Microsoft Flight Simulator

The pairing of AMD's Ryzen 7 9700X processor with the Radeon RX 570 graphics card in Microsoft Flight Simulator produces frame rates that are heavily constrained by the GPU. The benchmark results indicate a system that is capable of playable, if not always fluid, performance, but only when settings are carefully managed. The data shows a clear hierarchy where resolution and quality presets directly dictate the experience, with the RX 570 acting as the primary bottleneck.

Settings Recommendations

For the best measured experience, the Low preset is the only reliable option for achieving smooth gameplay across most resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 46.2 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this combination. This is the only setting that approaches the 60 FPS threshold, though it still falls short of it. The Medium preset at 1080p yields 36.6 FPS, which is playable but represents a significant 21% drop from Low, indicating the GPU is already struggling with increased load.

The High and Ultra presets at 1080p produce 29.3 and 26.3 FPS respectively, which are marginal for a flight simulator where smooth panning is critical. These settings are not recommended for a consistent experience, as the frame rates dip below 30 FPS. At 2560x1440, the situation worsens; the Low preset manages 36.5 FPS, which is the only playable option at this resolution. Medium drops to 29.4 FPS, and both High and Ultra fall below 24 FPS, making them unsuitable for serious use.

At 3840x2160, no preset achieves a playable frame rate. The Low preset tops out at 29.5 FPS, with Medium at 24 FPS and Ultra at 18.6 FPS. The data suggests that users should prioritize the Low preset for any resolution above 1080p, and even at 1080p, Medium is the highest acceptable setting for those who prefer visual fidelity over frame rate stability. The performance gap between Low and Medium at every resolution is substantial, indicating that the RX 570's 4 GB memory buffer is quickly saturated as texture detail increases.

How This Combo Ranks

The overall ranking for this combination in Microsoft Flight Simulator is 1718 out of 1795 tested combos. This places the Ryzen 7 9700X and Radeon RX 570 pairing in the bottom 5% of all tested configurations. The percentile position is consistent with the measured frame rates, which are uniformly low across all settings and resolutions. The CPU itself is not the limiting factor here; the Ryzen 7 9700X performs well in synthetic benchmarks, but the GPU drags the entire system down.

The combo rank of 1718 reflects the severe imbalance between the modern 8-core processor and the aging Polaris-based graphics card. While the CPU is in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, the RX 570 sits in the 74th percentile of all GPUs, which is a discrepancy that manifests in game performance. The benchmark results show that the frame rates are more typical of a low-end GPU than a mid-range one, confirming that the graphics card is the dominant constraint.

When considering the CPU's nearest rivals, the Ryzen 7 9700X posts an average benchmark score of 36029, which is nearly identical to the Intel Core i5-14500HX at 35940 (a 0.2% difference) and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 at 35802 (a 0.6% difference). This level of CPU performance is more than adequate for flight simulation, but it is wasted when paired with a GPU that cannot keep up. The data suggests that this combo would rank significantly higher with a more capable graphics card.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570's role in this combination is to act as the primary limiting factor. The GPU features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 2048 shading units operate at a boost clock of 1244 MHz, delivering 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. These specifications, while respectable for a 2017 release, are insufficient for the demands of Microsoft Flight Simulator at higher settings.

The 4 GB VRAM capacity is particularly problematic. The benchmark data shows a steep drop in performance when moving from Low to Medium settings at all resolutions. At 1080p, the drop from Low to Medium is 20.8% (from 46.2 to 36.6 FPS), and at 1440p it is 19.5% (from 36.5 to 29.4 FPS). This pattern suggests that the GPU is running out of memory bandwidth or capacity, forcing the system to use slower fallback methods.

The GPU's 150 W TDP and dual-slot design are typical for its class, but the architecture is simply too old for modern flight simulation. The Polaris 20 chip, built on a 14 nm process, lacks the dedicated ray tracing cores and advanced geometry processing found in newer GPUs. The benchmark results show that the RX 570 cannot maintain playable frame rates at 4K, with the High preset averaging just 17.4 FPS, which is a slideshow by any standard.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates are consistent across the resolution and settings matrix, with no anomalies. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 46.2 FPS, Medium hits 36.6 FPS, High drops to 29.3 FPS, and Ultra falls to 26.3 FPS. This represents a 43% reduction from Low to Ultra, showing that the GPU struggles with the highest quality settings even at the lowest resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 36.5 FPS, which is a 21% drop from 1080p Low. Medium at 1440p is 29.4 FPS, High is 22.5 FPS, and Ultra is 23.5 FPS. Interestingly, the Ultra setting at 1440p is slightly faster than High, which may indicate measurement variance, but both are well below playable thresholds. The performance at 1440p is consistently 20-25% lower than at 1080p, reflecting the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor. Low manages 29.5 FPS, Medium drops to 24 FPS, Ultra is 18.6 FPS, and High is 17.4 FPS. The Low preset at 4K is actually faster than the High preset at 1440p, which highlights the severe impact of settings on this GPU. The data shows a clear pattern: the RX 570 can handle low-detail scenarios at up to 1440p, but any attempt to increase visual quality results in sub-30 FPS performance.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is steep and reveals the GPU bottleneck. At Low settings, the drop from 46.2 FPS at 1080p to 36.5 FPS at 1440p is 21%, and then to 29.5 FPS at 4K is an additional 19% drop. This is a total reduction of 36% from 1080p to 4K, which is less than the theoretical 4x pixel increase would suggest, indicating that the GPU is not purely pixel-bound.

At High settings, the scaling is more severe. The 1080p High average is 29.3 FPS, dropping to 22.5 FPS at 1440p (a 23% reduction) and then to 17.4 FPS at 4K (a 23% reduction from 1440p). This consistent 23% drop per resolution step suggests that the GPU is hitting a hard memory bandwidth limit. The 224.0 GB/s bandwidth is simply not enough to feed the 2048 shading units at higher resolutions.

The limiting component is clearly the GPU, as the CPU would not exhibit such drastic scaling. The Ryzen 7 9700X's high single-thread and multi-thread scores (Cinebench R23 single-core of 4459 and multi-core of 31588) indicate it can handle the simulation's physics and scenery loading. The data shows that resolution scaling is almost entirely a GPU function here, with the 4 GB memory buffer being the most likely bottleneck. Users should expect to stay at 1080p Low for the best experience, as any resolution increase yields diminishing returns.