Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator: AMD Ryzen 7 7700 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 in Microsoft Flight Simulator produces a compelling dataset that reveals how this flight simulator scales across resolutions and settings. The measured frames per second (FPS) values show a system that is consistently capable across the board, but the scaling behavior between 1080p and 4K provides clear insights into which component is doing the heavy lifting at each configuration. This analysis walks through the resolution scaling, CPU and GPU roles, the combo's rank among tested systems, and a detailed breakdown of the measured FPS values, followed by practical guidance based on the data.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 shows a predictable decline, but the magnitude of the drop reveals the underlying workload distribution. At Low settings, the average FPS starts at 211 at 1080p, drops to 170 at 1440p, and falls further to 125 at 4K. That represents a 40.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, which is a substantial hit but still leaves the system well above playable thresholds.

At Medium settings, the averages go from 164 at 1080p, to 132 at 1440p, and down to 97 at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K here is 40.9%, nearly identical to the Low preset. This consistency suggests that the scaling penalty is relatively uniform across these settings, pointing to a balanced workload where both CPU and GPU contribute to the FPS equation. The minimum FPS values at Medium also follow a similar pattern, with 139 at 1080p, 112 at 1440p, and 83 at 4K, maintaining a roughly 30% reduction at each step.

High settings show a slightly steeper curve, with 123 FPS at 1080p, 99 at 1440p, and 73 at 4K, a 40.7% drop from the lowest to highest resolution. Ultra settings follow with 117 FPS at 1080p, 95 at 1440p, and 70 at 4K, equating to a 40.2% decrease. These percentages are all tightly clustered around the 40% mark, which is a significant finding. It indicates that the RTX 4080's GPU resources are being taxed similarly across all presets, and the resolution scaling is not being disproportionately affected by any single setting category.

The fact that the drop from 1080p to 4K is consistent across all presets suggests that the limiting component shifts depending on the setting level. At Low settings, the CPU plays a larger role relative to the GPU, but the RTX 4080 still has enough headroom to push 125 FPS at 4K. At Ultra, the GPU becomes more heavily utilized, yet the system still maintains 70 FPS at 4K, indicating that the RTX 4080's 16 GB of VRAM and its boost clock of 2505 MHz are sufficient for the game's highest demands at this resolution. The data shows that this combo is not bottlenecked by a single component across the resolution range, but rather delivers a smooth scaling curve that keeps FPS reductions proportional to pixel count increases.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 is an 8-core, 16-thread processor from the 7000 series, built on the Zen 4 architecture with a 5 nm process. Its base clock is 3.80 GHz with a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, and it features a 32 MB shared L3 cache along with 1 MB L2 per core. The CPU's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 18760 and a single-core score of 1930. Its 3DMark 16-thread score is 8484, while the single-thread score is 1049, indicating that the processor handles both lightly and heavily threaded workloads effectively.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is particularly important because the simulator is known for its complex flight dynamics and world rendering logic, which often rely on a few heavily loaded threads. The Ryzen 7 7700's single-thread performance, as indicated by the passmark single-thread score of 4063, provides a solid foundation for these workloads. The percentileVsAllCpus value of 87 places this CPU in the upper tier of processors, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 with a deltaPct of 0.1%, meaning the 7700 is essentially on par with that chip. The Intel Core 5 221E is 0.2% behind, and the AMD Ryzen 9 270 is 0.4% behind, showing that the 7700 sits in a tightly contested performance band.

The CPU's contribution to the measured FPS is most evident at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 211 FPS, which is well above what the RTX 4080 would deliver if it were the sole limiting factor. This suggests that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to keep it busy even at high frame rates. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes the more dominant factor, but the CPU's consistency across presets—with only a 40% FPS drop from 1080p to 4K at all settings—indicates that it does not create a bottleneck at any resolution. The 65 W TDP of the 7700 also suggests that thermal throttling is unlikely to be an issue, allowing the boost clock of 5.30 GHz to be sustained during long flight sessions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is a high-end graphics card from the GeForce 40-series, based on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process. It features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2205 MHz and a boost clock of 2505 MHz, with 9728 shading units and 76 RT cores. Its FP32 performance is 48.74 TFLOPS, and it has a pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s with a texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s.

The RTX 4080's percentileVsAllGpus is 86, and its nearest rival is the RTX 4080 SUPER with a deltaPct of 0.1%, indicating that the two cards are virtually identical in average benchmark scores. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is 1.1% behind, while the Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 2.6% behind, and the Radeon 8060S is 2.7% behind. This places the RTX 4080 at the top of its immediate performance tier, with only marginal differences from the SUPER variant.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. The 16 GB of VRAM is likely a key factor in maintaining consistent FPS at 4K Ultra, where the game's high-resolution textures and detailed scenery can be demanding on memory. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra is 70, which is only 5 FPS lower than the High preset at the same resolution, suggesting that the GPU has enough headroom to handle the additional load of Ultra settings without a dramatic FPS hit. The memory bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s supports this, ensuring that data can be fed to the 9728 shading units efficiently.

The boost clock of 2505 MHz is also relevant, as higher clock speeds translate to better performance in GPU-bound scenarios. At 1080p Low, the RTX 4080 is not the limiting factor, as the system reaches 211 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU is clearly the primary driver of performance. The consistent scaling across all presets indicates that the RTX 4080 is not being overwhelmed at any point, and the 40% FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is a reasonable outcome for a card of this tier.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 215th out of 3714 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the top 5.8% of all tested configurations, which is a strong result given the game's demanding nature. The rank reflects the overall FPS performance across all measured resolutions and settings, and it indicates that this combo outperforms the vast majority of systems in the benchmark database.

To contextualize this rank, consider that the CPU and GPU individually rank in the 87th and 86th percentiles among their respective categories. The combo's rank of 215 out of 3714 is slightly better than what the individual percentiles might suggest, implying that the pairing works well together in this specific game. The Ryzen 7 7700's strong single-thread performance complements the RTX 4080's high-end GPU capabilities, and the result is a system that delivers high FPS across all settings and resolutions.

The ranking also indicates that there are 214 combos that perform better, which likely include configurations with higher-end CPUs like the Ryzen 9 series or Intel Core i9 parts, paired with GPUs such as the RTX 4090. However, for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU, this combo's rank is impressive. The data shows that the combo is not held back by any single component, and the consistent FPS scaling across resolutions suggests that it can handle the game's varied demands without significant dips in performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 3840x2160, the system delivers an average of 125 FPS on Low settings, 97 FPS on Medium, 73 FPS on High, and 70 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset also includes minimum and maximum FPS values of 83 and 112, respectively, which shows that the frame pacing is relatively stable, with a 29 FPS range between minimum and maximum.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 170 FPS on Low, 132 FPS on Medium, 99 FPS on High, and 95 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at this resolution has a minimum of 112 FPS and a maximum of 152 FPS, with a 40 FPS range that indicates slightly more variation than at 4K. This could be due to the higher frame rates allowing for more noticeable fluctuations, but the minimum of 112 FPS is still well above the threshold for smooth gameplay.

At 1920x1080, the system achieves 211 FPS on Low, 164 FPS on Medium, 123 FPS on High, and 117 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset has a minimum of 139 FPS and a maximum of 188 FPS, with a 49 FPS range. This is the largest variation in the dataset, which is expected at higher frame rates where the CPU and GPU are both operating at high utilization and frame times can vary more significantly.

Looking at the settings progression at each resolution, the FPS drop from Low to Ultra is consistent. At 4K, the drop from 125 to 70 FPS represents a 44% reduction; at 1440p, the drop from 170 to 95 FPS is a 44.1% reduction; and at 1080p, the drop from 211 to 117 FPS is a 44.5% reduction. This consistency across resolutions suggests that the performance cost of moving from Low to Ultra is uniform, regardless of the pixel count.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 70 FPS, with no minimum or maximum values provided in the dataset.

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

A: The combination ranks 215th out of 3714 tested combos, placing it in the top 5.8% of all systems tested in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded across all settings and resolutions?

A: The highest average FPS is 211, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The lowest average FPS is 70, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

Q: What are the minimum and maximum FPS values for Medium settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the minimum FPS is 112 and the maximum FPS is 152, with an average of 132 FPS.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 7700 compare to its nearest CPU rival?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 has a deltaPct of 0.1% compared to the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365, meaning the two processors are essentially tied in average benchmark scores, with the 7700 being 0.1% faster.

Q: Is the RTX 4080 significantly better than its closest GPU rival?

A: The RTX 4080 is 0.1% better than the RTX 4080 SUPER in average benchmark score, which is a negligible difference, indicating that the two cards perform nearly identically.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the best experience per the recorded rows depends on the user's priority between visual fidelity and frame rate. For users with 4K displays, the High preset offers a good balance, delivering 73 FPS on average, which is only 3 FPS lower than Ultra but with a reduction in graphical complexity that may improve frame pacing. The Ultra preset at 4K delivers 70 FPS, which is still playable, but the marginal gain in visuals over High may not justify the FPS drop for all users.

At 1440p, the High preset provides 99 FPS, which is a solid target for high-refresh-rate monitors. The Ultra preset at 95 FPS is also viable, and the difference between the two is only 4 FPS, so users with capable displays can opt for Ultra without significant performance loss. The Medium preset at 132 FPS is ideal for users who prioritize frame rate over visuals, as it offers a substantial FPS boost while still maintaining a reasonable level of detail.

At 1080p, all presets are playable, with even Ultra delivering 117 FPS. The Low preset reaches 211 FPS, which is suitable for competitive play or for users with very high refresh rate monitors. The Medium preset at 164 FPS offers a good middle ground, while High at 123 FPS provides a more visually rich experience. For most users at 1080p, the High preset is recommended, as it balances the 123 FPS average with the better visual quality that the game is known for.

Given that the data shows only a 40% FPS drop from 1080p to 4K across all settings, users can confidently choose their preferred resolution based on their display capabilities. The system's performance is consistently strong, and the recommendation is to use High settings as the default for a balanced experience, with Ultra available for those who prioritize visual fidelity and Low for those who prioritize maximum frame rates.