Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator — AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

This combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 produces a strong flight simulator experience, with the data showing a clear progression from high frame rates at 1080p to playable but more demanding results at 4K. The measured FPS across all resolutions and settings presets reveals a system that excels in CPU-heavy scenarios, which is critical for a flight simulator that models complex scenery and physics.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial, but the pattern across settings presets tells a nuanced story about where the bottleneck lies. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 211 at 1920x1080 down to 170 at 2560x1440, and finally to 125 at 3840x2160. This represents a 41% reduction from 1080p to 4K, which suggests that even at the lowest graphical load, the GPU is increasingly challenged as pixel count rises.

The Medium settings preset shows a similar relative decline: 164 FPS at 1080p, 132 FPS at 1440p, and 97 FPS at 4K. That is a 41% drop from 1080p to 4K as well, mirroring the Low preset's scaling. At High settings, the numbers are 123 FPS, 99 FPS, and 73 FPS respectively — a 41% decrease from 1080p to 4K once again. The Ultra preset follows the same trajectory: 117 FPS at 1080p, 95 FPS at 1440p, and 70 FPS at 4K, a 40% reduction.

The consistency of this ~40% scaling across all four settings presets is a key observation. It indicates that the limiting component shifts in a predictable manner: at 1080p, the CPU has more headroom to feed the GPU, but as resolution increases, the GPU's rendering workload becomes the dominant factor. The fact that the relative drop is nearly identical regardless of preset suggests that the RTX 4080's rendering capabilities scale linearly with pixel count in this title, while the Ryzen 7 9800X3D maintains enough throughput to avoid becoming a bottleneck even at lower resolutions.

At 4K, the difference between Low (125 FPS) and Ultra (70 FPS) is 55 FPS, or a 44% penalty for the highest preset. At 1080p, that same Low-to-Ultra gap is 94 FPS (211 vs 117), representing a 45% reduction. The proportional cost of Ultra settings remains consistent across resolutions, which implies that the additional graphical features in Ultra impact the GPU uniformly regardless of pixel count.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus. The memory bandwidth is rated at 716.8 GB/s, and the GPU operates at a base clock of 2205 MHz with a boost clock of 2505 MHz. These specifications are directly relevant to the measured results, as flight simulator titles often require large texture loads and memory bandwidth for terrain data.

The 16 GB VRAM capacity is a significant asset for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which loads extensive scenery data. At 4K Ultra settings, the average FPS is 70, and while the minimum FPS is not recorded for that preset, the Medium preset at 4K shows a minimum of 83 FPS against an average of 97 FPS. This indicates the GPU can sustain reasonable frame pacing even under heavy load. The memory clock of 1400 MHz (22.4 Gbps effective) contributes to the high bandwidth, which helps when streaming textures at higher resolutions.

The GPU's PassMark G3D score is 34457, placing it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score is 54247. Comparing to nearest rivals, the RTX 4080 sits just 0.1% behind the RTX 4080 SUPER (54209 score), effectively a tie. It is 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54828) and 2.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55698). The data shows that the RTX 4080's raw GPU throughput is competitive with these alternatives, but in this specific game, the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (70 FPS) falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many users consider minimal for smooth flight simulation.

The GPU's FP32 performance of 48.74 TFLOPS and texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s provide ample compute for the sim's rendering pipeline. At 1440p High, the 99 FPS average suggests the GPU handles moderate loads comfortably, while the 4K High result of 73 FPS shows the limits of the chip under higher pixel counts.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 215th out of 3714 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the top 5.8% of all configurations. This is a strong position, though not at the absolute top, which indicates that there are combinations with higher frame rates in this specific title.

The CPU's percentile against all CPUs is 87, and its average benchmark score is 39768. The nearest rival comparisons show the Ryzen 7 9800X3D (39768 avg score) is 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840HS (39603), 0.7% ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 7 450 (39485), and 0.8% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 (40081). These are very small margins, suggesting the CPU is well-matched to its peers in synthetic tests, but the real-world game performance depends on the GPU pairing.

Given that the combo ranks 215 out of 3714, it outperforms the vast majority of tested systems. The measured FPS data confirms this: even at 4K Ultra, the 70 FPS average is above the 60 FPS target, and at 1440p Ultra, the 95 FPS average provides a comfortable margin. The ranking reflects that this hardware pairing is well-suited to the game's demands, though there is headroom for higher-tier GPUs or CPUs to achieve better results.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p Ultra settings?

A: The average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 117 FPS, with no minimum or maximum values recorded for that preset.

Q: Does the 4K Medium preset provide a stable frame rate?

A: Yes, the measured data shows an average of 97 FPS at 3840x2160 with Medium settings, with a minimum of 83 FPS and a maximum of 112 FPS, indicating good frame pacing.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 scores 54247 on average, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 4080 SUPER (54209), 1.1% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54828), and 2.6% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55698).

Q: What is the CPU's single-thread performance in Cinebench R23?

A: The Ryzen 7 9800X3D scores 2080 in Cinebench R23 single-core, and 23230 in multi-core.

Q: Is the 4K Low preset faster than the 1440p Ultra preset?

A: Yes, the 4K Low preset averages 125 FPS, while the 1440p Ultra preset averages 95 FPS, making the 4K Low setting 30 FPS faster.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 4080 have?

A: The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), manufactured on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.20 GHz, with a TDP of 120 W. The CPU features 96 MB of shared L3 cache, which is critical for flight simulator performance due to the large data sets involved in terrain and scenery rendering.

The L3 cache is a defining feature of this processor, and its impact is visible in the measured FPS. At 1080p Low, the CPU is likely the primary driver, and the 211 FPS average demonstrates that the processor can feed the GPU efficiently at lower resolutions. The passmark single-thread score of 4430 and the 3DMark single-thread score of 1212 indicate strong per-core performance, which is essential for the game's main thread.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are also robust, as shown by the Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23230 and the Geekbench multi-core score of 18696. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 10081 and max-thread score of 10067 show that the processor scales well with additional threads, though flight simulator titles often rely more heavily on single-thread performance. The PassMark multithread score of 40009 and the integer math score of 116709 further confirm the CPU's computational strength.

At higher resolutions, the CPU's role diminishes relative to the GPU, but the data still shows its importance. For example, the difference between 1440p High (99 FPS) and 4K High (73 FPS) is 26 FPS, which is a smaller absolute gap than the difference between 1080p High (123 FPS) and 1440p High (99 FPS) at 24 FPS. The CPU's ability to maintain high frame rates at 1080p ensures that the GPU is not starved of data, and the large L3 cache helps reduce memory latency for the complex simulation calculations.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the best balance between visual quality and performance across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 164 FPS with a minimum of 139 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold and provides a smooth experience. At 2560x1440, Medium yields 132 FPS with a minimum of 112 FPS, still offering a comfortable margin. At 3840x2160, Medium produces 97 FPS with a minimum of 83 FPS, which remains playable on high-refresh-rate displays.

The High preset is also viable, but with a notable performance cost. At 1080p, High averages 123 FPS, which is 41 FPS lower than Medium. At 1440p, High averages 99 FPS, and at 4K, High averages 73 FPS. The Ultra preset provides the best visual fidelity but at the highest cost: 117 FPS at 1080p, 95 FPS at 1440p, and 70 FPS at 4K. The trade-off from Medium to Ultra is roughly 47 FPS at 1080p (164 vs 117), 37 FPS at 1440p (132 vs 95), and 27 FPS at 4K (97 vs 70).

For users with 1440p monitors, Medium is the recommended starting point, as the 132 FPS average leaves headroom for demanding scenes. At 4K, Medium's 97 FPS average is strong, and the 83 FPS minimum ensures that even complex flight scenarios remain fluid. The Low preset, while offering the highest frame rates (211 FPS at 1080p, 170 FPS at 1440p, 125 FPS at 4K), sacrifices too much visual detail for the marginal benefit over Medium.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average FPS across settings is as follows: Low settings produce 211 FPS, Medium settings produce 164 FPS with a minimum of 139 and maximum of 188, High settings produce 123 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 117 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 94 FPS, showing a significant performance cost for higher presets.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS is 170 for Low, 132 for Medium (with minimum 112 and maximum 152), 99 for High, and 95 for Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 75 FPS, reflecting the increased GPU load at higher resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS drops to 125 for Low, 97 for Medium (with minimum 83 and maximum 112), 73 for High, and 70 for Ultra. The Low-to-Ultra gap is now 55 FPS, the smallest of the three resolutions. The 4K Medium preset shows the most stable frame pacing, with a minimum that is 14 FPS below the average, while the 1440p Medium has an 20 FPS gap between minimum and average.

The data reveals that the RTX 4080 handles Medium settings well at all resolutions, while Ultra settings at 4K push the hardware closer to its limits. The minimum FPS values, available only for the Medium preset, show that frame drops are manageable — the 4K minimum of 83 FPS is still above 60 FPS, and the 1440p minimum of 112 FPS provides a smooth experience. The absence of minimum FPS data for other presets limits the analysis, but the available numbers suggest that Medium is the safest choice for consistent performance.