Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator — AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT + AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT produces a playable but not dominant experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, landing at rank 1167 out of 1795 tested combos. The CPU, an 8-core/16-thread Zen 3 part with a 4.80 GHz boost clock, sits at the 86th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU, a RDNA 2.0 Navi 23 chip with 8 GB GDDR6, ranks at the 72nd percentile among all GPUs. Benchmark results show that this combination delivers 60 fps or better only at 1080p Low and 1440p Low, with higher settings and resolutions pulling frame rates below that threshold.

FAQ

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

A: The highest measured average FPS is 106.6 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At the same resolution, Medium settings yield 79.5 FPS, High settings produce 59.5 FPS, and Ultra drops to 55.7 FPS.

Q: How does this combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 60.3 on Low to 33.6 on Ultra. Medium settings deliver 48.7 FPS, while High settings achieve 35 FPS. None of the 4K results exceed 60 FPS except for the Low preset, which just barely reaches that mark.

Q: What is the most demanding setting for this GPU-CPU pair?

A: The Ultra preset at 3840x2160 is the most demanding, producing an average of 33.6 FPS. This is the lowest frame rate recorded across all tested resolutions and settings combinations.

Q: How much faster is the CPU compared to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 5800XT has an average benchmark score of 29774, placing it 0.1% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE and 0.3% ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360. It trails the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS by 0.3% and the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H by 0.3%.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its closest competitors?

A: The RX 6650 XT scores 29024 on average, matching the AMD Radeon RX 6800M (0% delta). It is 0.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 470, 0.5% behind the Intel Arc A370M, and 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH.

Q: Is this combo ranked in the top half of all tested configurations?

A: No, it ranks 1167 out of 1795 combos, placing it in the lower third of tested configurations for Microsoft Flight Simulator. The CPU percentile (86) is notably higher than the GPU percentile (72), indicating the graphics card is the limiting factor.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock runs at 2055 MHz, with a game clock of 2410 MHz and a boost clock of 2635 MHz. These specifications place the GPU at the 72nd percentile among all GPUs, which is a significant step below the CPU's 86th percentile ranking. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, this gap manifests as the GPU becoming the primary constraint at higher resolutions and quality presets.

The 8 GB frame buffer is a critical factor for this game. At 4K with Ultra settings, the combination produces 33.6 FPS, while dropping to Low settings at the same resolution yields 60.3 FPS — a 26.7 FPS swing driven largely by reduced memory pressure and shading load. The RDNA 2.0 architecture with 2048 shading units and 32 ray accelerators handles the game's terrain rendering and weather effects, but the 128-bit memory bus limits fill-rate-heavy scenes. The GPU's 10.79 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but the data shows a steep falloff at 4K Ultra, where the 33.6 FPS result indicates the card is overwhelmed.

The GPU's nearest rivals illustrate its mid-range positioning: it matches the RX 6800M exactly (0% delta), sits 0.1% ahead of the RX 470, and trails the Arc A370M by 0.5%. These are not large gaps, which means the RX 6650 XT's performance class is consistent with its peers. In this game, the GPU's 72nd percentile ranking versus the CPU's 86th percentile suggests that upgrading the graphics card would yield a larger frame rate improvement than swapping the processor.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5800XT and RX 6650 XT ranks 1167 out of 1795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the configuration in the bottom 35% of all tested pairings, which is a notable underperformance relative to the CPU's individual standing. The 8-core Zen 3 processor with 16 threads and 32 MB L3 cache is a strong performer in synthetic benchmarks — its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23794 and single-core score of 3359 are respectable — but the GPU cannot keep pace in this flight simulator's demanding rendering pipeline.

The rank disparity between CPU and GPU percentiles (86 vs. 72) tells a clear story. When a combo's CPU ranks 14 percentile points higher than its GPU, the graphics card is the bottleneck in most scenarios. This is consistent with the measured FPS data: at 1080p Low, where the CPU has more headroom, the system reaches 106.6 FPS, but at 1440p Ultra it falls to 47.1 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it drops to 33.6 FPS. The GPU's 8 GB memory and 280.3 GB/s bandwidth are simply insufficient for maximum settings at higher resolutions in this title.

Compared to the 1795 total combos tested, being at rank 1167 means there are 628 configurations that perform worse and 1166 that perform better. The CPU's nearest rivals (Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE, Ryzen 7 6800HS, Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360, Ryzen 7 7840H) all post average scores within 0.3% of the 5800XT, so the processor is not the differentiator here. The GPU's nearest rivals (RX 6800M, RX 470, Arc A370M, RX Vega M GH) also cluster within 0.6%, confirming that this tier of hardware produces similar outcomes in aggregate. The rank suggests that for smooth 60 FPS gameplay at High or Ultra presets, this combo requires resolution scaling down to 1080p or 1440p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce 106.6 FPS, Medium yields 79.5 FPS, High achieves 59.5 FPS, and Ultra drops to 55.7 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 20 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 3.8 FPS, indicating diminishing returns at the top end of the quality spectrum. For 60 FPS gameplay at 1080p, High settings just miss the mark, and only Low and Medium comfortably exceed it.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates decline predictably. Low settings produce 82.5 FPS, Medium delivers 68 FPS, High falls to 49.5 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 47.1 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p is the best balance of quality and performance, maintaining a playable 68 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 14.5 FPS, Medium to High is 18.5 FPS, and High to Ultra is only 2.4 FPS — again showing that Ultra offers little benefit over High at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are more constrained. Low settings reach 60.3 FPS, Medium drops to 48.7 FPS, High falls to 35 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 33.6 FPS. The 4K Low result is the only 4K preset that hits 60 FPS, and it does so narrowly. The scaling from 1440p to 4K at the same settings shows significant losses: Low drops from 82.5 to 60.3 FPS (a 22.2 FPS loss), Medium from 68 to 48.7 (19.3 FPS loss), High from 49.5 to 35 (14.5 FPS loss), and Ultra from 47.1 to 33.6 (13.5 FPS loss).

The overall pattern across all settings and resolutions shows that this combo is best suited for 1080p Medium or 1440p Medium, where it maintains 79.5 and 68 FPS respectively. At 4K, the user must accept Low settings to approach 60 FPS. The data indicates that Ultra presets at any resolution above 1080p will not deliver a smooth experience, with 55.7 FPS at 1080p Ultra being the closest to playable.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals which component governs performance. At Low settings, 1080p produces 106.6 FPS and 4K produces 60.3 FPS — a 43.4% reduction. At Medium, the drop is from 79.5 to 48.7 FPS, a 38.7% reduction. High settings fall from 59.5 to 35 FPS, a 41.2% reduction. Ultra drops from 55.7 to 33.6 FPS, a 39.7% reduction. These percentages are relatively consistent across all presets, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario where pixel count directly scales the workload.

The absolute FPS losses tell a similar story. From 1080p to 1440p, Low loses 24.1 FPS, Medium loses 11.5 FPS, High loses 10 FPS, and Ultra loses 8.6 FPS. From 1440p to 4K, Low loses 22.2 FPS, Medium loses 19.3 FPS, High loses 14.5 FPS, and Ultra loses 13.5 FPS. The larger absolute losses at 4K compared to 1440p indicate that the GPU is hitting a bandwidth or fill-rate ceiling as resolution increases. The 280.3 GB/s memory bandwidth and 168.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are the likely constraints.

The CPU's strong single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 959) and 16 threads are not the limiting factor here. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller FPS differences between 1080p and 1440p, since the CPU workload per frame is relatively constant across resolutions. Instead, the consistent 40% reduction from 1080p to 4K across all quality presets points squarely at the GPU. The RX 6650 XT's 8 GB frame buffer is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K the combination of memory capacity and bus width (128-bit) becomes restrictive, particularly with High and Ultra settings that increase texture and geometry detail.

For users targeting 4K, the data suggests that only the Low preset is viable, and even then it barely reaches 60 FPS. Dropping to 1440p Medium provides a comfortable 68 FPS with noticeably better visual quality. The limiting component is unambiguously the GPU, as the CPU's 86th percentile ranking and strong multicore scores (Cinebench R23 multicore of 23794) indicate it has ample headroom to drive higher frame rates if paired with a more powerful graphics card.