Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT and AMD Radeon RX 570 pairing delivers a highly constrained experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The benchmark data places this combination in the 1714th position out of 1795 tested combos, indicating that it lands in the bottom percentile of system configurations for this title. This is a pairing where the graphics card, an end-of-life Polaris 20 part, consistently acts as the primary bottleneck across every tested resolution and settings level.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution increases, which is a classic indicator of a GPU-limited scenario. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 45.9 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops the average to 38.2 FPS, a reduction of approximately 17%. The scaling continues at 3840x2160, where the average falls to 27.3 FPS, representing a further 29% decline from the 1440p figure. This progressive degradation with pixel count is the signature of a component that is saturated by the rendering workload.

The trend becomes more pronounced at higher graphical presets. At High settings, the system manages 26.2 FPS at 1080p, 23.3 FPS at 1440p, and only 16.2 FPS at 4K. The delta between 1080p and 4K at High settings is a 38% loss in frame rate. This narrowing of the performance gap at higher settings, where the 1080p result is already low, suggests that the RX 570's 4 GB of GDDR5 memory and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the texture and shader demands of the simulator, even before resolution scaling takes effect.

The data shows that the limiting component is unequivocally the GPU. The CPU, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, is not the constraining factor here. If the processor were the bottleneck, we would expect to see minimal FPS variation between Low and Ultra settings at a fixed resolution. Instead, the results show a strong sensitivity to settings. At 1080p, the spread between Low (45.9 FPS) and Ultra (25.9 FPS) is 20 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU's processing capacity is being taxed more heavily as the visual fidelity increases.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT is a modern 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Vermeer. Its benchmark scores are robust, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 23794 and a single-core score of 3359. This places the CPU in the 86th percentile of all processors, making it a highly capable part for simulation workloads. The processor's 32 MB of L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s of dual-channel DDR4 memory bandwidth provide ample headroom for the game's complex flight modeling and world-streaming logic.

However, in this specific configuration, the CPU's potential is largely untapped. The nearest rivals to the 5800XT, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS and AMD Ryzen 7 7840H, have average benchmark scores that are within 0.3% of this chip, confirming its position in the upper echelon of desktop processors. The data indicates that while the CPU is ready to feed frames, the RX 570 cannot keep up with the render requests. The processor's high single-thread performance, evidenced by the 3dmark_single_thread score of 959, is critical for flight simulators, but it cannot compensate for a graphics card that is bottlenecking the pipeline.

The 5800XT's 3dmark_16_threads score of 7683 and max threads score of 7680 show excellent scaling, but this parallel processing power is irrelevant when the GPU is the limiting factor. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the frame rate is dictated by the slowest component in the chain. Here, the RX 570's FP32 performance of 5.095 TFLOPS and pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s are the hard limits. The CPU is effectively waiting on the GPU for the majority of each frame, meaning its role is to ensure that the simulation logic and draw calls are prepared without adding latency, a task it performs admirably.

FAQ

Q: Is this combination playable at 1920x1080?

A: At Low settings, the system achieves 45.9 FPS, which is playable. However, at Medium, High, and Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 40.6, 26.2, and 25.9, respectively, indicating a significant loss of smoothness at higher visual fidelity.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: The measured data shows a 13.7 FPS difference. At Low settings, the average is 38.2 FPS, while at Ultra, it falls to 24.5 FPS. This demonstrates that the GPU is heavily impacted by the increased shader and texture complexity.

Q: How does the 4K performance compare to 1080p at High settings?

A: The average frame rate drops from 26.2 FPS at 1920x1080 to 16.2 FPS at 3840x2160. This is a 38% reduction in performance, showing that the RX 570 is not suitable for 4K gaming in this title.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this configuration?

A: The data strongly indicates the GPU is the bottleneck. The RX 570's average benchmark score of 30158 places it in the 74th percentile of all GPUs, but its performance in this game is insufficient. The 5800XT's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23794 shows the CPU has ample processing power that is being underutilized.

Q: What is the best settings preset for this combo at 2560x1440?

A: The only preset that yields an average above 30 FPS is Low, with 38.2 FPS. Medium and High settings produce 29.9 and 23.3 FPS, respectively, which will result in noticeable stutter and a less fluid experience.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: This pairing is ranked 1714 out of 1795 tested combos. This places it in the bottom 5% of all system configurations tested for Microsoft Flight Simulator, confirming that it is a low-performance pairing for this specific workload.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1714 out of 1795 is a stark indicator of this system's position. It places the 5800XT and RX 570 pairing in the bottom tier of all tested combinations, suggesting that most other systems, even those with older or less balanced parts, provide a better experience in this game. The data shows that the GPU's age and memory limitations severely hamper the overall potential of the system.

This low rank is somewhat paradoxical given the individual components' benchmark standings. The CPU's percentile of 86 and the GPU's percentile of 74 are respectable on their own. However, the combination in this specific game reveals a severe imbalance. The RX 570's nearest rivals, such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, have average benchmark scores within 0.2% of the RX 570, yet they are likely to be paired with more modern memory subsystems and drivers, which can affect real-world game performance. The rank suggests that the 4 GB VRAM buffer is a critical weakness for a simulator that streams large amounts of terrain and aircraft data.

The practical implication of this rank is that users should not expect a smooth experience at any resolution above 1080p with medium-to-high settings. The system is only viable at the lowest settings for 1440p and 4K. The data indicates that to improve the rank, a GPU upgrade would be necessary, as the CPU has significant headroom to support a more powerful graphics card without becoming a new bottleneck.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following table summarizes the measured average FPS across all tested resolutions and settings:

1920x1080

• Low: 45.9 FPS
• Medium: 40.6 FPS
• High: 26.2 FPS
• Ultra: 25.9 FPS

2560x1440

• Low: 38.2 FPS
• Medium: 29.9 FPS
• High: 23.3 FPS
• Ultra: 24.5 FPS

3840x2160

• Low: 27.3 FPS
• Medium: 24.9 FPS
• High: 16.2 FPS
• Ultra: 17.7 FPS

The data reveals that the only configuration that approaches a playable 60 FPS target is 1080p with Low settings, and even then, it falls short. The 45.9 FPS result at 1080p Low is the highest score in the entire dataset. As the resolution increases, the system struggles to maintain even 30 FPS. At 4K, the best case is 27.3 FPS at Low settings, which is a sub-30 FPS experience that will be marred by significant frame pacing issues.

The performance pattern is consistent across all settings. The delta between Low and Medium is generally smaller than the delta between Medium and High, suggesting that the GPU hits a hard wall when certain shader effects or texture qualities are enabled. For instance, at 1440p, the drop from Low (38.2 FPS) to Medium (29.9 FPS) is 8.3 FPS, but the drop from Medium to High (23.3 FPS) is 6.6 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is negligible, sometimes even showing a slight regression, as seen at 4K where High (16.2 FPS) actually performs worse than Ultra (17.7 FPS), likely due to driver overhead or specific rendering paths. The conclusion is clear: this hardware configuration is only suitable for the lowest fidelity settings at 1080p, and any attempt to raise the quality or resolution will result in a heavily compromised frame rate.