Microsoft Flight Simulator

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER delivers a playable but demanding experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The measured data shows that this combination is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K requiring significant compromises in visual quality. This pairing sits in the lower-middle portion of tested combos, and the benchmark results indicate that the RTX 2070 SUPER is the primary bottleneck when pushing higher resolutions, while the 9700F provides ample headroom for the CPU-intensive aspects of this flight simulator.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data across four settings presets reveals a clear pattern: Medium is the sweet spot for this hardware combination. At 1920x1080, Medium produces an average of 86 FPS with a minimum of 73 FPS and a maximum of 99 FPS. This is a substantial improvement over High (65 FPS average) and Ultra (62 FPS average), while still looking noticeably better than Low (111 FPS average). For a flight simulator where smooth camera panning and detailed terrain rendering matter, 86 FPS average with a 73 FPS minimum ensures consistent performance without the visual downgrades of Low settings.

At 2560x1440, the argument for Medium becomes even stronger. The 9700F and RTX 2070 SUPER combo achieves 70 FPS average on Medium, with a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS. This is the only 1440p preset that stays above the 60 FPS threshold for average frame rate. High drops to 52 FPS average, Ultra falls to 50 FPS average, and while Low reaches 89 FPS, the visual quality loss is severe enough that most users would prefer the Medium preset. The 59 FPS minimum on Medium means even demanding scenes with dense cloud coverage or complex airports will remain fluid.

For 3840x2160, the data suggests that users should not expect a consistently smooth experience. Medium at 4K produces 51 FPS average with a minimum of 44 FPS and a maximum of 59 FPS. This is borderline playable but will show stutter in busy areas. High (39 FPS) and Ultra (37 FPS) are below acceptable thresholds for a simulator where precise control inputs matter. Low at 4K reaches 66 FPS average, but the visual compromise is substantial, and the minimum frame time variance could still cause issues. If 4K is mandatory, Medium is the only reasonable choice, but 1440p Medium is the recommended configuration for this hardware.

The measured rows show that the RTX 2070 SUPER has enough memory bandwidth and raw compute to handle Medium settings at all three resolutions, but the gap between Medium and High is larger than typical games due to the simulator's heavy use of texture streaming and dynamic lighting. The 65 FPS at 1080p High versus 86 FPS at Medium represents a 32% performance uplift for one step down in quality, which is a trade-off most users would accept. Similarly, at 1440p, the jump from 52 FPS on High to 70 FPS on Medium is a 35% improvement. The data indicates that this combo is not designed for Ultra presets in Microsoft Flight Simulator; the 62 FPS at 1080p Ultra and 50 FPS at 1440p Ultra confirm that the GPU is overwhelmed by the highest quality settings.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific CPU-GPU combination ranks 1697 out of 2996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the 43rd percentile of all configurations tested. This is a below-average ranking, but the context matters: the RTX 2070 SUPER is an older GPU that was released in 2019, while the Ryzen 7 9700F is a 2025 processor. The data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor in most scenarios, dragging down the overall combo ranking despite the CPU's strong performance.

The combo rank of 1697 out of 2996 means that roughly 57% of tested configurations outperform this pairing in this specific game. This is expected given that the RTX 2070 SUPER's average benchmark score of 20282 places it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, while the Ryzen 7 9700F's average benchmark score of 69996 places it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. The mismatch between a top-tier CPU and a mid-range GPU is evident in the measured FPS data, where the CPU is rarely the bottleneck.

Looking at the nearest rivals for the CPU, the Ryzen 7 9700F's average benchmark score of 69996 is extremely close to the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875, delta 0.2%), the Intel Core i7-14700KF (70163, delta -0.2%), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515, delta 0.7%), and the Intel Core i7-14700K (69355, delta 0.9%). These deltas are all within 1%, indicating that the 9700F's CPU performance is essentially identical to these high-end rivals in synthetic benchmarks. This means that if a user upgraded the GPU in this combo while keeping the 9700F, the performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator would improve dramatically, as the CPU would not hold back a more powerful graphics card.

For the GPU, the RTX 2070 SUPER's average benchmark score of 20282 is slightly below its nearest rivals: the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20480, delta -1%), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534, delta -1.2%), the Intel Arc B570 (20556, delta -1.3%), and the Intel Arc A750 (20582, delta -1.5%). These small deltas suggest that the RTX 2070 SUPER performs similarly to these cards in general benchmarks, but in Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically, the 8 GB VRAM and Turing architecture may be less optimized compared to newer GPUs. The combo rank of 1697 reflects this GPU's age and its inability to keep up with the simulator's high-resolution demands.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the primary determinant of frame rates in this combo. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p Medium settings but becomes strained at 4K. The measured data shows that at 4K Medium, the average FPS drops to 51, and the minimum of 44 FPS indicates that memory bandwidth or capacity limits are causing frame time spikes. The simulator's high-resolution textures and vast terrain data require more than 8 GB of VRAM at higher settings, which explains why High and Ultra presets at 4K fall to 39 and 37 FPS respectively.

The GPU's clock speeds are 1605 MHz base and 1770 MHz boost, which are modest by today's standards but still produce acceptable results at lower resolutions. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs deliver 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 283.2 GTexel/s of texture fill rate. These specifications are adequate for Medium settings across all resolutions, but the data shows that the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck when moving from Medium to High or Ultra. The FPS drop from 1080p Medium (86 FPS) to 1080p High (65 FPS) is 24%, while the drop from Medium to Ultra (62 FPS) is 28%. This performance cliff indicates that the GPU's compute resources are fully utilized at Medium and simply cannot handle the increased shader complexity of higher presets.

The RTX 2070 SUPER's 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present but do not significantly help in Microsoft Flight Simulator, which does not heavily rely on real-time ray tracing in the measured presets. The GPU's 12 nm process node and 13,600 million transistors on a 545 mm² die make it power-hungry (215 W TDP) and less efficient than newer architectures, but the benchmark results show that its raw performance is still competitive with the Intel Arc A750 and RTX 3070 Mobile, which are only 1-1.5% faster in average benchmark scores. In this game, the GPU's age shows primarily at higher resolutions and settings, where the 8 GB VRAM capacity becomes a limiting factor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS data shows a wide range of performance depending on settings. Low settings produce 111 FPS average, which is excellent for a flight simulator and indicates that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at high frame rates. Medium settings drop to 86 FPS average with a minimum of 73 FPS and maximum of 99 FPS, still very smooth. High settings produce 65 FPS average, which is playable but not ideal for fast camera movements. Ultra settings yield 62 FPS average, only slightly lower than High, suggesting that the GPU hits a similar performance wall for both presets. The 86 FPS on Medium is the recommended target for 1080p, as it provides a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down predictably. Low settings give 89 FPS average, which is still high but shows a 20% drop from 1080p Low (111 FPS). Medium settings provide 70 FPS average with a minimum of 59 FPS and maximum of 80 FPS, which is the best balance for 1440p. High settings drop to 52 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 50 FPS average. The 1440p Medium result is 18% lower than 1080p Medium (86 FPS), while 1440p High is 20% lower than 1080p High (65 FPS). This consistent decrease indicates that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are being taxed proportionally as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 2070 SUPER struggles to maintain playable frame rates on higher presets. Low settings produce 66 FPS average, which is surprising given the 4K resolution, but the minimal graphical features allow the GPU to keep up. Medium settings drop to 51 FPS average with a minimum of 44 FPS and maximum of 59 FPS, which is borderline playable but will show stutter in complex scenes. High settings produce 39 FPS average, and Ultra yields 37 FPS average, both of which are too low for a smooth simulator experience. The 4K Medium result is 27% lower than 1440p Medium (70 FPS), and 4K High is 25% lower than 1440p High (52 FPS), showing that the GPU's performance degrades significantly at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals important information about which component is limiting performance. At Medium settings, the average FPS goes from 86 at 1080p to 70 at 1440p (an 18.6% decrease) and then to 51 at 4K (a 27.1% decrease from 1440p). This scaling pattern is not linear; the drop becomes more severe as resolution increases, which is typical of a GPU-bound scenario. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain similar across resolutions, but the data shows a clear downward trend that tracks with pixel count.

At Low settings, the resolution scaling is even more telling. The average FPS goes from 111 at 1080p to 89 at 1440p (a 19.8% decrease) and then to 66 at 4K (a 25.8% decrease from 1440p). Even at Low settings, where the GPU's workload is minimal, the FPS still drops significantly with resolution, suggesting that the RTX 2070 SUPER's memory bandwidth (448.0 GB/s) is a limiting factor. The 4K Low result of 66 FPS is only 23% lower than 1080p Low, but the absolute frame rates are still high enough to indicate that the GPU is not entirely overwhelmed at the lowest settings.

At High and Ultra settings, the resolution scaling shows a similar pattern but with lower absolute values. High settings go from 65 FPS at 1080p to 52 FPS at 1440p (a 20% decrease) and then to 39 FPS at 4K (a 25% decrease). Ultra settings go from 62 FPS at 1080p to 50 FPS at 1440p (a 19.4% decrease) and then to 37 FPS at 4K (a 26% decrease). These consistent percentage drops across all settings indicate that the GPU is the limiting component at all resolutions. The Ryzen 7 9700F, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, is clearly capable of feeding the RTX 2070 SUPER with enough draw calls and physics calculations, as evidenced by the high FPS at 1080p Low (111 FPS), which is far above what the GPU can sustain at higher settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F plays a supporting role in this combo, but it is a very capable one. With 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), running at a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, this CPU is among the fastest in synthetic benchmarks. Its average benchmark score of 69996 places it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515, delta 0.7%) and Intel Core i7-14700K (69355, delta 0.9%), both of which are high-end desktop processors. The 9700F's 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB per-core L2 cache provide fast access to frequently used data, which is crucial for flight simulator's complex terrain and aircraft systems.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU handles tasks such as physics calculations, AI traffic, weather simulation, and draw call processing. The measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this combo. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 111 FPS average, which is a high frame rate that would require a strong CPU to maintain. If the CPU were weak, this number would be much lower. Similarly, at 4K Low, the combo still manages 66 FPS, which is well above the GPU's ability to render higher settings, confirming that the CPU has headroom left.

The Ryzen 7 9700F's single-thread performance is particularly relevant for a flight simulator, which often relies on a few main threads for the most critical tasks. Its PassMark single-thread score of 4691 is strong, and its multithread score of 36470 indicates that it can handle the multi-threaded workload of the simulator's background processes. The CPU's TDP of 65 W and 4 nm process node (TSMC) mean it runs efficiently, allowing the GPU to receive adequate power from a 550 W suggested PSU. The 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth of the dual-channel DDR5 controller is sufficient for feeding the GPU with texture and geometry data, as evidenced by the consistent FPS numbers across different settings.

The comparison with the CPU's nearest rivals is telling. The 9700F's average benchmark score is within 1% of the Ryzen 9 7950X and Core i7-14700K, meaning that in CPU-heavy scenarios, this combo would perform identically to those with more expensive processors. The bottleneck in this system is unequivocally the RTX 2070 SUPER, which has an average benchmark score of 20282, placing it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. The measured FPS data supports this conclusion: moving from 1080p Medium to 1440p Medium yields an 18.6% drop, and moving to 4K Medium yields another 27.1% drop, both of which are characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario. If the CPU were the limiting factor, these drops would be much smaller, as the same CPU would be able to deliver similar frame rates regardless of resolution. The 9700F's high single-thread and multithread scores, combined with its 5.50 GHz boost clock, make it an ideal partner for a future GPU upgrade, but with the RTX 2070 SUPER, the system's performance is capped by the graphics card's 8 GB VRAM and Turing architecture.