's 3D V-Cache provide a measurable benefit in this game?

A: The Ryzen 7 5800X3D's 96 MB of shared L3 cache is a distinctive feature, and the 1080p results (170.2 FPS at Low) indicate strong CPU performance. However, the ranking of 69th suggests that other CPUs in the benchmark database achieve higher scores, implying the cache alone does not put this combo at the very top.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces its highest frame rates. Low settings yield 170.2 FPS, Medium settings deliver 156.3 FPS, High settings reach 141 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 133.6 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra costs 36.6 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium at 13.9 FPS. The system maintains frame rates well above 120 FPS at all settings, indicating that the CPU is the primary constraint at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a clear step down. Low settings deliver 159 FPS, Medium settings produce 146.8 FPS, High settings reach 114.9 FPS, and Ultra settings yield 108.5 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to just 6.4 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High widens to 31.9 FPS, suggesting a setting-dependent performance cliff. At 1440p, the system still exceeds 100 FPS at every setting, but the Ultra result of 108.5 FPS is noticeably lower than the 1080p Ultra figure.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the dominant factor. Low settings produce 138 FPS, Medium settings deliver 110.9 FPS, High settings reach 79.5 FPS, and Ultra settings yield 75.7 FPS. The drop from Medium to High is substantial at 31.4 FPS, while the High to Ultra transition costs only 3.8 FPS. This pattern indicates that the game's High and Ultra settings impose similar GPU workloads at 4K, and the RTX 5090's performance is the limiting factor in this range. The 4K Low result of 138 FPS shows that when settings are reduced, the CPU still allows for high frame rates, but the GPU cannot maintain that pace at higher quality levels.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Vermeer, manufactured on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It operates with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.50 GHz, with a TDP of 105 W. The CPU features 96 MB of shared L3 cache, a distinctive configuration that provides a large pool of fast memory for game data. Its memory support is DDR4 with dual-channel access, delivering 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth. In synthetic benchmarks, the 5800X3D achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 24,063 and a single-core score of 3,397, along with a Geekbench multicore score of 11,061 and single-core score of 2,116.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p, where the frame rates are consistently high across all settings. The fact that 1080p Low (170.2 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (133.6 FPS) differ by only 36.6 FPS indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU efficiently, but the game's engine likely limits performance based on simulation complexity rather than pure rendering throughput. The 5800X3D's 83rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 26,574, places it close to rivals like the Intel Core i9-11900K (26,546, 0.1% delta) and AMD Ryzen 5 7600 (26,617, -0.2% delta). These tight margins suggest that the 5800X3D is competitive but not class-leading, and the 69th combo ranking in this game likely reflects the CPU's position relative to newer processors with higher single-thread performance. The 4K results, where frame rates drop to 75.7 FPS at Ultra, show that the CPU is not the sole bottleneck at higher resolutions, but its influence remains visible in the fact that Low settings at 4K still reach 138 FPS, a figure that many other CPUs might not achieve in this simulation-heavy title.