Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER reveals a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 98.8 FPS, but stepping up to 1440p drops that to 78.8 FPS, and at 4K it falls further to 55.5 FPS. That represents a 43.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, which is a substantial hit but not catastrophic for a flight simulator.

The scaling behavior changes noticeably when moving to higher quality presets. At High settings, the frame rate goes from 58.4 FPS at 1080p to 45.6 FPS at 1440p, then to 31.9 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K here is 45.4%, slightly steeper than at Low. At Ultra settings, the pattern is similar: 58.4 FPS at 1080p, 42.8 FPS at 1440p, and 35.1 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-4K reduction at Ultra is 39.9%, which is actually the smallest percentage drop among all presets.

This data suggests that at 1080p, the system is not purely GPU-bound. The fact that Low and Ultra both produce 58.4 FPS at 1080p is striking — it indicates that the CPU is the limiting factor at that resolution, because changing the graphics settings has no effect on the average frame rate. The RTX 2060 SUPER has enough headroom at 1080p to keep up with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D's output, regardless of how demanding the visual preset is.

At 1440p and 4K, the GPU becomes the bottleneck. The spread between Low and Ultra widens as resolution increases: at 1440p, the gap between Low (78.8 FPS) and Ultra (42.8 FPS) is 36.0 FPS, while at 4K the same comparison shows a 20.4 FPS gap. This growing separation confirms that the RTX 2060 SUPER's rendering throughput is what determines frame rates at higher resolutions, while the CPU's 3D V-Cache and high boost clocks keep the simulation logic fed without becoming the primary constraint.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Raphael, built on a 5 nm process. Its base clock is 4.20 GHz with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, and it carries 96 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor's benchmark scores place it in the 87th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 31580.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is primarily tied to simulation logic, physics, and draw-call preparation. The 7800X3D's strong multi-threaded performance is evident in its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 29149, while its single-core score of 4115 reflects the high boost clock. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 7980 and 2-thread score of 1887 show that the CPU scales well with thread count, which matters for a simulator that can use multiple cores for weather, terrain, and aircraft systems.

The nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the Intel Core i7-12700F with an average score of 31543 (0.1% behind), the AMD Ryzen 9 5980HX at 31495 (0.3% behind), and the AMD Ryzen 7 8700G at 31407 (0.6% behind). These margins are tiny, meaning the 7800X3D is effectively at parity with those chips in raw compute. However, the 96 MB L3 cache is a distinctive feature that can benefit simulation workloads with large working sets, even if that advantage is not directly captured in the average benchmark score.

At 1080p, the CPU's influence is clear from the measured FPS: all four presets — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra — produce exactly 58.4 FPS at 1080p for High and Ultra, with Medium at 79.2 FPS and Low at 98.8 FPS. The fact that High and Ultra are identical suggests that beyond a certain settings threshold, the CPU is fully saturated and the GPU has spare capacity. The 7800X3D's 8 cores and 16 threads are enough to drive the simulator, but the frame cap appears to be set by the CPU's ability to feed the render thread, not by the GPU at 1080p.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is a Turing-architecture GPU built on a 12 nm process, with 2176 shading units, 136 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock is 1470 MHz with a boost of 1650 MHz, and the card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

The GPU's benchmark scores put it in the 63rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average score of 19774. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN (19706, 0.3% behind), the RTX 2070 (19680, 0.5% behind), and the Quadro K5200 (19623, 0.8% behind). The RTX 2060 SUPER is thus positioned slightly above the RTX 2070 in these synthetic tests, despite having fewer CUDA cores — the clock speeds and memory bandwidth help close the gap.

In flight simulation, the GPU handles terrain rendering, lighting, clouds, and other visual effects. The 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at most settings, but at 4K Ultra, the card's 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 performance becomes the bottleneck. The measured 4K Ultra average of 35.1 FPS is playable but not smooth, and the 4K High result of 31.9 FPS is even lower — interestingly, Ultra outperforms High at 4K by 3.2 FPS, which could be due to different rendering paths or asset loading behavior in the simulator.

The GPU's pixel rate of 105.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 224.4 GTexel/s are adequate for mid-range 1440p gaming, but the data shows that this card is not designed for 4K in a demanding title like Microsoft Flight Simulator. At 1440p Ultra, the 42.8 FPS average indicates the GPU is working hard, and at 1080p, the GPU has significant headroom, as evidenced by the identical frame rates at High and Ultra.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are: Low at 98.8, Medium at 79.2, High at 58.4, and Ultra at 58.4. The jump from Low to Medium is a 19.6 FPS drop, while Medium to High costs another 20.8 FPS. The High-to-Ultra transition is free, producing no change in average frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low at 78.8, Medium at 63.2, High at 45.6, and Ultra at 42.8. The drop from Low to Medium is 15.6 FPS, Medium to High is 17.6 FPS, and High to Ultra is only 2.8 FPS. This narrowing gap at the top end suggests that Ultra at 1440p is not much more demanding than High for this particular combo.

At 3840x2160, the numbers are: Low at 55.5, Medium at 46.2, High at 31.9, and Ultra at 35.1. The Low-to-Medium drop is 9.3 FPS, Medium to High is 14.3 FPS, and High to Ultra actually shows an increase of 3.2 FPS. This anomaly at 4K — where Ultra is faster than High — is worth noting, as it may indicate that the Ultra preset triggers different asset streaming or LOD behavior that reduces CPU overhead.

Across all resolutions, the Low preset always delivers the highest frame rates, and the gap between Low and Ultra widens from 40.4 FPS at 1080p to 20.4 FPS at 4K. This trend confirms that at 1080p the CPU is the ceiling, while at 4K the GPU is the limiting factor.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 1348 out of 1795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the 75th percentile of all tested combinations, meaning roughly one-quarter of all combos perform better, and three-quarters perform worse.

The rank is influenced by both the CPU's strong synthetic standing (87th percentile among CPUs) and the GPU's more modest position (63rd percentile among GPUs). The CPU is clearly the stronger component in this pairing, but the GPU's mid-range classification holds the combo back from a higher rank. In a simulator that scales with both CPU and GPU, the RTX 2060 SUPER's 8 GB VRAM and 7.181 TFLOPS are adequate for 1080p and playable 1440p, but they cannot push the combo into the upper tiers of the benchmark database.

Given that the CPU ranks near the top of the database while the GPU ranks near the middle, the combo's overall rank of 1348 reflects a system where the GPU is the primary limiter in most scenarios. If the goal is to improve the combo's standing, upgrading the GPU would yield a larger rank improvement than changing the CPU, based on the measured data.

Settings Recommendations

For 1080p gaming, the data shows that Medium settings at 79.2 FPS offer the best balance of visual quality and smoothness. Low at 98.8 FPS is smoother but sacrifices visual detail, while High and Ultra both deliver 58.4 FPS — identical performance, so players should choose Ultra if they want maximum visuals without a frame rate penalty. The 20.8 FPS drop from Medium to High is significant, so Medium is recommended for players who value frame rate stability.

For 1440p, Medium at 63.2 FPS is the recommended preset, as it provides a playable frame rate while maintaining reasonable visual fidelity. Low at 78.8 FPS is an option for competitive or smoothness-focused players, but High at 45.6 FPS and Ultra at 42.8 FPS are below the 60 FPS threshold and may feel less responsive. The difference between High and Ultra at 1440p is only 2.8 FPS, so Ultra is preferable if the player can tolerate the lower frame rate.

For 4K, the data suggests that Low at 55.5 FPS is the only preset that approaches smoothness, while Medium at 46.2 FPS and Ultra at 35.1 FPS are playable but not ideal. High at 31.9 FPS is the worst performer, and since Ultra is actually faster than High by 3.2 FPS, players should skip High entirely and choose Ultra if they want better visuals at 4K. For the best experience at 4K, Low or Medium is recommended, with the understanding that the GPU is the limiting factor at this resolution.