Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the most demanding titles in the benchmark database, and the pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 produces a fascinating dataset that highlights the delicate balance between CPU and GPU load. The measured results show a configuration that is clearly capable of smooth flight at high settings, yet the scaling patterns reveal a system that shifts its bottleneck dramatically depending on the resolution and preset chosen. The data indicates a solid, mid-range combo that ranks in the 56th percentile of all tested combinations, with performance that is heavily dictated by the graphical settings menu.

Resolution Scaling

The performance trajectory from 1080p to 4K in Microsoft Flight Simulator is a textbook example of how resolution dictates the limiting component. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 119 FPS, but this number plummets to 70.8 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a substantial 40% drop in frame rate. This steep decline suggests that at lower resolutions, the frame rate is less constrained by the GPU, allowing the CPU to push higher numbers, but the moment pixel count increases, the RTX 4060 becomes the primary bottleneck.

Moving to High settings tells a similar story, with the 1080p average of 68.4 FPS falling to 55.1 FPS at 1440p and further down to 43.6 FPS at 4K. The delta between 1080p and 4K here is roughly 36%, which is less severe than the Low preset but still indicates significant GPU pressure. The most telling data point comes from the Ultra preset, where the frame rate at 1080p (66.7 FPS) is nearly identical to the 4K result (37.5 FPS), showing that the gap narrows as the settings become more demanding, but the overall ceiling is capped by the GPU’s capabilities.

The scaling pattern across all resolutions demonstrates that Microsoft Flight Simulator is heavily GPU-bound at 4K, with the RTX 4060’s 8 GB memory buffer and 128-bit bus becoming the clear limiting factor. At 1080p, the system behaves more like a balanced configuration, but the data suggests that even at this lower resolution, the CPU is not fully stretched, as evidenced by the fact that dropping from High to Low settings yields a 74% performance increase (from 68.4 to 119 FPS). This indicates that while the GPU is the primary constraint at higher resolutions, the processor still has headroom to deliver higher frame rates when the graphical load is lightened.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, brings a base clock of 1830 MHz and a boost clock of 2460 MHz to the table, with 3072 shading units and 96 texture mapping units. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, these specifications translate to a performance profile that sits in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, according to the benchmark data. The card’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s, which is a crucial metric for a game that streams vast amounts of terrain and photogrammetry data.

The VRAM capacity appears to be a significant factor in the 4K results, where the Ultra preset averages just 37.5 FPS. At this resolution, the data suggests that the memory buffer is being saturated, causing the GPU to struggle with the high-resolution textures. The card’s 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but the 4K numbers indicate that the silicon is working near its limits. The measured FPS at 4K Low (70.8) versus 4K Ultra (37.5) shows a 47% performance swing, which is consistent with a GPU that is more sensitive to settings changes than to resolution scaling alone.

The RTX 4060’s position relative to its nearest rivals shows a tight grouping, with the AMD Radeon RX 6600M just 0.6% ahead and the Intel Arc B580 trailing by 0.7% in average benchmark scores. This indicates that the 4060 is well-positioned in its performance class, but in this specific game, the data implies that the GPU’s 8 GB memory allocation is the primary constraint at higher resolutions. The card’s pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s are respectable, but they are not sufficient to maintain high frame rates when the game is pushed to 4K with maximum detail settings.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of 1795 tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Ryzen 7 5800XT and RTX 4060 holds a rank of 1012, placing it just past the midpoint of all configurations. This ranking suggests that while the individual components are capable, the combination is not optimized for maximum performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator, likely due to the GPU being the weaker link in the chain. The rank is more indicative of the GPU’s limitations than the CPU’s, as the processor is a high-end offering that falls in the 86th percentile of all CPUs.

The combo’s position in the rankings implies that there are 1011 other combinations that deliver higher average frame rates in this game, many of which likely pair stronger GPUs with similar or lesser CPUs. When looking at the CPU’s nearest rivals, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE is just 0.1% ahead in average benchmark scores, while the Ryzen 7 7840H is 0.3% behind. This tight grouping suggests that the processor is not the differentiating factor in this combo’s ranking; rather, it is the RTX 4060’s performance ceiling that holds the configuration back.

The data shows that this combo is better suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can achieve respectable frame rates, but it falls short of the top-tier configurations that dominate the higher ranks. The rank of 1012 out of 1795 indicates that the system is capable of delivering a playable experience in most scenarios, but users seeking maximum fidelity at 4K will find the combo struggling, as evidenced by the sub-45 FPS averages at that resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best performance, with the Low preset hitting an average of 119 FPS, which is the highest recorded frame rate across all settings and resolutions. The Medium preset at this resolution averages 95.6 FPS, making it a smooth experience for most players, while High drops to 68.4 FPS and Ultra to 66.7 FPS, showing a relatively small gap between the two highest presets. This suggests that the game’s Ultra settings at 1080p are still within the GPU’s comfortable range, though the performance dip from Medium to High is substantial at 28%.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales down predictably, with Low averaging 94.3 FPS, Medium at 75.2 FPS, High at 55.1 FPS, and Ultra at 53.5 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to just 3%, indicating that the Ultra preset adds little visual benefit for the performance cost at this resolution. The 1440p results show a 21% drop from 1080p at Low settings, but a 20% drop at Ultra, demonstrating that the resolution scaling is consistent regardless of the preset chosen.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, with Low averaging 70.8 FPS, Medium at 52.5 FPS, High at 43.6 FPS, and Ultra at 37.5 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium is a 26% performance reduction, while the drop from High to Ultra is 14%, indicating that the GPU is struggling to maintain playable frame rates at this resolution. The 4K results show that even the Low preset barely achieves 60 FPS, which is a critical threshold for smooth gameplay, and the Ultra preset falls well below that mark, making it unsuitable for serious flight simulation at this resolution.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT, with its 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, provides a strong foundation for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is known to be sensitive to single-threaded performance. The CPU’s base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 4.80 GHz, combined with 32 MB of L3 cache, deliver a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3359 and a multicore score of 23794. These numbers place the processor in the 86th percentile of all CPUs, indicating that it is more than capable of handling the game’s simulation and physics calculations.

In this game’s context, the CPU’s role is most evident at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the bottleneck. The 1080p Low preset achieving 119 FPS suggests that the CPU can drive high frame rates, but the data shows that this is not a CPU-limited scenario, as the frame rate still scales with settings changes. The processor’s 16 threads are more than sufficient for the game’s multithreaded workload, as evidenced by the 3DMark max threads score of 7680, which is nearly identical to the 16-thread score of 7683, indicating that the CPU is fully utilized.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in the benchmark database, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE and the Ryzen 7 7840H, all score within 0.3% of the 5800XT, showing that the processor is well-matched with its peers. However, the overall combo ranking of 1012 suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this configuration; rather, it is the GPU that holds the system back. The data indicates that the Ryzen 7 5800XT has enough headroom to support a more powerful GPU, which would likely result in a significantly better combo ranking in this simulation-heavy title.