Microsoft Flight Simulator

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data makes the choice of settings for this combination unambiguous. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the Intel Arc B370 is a heavily GPU-limited configuration in Microsoft Flight Simulator, and the only preset that delivers a consistently playable experience is Low. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combination produces an average of 50 FPS, which is the single highest average frame rate recorded across any resolution or settings preset in this dataset. No other preset at any resolution breaks the 50 FPS barrier, and most presets fall well short of it.

The Medium preset at 1080p delivers 39 FPS on average, with a minimum of 33 FPS and a maximum of 45 FPS. While this is technically a smoother experience than High or Ultra, the drop from Low to Medium represents a 22% reduction in average frame rate, which is substantial for a flight simulator where camera panning and terrain streaming demand consistent frame pacing. The minimum FPS of 33 at Medium is concerning, as it suggests that busy scenes with dense autogen scenery or complex weather systems will dip below the 30 FPS threshold that most simmers consider the floor for acceptable smoothness.

The High preset at 1080p yields 30 FPS on average, which is exactly at the threshold of playability but offers no headroom for the inevitable scene complexity spikes that Microsoft Flight Simulator throws at the hardware. Ultra at 1080p drops to 28 FPS on average, which is below the acceptable threshold and will produce visible stutter during panning and approach sequences. At 1440p and 4K, the situation degrades further, with even Low settings falling to 41 FPS and 30 FPS respectively.

For the best experience with this hardware combination, the data supports 1080p with Low settings as the only preset that provides both a playable average and reasonable headroom. Users who prioritize visual fidelity over smoothness may consider Medium at 1080p, but they must accept the 33 FPS minimum and the risk of drops during dense scenery overflights. The measured data shows no scenario where High or Ultra settings are viable — they all produce averages at or below 30 FPS, which is insufficient for a title that rewards smooth, continuous camera movement. The recommendation is clear: Low settings at 1080p is the only configuration that delivers a reliably playable experience with this CPU-GPU pairing.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this CPU and GPU in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 with Low settings produces the highest average FPS at 50, making it the only combination that provides both a playable average and meaningful headroom above the 30 FPS minimum threshold. All other settings presets at 1080p produce averages between 28 and 39 FPS, while higher resolutions progressively reduce performance further.

Q: How does this combination perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the measured results are poor across all settings. Low settings produce 30 FPS on average, Medium produces 23 FPS with a minimum of 20 FPS, High produces 18 FPS, and Ultra produces 17 FPS. None of these are playable for a flight simulator, indicating that the Intel Arc B370 is fundamentally insufficient for 4K rendering in this title.

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

A: The FPS scaling pattern across resolutions indicates that the Intel Arc B370 GPU is the primary bottleneck. When moving from 1080p to 1440p to 4K at the same settings, average FPS drops consistently — for example, Low settings go from 50 FPS at 1080p to 41 FPS at 1440p to 30 FPS at 4K. This resolution-dependent scaling is characteristic of GPU-limited performance, as the workload per pixel increases while the CPU workload remains relatively constant.

Q: What is the difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings average 50 FPS while Ultra settings average 28 FPS. This represents a 44% reduction in average frame rate when moving from the lowest to the highest preset. The minimum FPS data is only available for Medium (33 FPS), but the averages alone demonstrate that Ultra is not viable for smooth gameplay with this hardware.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B370 compare to its closest GPU rivals?

A: The Intel Arc B370 has an average benchmark score of 1184 in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, placing it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 with a score of 1186 (0.2% higher), the ATI Radeon HD 5770 with a score of 1190 (0.5% higher), and the AMD Radeon HD 7650M with a score of 1192 (0.7% higher). These are all legacy or low-end parts, confirming that the Arc B370 is positioned at the very bottom of the GPU performance spectrum.

Q: What is the combo's overall ranking among tested combinations?

A: This CPU-GPU combination ranks 2770 out of 2996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the bottom 8% of all configurations. This low ranking is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows playable performance only at the lowest settings and resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound performance profile with this hardware combination. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 50 at 1920x1080 to 41 at 2560x1440 (an 18% reduction) and then to 30 at 3840x2160 (a 40% reduction from the 1080p baseline, or 27% from 1440p). This monotonic decline with increasing pixel count is the signature of a graphics card that is saturated by the rendering workload, rather than a CPU that cannot feed the GPU with enough draw calls.

The Medium preset shows the same pattern. At 1080p, the average is 39 FPS with a minimum of 33 FPS and a maximum of 45 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops the average to 32 FPS (18% lower) with a minimum of 27 FPS and a maximum of 36 FPS. At 4K, the average falls to 23 FPS with a minimum of 20 FPS and a maximum of 27 FPS. The relative scaling between resolutions is nearly identical to Low settings, which reinforces the conclusion that the GPU is the limiting component — if the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain roughly constant as resolution increases.

High settings show a similar trajectory: 30 FPS at 1080p, 24 FPS at 1440p (20% lower), and 18 FPS at 4K (40% lower from 1080p). Ultra settings follow the same pattern with 28, 23, and 17 FPS respectively. The consistency of the scaling ratios across all four presets is striking — each resolution step costs roughly 20% of the frame rate at the previous resolution, regardless of the settings preset. This uniformity is exactly what one would expect from a GPU that is computing-bound rather than memory-bound or CPU-bound.

The pixel throughput mathematics explain why. Moving from 1080p to 1440p increases the pixel count by approximately 78%, while moving from 1440p to 4K increases it by approximately 125%. Yet the FPS drops are only 18-20% per step, which indicates that the renderer is not purely fill-rate limited — there is significant overhead from geometry, shading, and other per-frame work that does not scale linearly with resolution. The Intel Arc B370's modest specifications, including 1280 shading units and a 6.144 TFLOPS FP32 throughput, are simply insufficient to maintain higher frame rates at higher resolutions.

The practical takeaway is that users should not expect this combination to handle 1440p or 4K in Microsoft Flight Simulator at any settings preset. Even Low settings at 1440p produce only 41 FPS on average, which is borderline for a flight simulator, and the 4K results are uniformly below 30 FPS. The only viable path to higher resolutions would be to reduce the internal rendering resolution or accept significant visual compromises, as the data shows no settings preset that makes 1440p or 4K playable.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings was measured. Low settings produce the best result with an average of 50 FPS. Medium settings average 39 FPS, with a minimum of 33 FPS and a maximum of 45 FPS — the only preset in this resolution with recorded min/max values. High settings average 30 FPS, which is exactly at the playability threshold. Ultra settings average 28 FPS, making them the worst-performing preset at this resolution. The spread from Low to Ultra is 22 FPS, representing a 44% performance penalty for the highest visual fidelity.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops across all presets. Low settings average 41 FPS, which is 9 FPS below the 1080p result. Medium settings average 32 FPS, with a minimum of 27 FPS and a maximum of 36 FPS. High settings average 24 FPS, and Ultra settings average 23 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 18 FPS, a 44% reduction that mirrors the 1080p scaling. Notably, the difference between High and Ultra at this resolution is only 1 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is already saturated and the incremental cost of Ultra over High is minimal in absolute terms.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor. Low settings average 30 FPS, which is the only preset at 4K to reach the 30 FPS threshold. Medium settings average 23 FPS, with a minimum of 20 FPS and a maximum of 27 FPS — the only preset at 4K with min/max data. High settings average 18 FPS, and Ultra settings average 17 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is just 1 FPS, again indicating that the GPU has hit a hard performance ceiling. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 13 FPS, a 43% reduction consistent with the other resolutions.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data. At 1080p, the minimum of 33 FPS and maximum of 45 FPS define a 12 FPS range. At 1440p, the range tightens to 9 FPS (27-36), and at 4K, it tightens further to 7 FPS (20-27). This narrowing range with increasing resolution suggests that the GPU becomes more consistently saturated at higher pixel counts, with less variance in frame times as the bottleneck becomes more uniform.

The overall pattern is consistent: Low settings provide the best playable experience at 1080p, Medium settings are borderline at 1080p, and no preset at 1440p or 4K achieves a playable average frame rate. The data also shows that Ultra settings provide almost no additional benefit over High at higher resolutions — the 1 FPS differences at 1440p and 4K suggest that the visual quality difference between these presets is not worth the performance cost, though both are equally unplayable at those resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and Intel Arc B370 ranks 2770 out of 2996 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the combo in the bottom 7.5% of all configurations tested, which is consistent with the measured FPS data showing playable performance only at 1080p Low settings. The ranking reflects the severe GPU bottleneck imposed by the Intel Arc B370, which sits in the 5th percentile of all GPUs based on its average benchmark score.

The CPU itself is not the limiting factor in this ranking. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X has an average benchmark score of 37943, placing it in the 86th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Core i9-14901E with a score of 37911 (0.1% higher), the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with a score of 37904 (0.1% higher), the Intel Core 5 211E with a score of 37829 (0.3% higher), and the AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P132 with a score of 37804 (0.4% higher). These near-identical scores indicate that the 9700X is firmly in the upper tier of CPU performance, yet the combo still ranks near the bottom because the GPU drags the entire system down.

The contrast between the CPU percentile (86th) and GPU percentile (5th) is stark. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is known to be sensitive to both CPU and GPU performance, the GPU bottleneck dominates the overall experience. The combo ranking of 2770/2996 is far closer to the GPU's percentile ranking than the CPU's, confirming that the Arc B370 is the primary determinant of this combination's position in the database.

The GPU's nearest rivals — the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, ATI Radeon HD 5770, AMD Radeon HD 7650M, and AMD FirePro M2000 — are all legacy parts from the early 2010s era. The fact that the Arc B370 benchmarks within 1.4% of these ancient GPUs underscores how underpowered this card is for modern flight simulation. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184 places it in the 5th percentile, meaning 95% of tested GPUs outperform it.

For context, the combo ranking of 2770 means that only 226 tested combinations performed worse in this game. Given that the CPU is a high-end 8-core Zen 5 part, the ranking is almost entirely attributable to the GPU. Users considering this combination should understand that the CPU's potential is entirely wasted in this title due to the GPU's inability to keep up with the rendering demands of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is a Zen 5 architecture processor built on TSMC's 4 nm process, featuring 8 cores and 16 threads. Its base clock is 3.80 GHz with a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, and it has a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. This is a capable multi-threaded processor, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 20485 and single-core score of 2211, along with a Geekbench multicore score of 17906 and single-core score of 3023.

In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle the simulation logic, terrain streaming, weather calculations, and draw call submission. The 8-core/16-thread configuration is more than sufficient for this title, which typically scales well with multi-threaded CPUs. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 9824 and max-thread score of 9771 indicate strong multi-threading performance, while the single-thread score of 1280 shows solid per-core performance that matters for the main simulation thread.

However, the measured FPS data reveals that the CPU is not the constraint in this combination. The consistent FPS scaling across resolutions — where 4K performance is roughly 40% lower than 1080p at every settings preset — is the definitive signature of GPU-limited performance. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain nearly constant as resolution increased, because the simulation workload per frame is resolution-independent. The fact that FPS drops substantially at higher resolutions proves that the Intel Arc B370 cannot render frames fast enough to keep the CPU fed.

The CPU's benchmark scores place it in the 86th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 37943. Its nearest rivals are all within 0.4% of its score, indicating that this is a top-tier processor. The Passmark multithread score of 37161 and Passmark single-thread score of 4654 further confirm its strong performance. None of these metrics suggest any CPU limitation in Microsoft Flight Simulator — the 9700X has ample headroom to drive even the most demanding flight simulation scenarios.

The conclusion is that the CPU is performing its role without issue, but its capabilities are entirely masked by the GPU's severe underperformance. Users with this CPU should pair it with a dramatically more powerful GPU to unlock its potential in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The 9700X is not the bottleneck; the Intel Arc B370 is. This is a textbook case of a high-end CPU being wasted on a low-end GPU, and the measured data makes this imbalance unmistakable.