Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 delivers a strictly entry-level experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with benchmark results consistently favoring the Low preset across all tested resolutions. The data shows that this combination is heavily constrained by the graphics card, making Low the only setting that approaches a playable frame rate, while higher presets quickly drop below acceptable thresholds.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data indicates that the Low preset is the only viable option for this hardware combination in Microsoft Flight Simulator. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 48 FPS, which is the highest score recorded for this combo at any resolution or settings level. This represents a substantial improvement over the next-best option, Medium at the same resolution, which produces an average of 38 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 10 FPS, or roughly 26%, making the performance cost of moving up one preset tier substantial.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset drops to an average of 39 FPS, which remains technically playable but begins to show the strain of the higher resolution. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 30 FPS, with a minimum of 26 FPS and a maximum of 35 FPS, indicating that frame pacing becomes inconsistent. The High preset at 1440p falls to 23 FPS, and Ultra drops further to 22 FPS, both of which are below the threshold for comfortable gameplay in a flight simulator where smooth camera panning is essential.

The 3840x2160 results confirm that this combo is not suited for 4K gaming regardless of settings. Even the Low preset at 4K only manages an average of 29 FPS, while Medium averages 22 FPS with a minimum of 19 FPS, High averages 17 FPS, and Ultra averages just 16 FPS. These numbers are uniformly below playable levels, and the data shows no reason to select anything other than Low at 4K if this resolution must be used.

The recommendation is clear: use the Low preset at 1920x1080 for the best balance of performance and visual fidelity. The 48 FPS average at this setting provides the smoothest experience available from this combo. Users who prioritize visual quality over frame rate might consider Medium at 1080p, which delivers 38 FPS, but the 10 FPS sacrifice is significant in a genre where smoothness directly impacts the sense of flight. Higher presets at any resolution do not provide a playable experience, and the data strongly suggests that users should accept Low settings as the practical ceiling for this hardware.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the primary bottleneck in this configuration, and its specifications explain the performance ceiling observed in the measured data. The GPU features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. The base clock is 1168 MHz with a boost clock of 1244 MHz, and the memory operates at 1750 MHz, or 7 Gbps effective. The card has 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units, with a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s. Its FP32 performance is 5.095 TFLOPS.

These specifications place the RX 570 in the mid-range segment of its era, but Microsoft Flight Simulator is a demanding title that stresses both memory capacity and raw compute. The 4 GB VRAM is likely a limiting factor, as the game's high-resolution textures and complex scenery can exceed this capacity at higher settings. The benchmark data supports this interpretation: the gap between Low and Medium presets is larger than the gap between Medium and High, suggesting that the memory subsystem is being saturated as settings increase.

The GPU's percentile ranking versus all GPUs is 74, indicating that it performs better than 74% of the tested graphics cards in the database. Its average benchmark score is 28766, which places it in close competition with several notable rivals. The nearest rival is the AMD Radeon RX 6800M, which scores 28874, a delta of -0.4% relative to the RX 570. The AMD Radeon R9 M295X scores 28580, a delta of 0.7%, and the AMD Radeon RX 470 scores 28996, a delta of -0.8%. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 scores 28421, a delta of 1.2%. These narrow margins indicate that the RX 570 sits in a tightly contested performance band, but none of these comparisons change the fundamental conclusion that this GPU is underpowered for Microsoft Flight Simulator at high settings.

The GPU's architecture is GCN 4.0 on a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries, with 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die. This older architecture lacks modern features that could improve efficiency in a simulation-heavy workload. The card supports DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.3, which means it can run the game's API requirements, but the raw performance is insufficient for the game's demands at higher presets.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, with the limiting component being the GPU. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 48 at 1920x1080 to 39 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 9 FPS or approximately 19%. Moving from 1440p to 3840x2160, the Low preset average falls from 39 to 29 FPS, another 10 FPS drop or roughly 26%. The total scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is a 19 FPS reduction, representing a 40% loss in average frame rate.

The Medium preset shows a similar trajectory. At 1080p, the average is 38 FPS with a minimum of 32 FPS and a maximum of 43 FPS. At 1440p, the average drops to 30 FPS with a minimum of 26 FPS and a maximum of 35 FPS. At 4K, the average falls to 22 FPS with a minimum of 19 FPS and a maximum of 26 FPS. This represents a 16 FPS reduction from 1080p to 4K, or a 42% loss in average performance.

The High preset follows the same pattern, with averages of 28 FPS at 1080p, 23 FPS at 1440p, and 17 FPS at 4K. The reduction from 1080p to 4K is 11 FPS, or 39%. The Ultra preset shows averages of 27 FPS at 1080p, 22 FPS at 1440p, and 16 FPS at 4K, a reduction of 11 FPS or 41%.

The consistency of these percentage drops across presets is telling. The roughly 40% performance loss when moving from 1080p to 4K is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering resolution directly dictates the workload. The CPU's role is secondary here; if the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain more stable across resolutions. The data indicates that the RX 570 is saturated at all resolutions, and the frame rate scales almost linearly with the number of pixels rendered.

This scaling behavior has a practical implication: users should not expect to salvage playable performance by increasing resolution while lowering settings. The Low preset at 4K produces 29 FPS, which is not meaningfully better than the High preset at 1080p at 28 FPS, despite the massive difference in visual quality. The GPU simply does not have the headroom to handle higher resolutions, regardless of the settings chosen.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for this combo in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The Low preset at 1920x1080 provides the highest average FPS at 48, making it the only setting that delivers a consistently playable experience. Medium at 1080p offers 38 FPS, but the 10 FPS reduction is significant for smooth flight simulation.

Q: Can this hardware run Microsoft Flight Simulator at 4K?

A: No, the data shows that even the Low preset at 3840x2160 only averages 29 FPS, with Medium at 22 FPS, High at 17 FPS, and Ultra at 16 FPS. All 4K results are below playable thresholds.

Q: How does the RX 570 compare to its nearest rivals in overall benchmark scores?

A: The RX 570 has an average benchmark score of 28766. The AMD Radeon RX 6800M scores 28874, a delta of -0.4%, the AMD Radeon R9 M295X scores 28580, a delta of 0.7%, and the AMD Radeon RX 470 scores 28996, a delta of -0.8%. These are all within a 1.2% margin.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is the clear limiting factor. The FPS drops by approximately 40% when moving from 1080p to 4K across all presets, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound workload. The CPU is not constraining performance at the tested settings.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded is 19 FPS, which occurs at the Medium preset at 3840x2160. The Medium preset at 2560x1440 has a minimum of 26 FPS, and at 1920x1080 the minimum is 32 FPS.

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

A: The combo ranks 2870 out of 2996 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 4% of all tested hardware configurations for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F with AMD Radeon RX 570 combination ranks 2870 out of 2996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the bottom percentile of all hardware configurations in the database. This ranking reflects the severe performance limitations observed in the measured FPS data, where the combo fails to reach 30 FPS at any resolution above 1080p with the High or Ultra presets.

The ranking position of 2870 out of 2996 means that only 126 tested combinations perform worse than this setup. This puts the combo in the bottom 4.2% of all tested hardware, a position that underscores the fundamental mismatch between the modern CPU and the aging GPU. The Ryzen 7 9700F is a capable processor, but it is paired with a graphics card that was released in 2017 and is now end-of-life in production status.

The data suggests that this ranking is driven almost entirely by the GPU's performance. The RX 570's percentile versus all GPUs is 74, which means it outperforms 74% of GPUs in the database, but this relative strength does not translate to Microsoft Flight Simulator's specific demands. The game's heavy reliance on detailed scenery rendering and complex weather systems places a premium on GPU compute and memory bandwidth, both of which are limited in the RX 570.

For context, the CPU alone is a strong performer. The Ryzen 7 9700F has a percentile versus all CPUs of 94, and its average benchmark score is 69996. This places it in close competition with several high-end processors. The nearest rival is the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX with an average score of 69875, a delta of 0.2%. The Intel Core i7-14700KF scores 70163, a delta of -0.2%, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X scores 69515, a delta of 0.7%, and the Intel Core i7-14700K scores 69355, a delta of 0.9%. These margins are all within 1%, indicating that the CPU is well within the performance envelope of top-tier processors.

The stark contrast between the CPU's top-tier ranking and the combo's bottom-tier ranking in-game highlights the GPU bottleneck. Users with this combo would see significant performance improvements by upgrading the graphics card while keeping the CPU, as the processor is clearly not the limiting factor in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a high-performance processor that is significantly underutilized in this configuration due to the GPU bottleneck. The CPU features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. It is built on the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Granite Ridge, using a 4 nm process from TSMC. The processor has 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die, with a TDP of 65 W.

The cache hierarchy consists of 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus, with a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. It uses the AMD Socket AM5 and supports PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes. The processor has a launch MSRP of $289 and is an active production part.

The CPU's benchmark scores are strong across the board. The Passmark single-thread score is 4691, the multithread score is 36470, and the integer math score is 120788. The floating-point math score is 77955, the data compression score is 421988, and the data encryption score is 21488. The extended instructions score is 33688, and the find prime numbers score is 183. The physics score is 2122, and the random string sorting score is 45890. The average benchmark score is 69996.

These scores indicate that the CPU is more than capable of handling the simulation and physics calculations required by Microsoft Flight Simulator. The single-thread performance of 4691 is particularly relevant, as flight simulators often rely heavily on single-threaded performance for flight model calculations and AI processing. The multithread score of 36470 ensures that the CPU can handle multiple background tasks without impacting the main simulation loop.

However, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU's performance is not being fully leveraged. The consistent ~40% FPS drop from 1080p to 4K across all presets indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, not the CPU. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain relatively constant across resolutions, as the CPU workload does not scale with pixel count. The data shows the opposite, confirming that the RX 570 is the constraint.

The CPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores are all high-end processors, including the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, Intel Core i7-14700KF, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, and Intel Core i7-14700K. The fact that the 9700F is within 1% of these processors in average benchmark score demonstrates that it is not the weak link in this combo. Users experiencing poor performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator should look to the GPU as the primary upgrade path, as the CPU has ample headroom for more demanding graphics hardware.