Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D reveals a predictable but telling scaling pattern as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 223 FPS average. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 205 FPS, a decline of roughly 8%. At 4K Low, the average falls to 151 FPS, which is 32% below the 1080p figure. This scaling behavior indicates that even at the lowest settings, the simulation is beginning to lean more heavily on the GPU as pixel count rises, though the CPU remains a substantial contributor.

The Medium settings row provides the clearest picture of resolution scaling because it includes minimum and maximum FPS values. At 1080p Medium, the average is 198 FPS with a minimum of 168 and maximum of 227. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 159 FPS (a 20% reduction), with a minimum of 136 and maximum of 183. At 4K Medium, the average falls further to 118 FPS, representing a 40% decline from the 1080p Medium result. The minimum at 4K Medium is 100 FPS, which means the combo never dips below triple-digit frame rates even at the highest resolution tested in this settings tier.

High settings show a similar pattern. The 1080p High average is 149 FPS, 1440p High produces 120 FPS, and 4K High yields 88 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 19%, and from 1440p to 4K it is 27%. For Ultra settings, the numbers are 142 FPS at 1080p, 114 FPS at 1440p, and 84 FPS at 4K. The Ultra tier shows the smallest relative decline from 1080p to 1440p at 20%, but the 4K Ultra result of 84 FPS is the lowest recorded average in the entire dataset.

What the scaling data suggests is that Microsoft Flight Simulator is not a purely GPU-bound title at any of these resolutions. The 1080p to 1440p deltas are relatively modest across all settings tiers, which points to the CPU maintaining a meaningful role in frame production. However, the larger 1440p to 4K drops, particularly at Medium (from 159 to 118 FPS) and High (from 120 to 88 FPS), indicate that the RTX 5090 D's rendering workload becomes the dominant constraint as pixel throughput demands increase. The 4K Ultra result of 84 FPS being only 5% below the 4K High result of 88 FPS suggests diminishing returns from the Ultra preset's additional visual fidelity at this resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a formidable rendering engine on paper, and the benchmark results confirm its capability in this flight simulator. The GPU's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial headroom for the large texture sets and terrain data that Microsoft Flight Simulator streams. The memory clock runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective transfer, and the 32 GB capacity means VRAM exhaustion is unlikely to be a limiting factor at any resolution or settings combination measured.

The core configuration is equally impressive. The RTX 5090 D packs 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster operation pipelines. The base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz. These clock speeds, combined with the massive shader array, deliver 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s. The pixel rate is 423.6 GPixel/s, which is relevant for a game that renders dense cockpit instruments and expansive ground scenery simultaneously.

Benchmark scores place the RTX 5090 D in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 77,712. Its nearest rivals in the aggregate benchmark database are the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (score 76,904, delta 1.1%), the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (score 78,940, delta -1.6%), the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (score 79,396, delta -2.1%), and the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (score 79,605, delta -2.4%). These deltas are small, indicating that the RTX 5090 D sits in a tightly contested performance band according to aggregate scores, though its gaming-specific capabilities are far more specialized than those workstation-oriented Tesla parts.

In the context of the measured FPS, the GPU's role becomes clearer. The fact that 4K Ultra produces 84 FPS while 4K High produces 88 FPS — a difference of only 4 FPS — suggests that the Ultra preset's additional effects are not fully taxing the RTX 5090 D's resources. The GPU has enough raw throughput to maintain playable frame rates even at the highest resolution and quality settings, but the simulation's engine appears to introduce other bottlenecks before the GPU's compute capacity is saturated.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X provides the processing backbone for this combo, and its characteristics are well-suited to a simulation that must track aircraft systems, weather, and world state. The CPU has 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture, with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The 64 MB of shared L3 cache is split into two 32 MB chiplets, and each core has 64 KB of L1 and 1 MB of L2 cache. This cache hierarchy is beneficial for the simulation's data-heavy workloads.

The 7900X's benchmark scores show strong multithreaded performance. It achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 29,300 and a single-core score of 2,016.5. The Geekbench multicore score is 19,267 with a single-core score of 2,617. In 3DMark, the 16-thread test yields 10,972, while the max-thread test produces 12,536. Single-thread performance in 3DMark is 1,093, which is important because flight simulators often have a primary simulation thread that cannot be fully parallelized.

The CPU sits in the 91st percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 53,288. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7313P (score 53,206, delta 0.2%), the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 (score 53,469, delta -0.3%), the Intel Xeon 634 (score 52,974, delta 0.6%), and the Intel Core i7-14700F (score 53,620, delta -0.6%). These deltas are all within 1%, meaning the 7900X is statistically tied with these parts in aggregate CPU benchmarks, though the gaming performance characteristics differ substantially.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is evident from the resolution scaling data. At 1080p Low, the 223 FPS average suggests the CPU can feed the GPU with frames at a very high rate when the rendering load is light. At 1080p Ultra, the 142 FPS average indicates that even with increased GPU work, the CPU maintains a high frame delivery rate. The fact that 1080p Medium (198 FPS) and 1080p Low (223 FPS) differ by only 25 FPS while 4K Medium (118 FPS) and 4K Low (151 FPS) differ by 33 FPS shows that the CPU's contribution remains significant across all resolution tiers.

The 7900X's 170 W TDP and 5.60 GHz boost clock provide the sustained single-thread performance that flight simulators require. The DDR5 memory support with dual-channel configuration and 83.2 GB/s bandwidth ensures that memory bandwidth is not a bottleneck for the simulation's data streaming needs. The 5 nm process node from TSMC with 13,140 million transistors across a 2x 71 mm² die size demonstrates that AMD's design is efficient in both power and area.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 9 7900X and RTX 5090 D ranks 22nd out of 2,996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the pairing in the top 0.7% of all configurations tested, which is an exceptionally strong result. The rank of 22 out of 2,996 means that only 21 other CPU-GPU pairings delivered higher average frame rates across the measured scenarios in this specific game.

This ranking is notable because it reflects the game's unique performance characteristics. Microsoft Flight Simulator is known for being demanding on both CPU and GPU, and a combo that ranks this highly must excel in both domains. The 7900X's strong single-thread performance (evidenced by the 3DMark single-thread score of 1,093 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,016.5) pairs well with the RTX 5090 D's massive shader throughput to produce a balanced system.

The 91st percentile CPU ranking and 92nd percentile GPU ranking individually are strong, but the combo's 22nd place out of 2,996 represents a synergistic effect. The 7900X's 12 cores and 24 threads ensure that the simulation's auxiliary threads (weather, AI traffic, physics) do not starve the main rendering thread. Meanwhile, the RTX 5090 D's 32 GB VRAM and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth handle the massive texture streaming requirements without causing hitches.

The gap between the combo's overall rank and the individual component percentiles suggests that some combinations with individually higher-ranked components may not achieve the same level of performance in this specific title. This is likely due to the simulation's engine characteristics, which favor CPUs with high single-thread performance and GPUs with large memory pools.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings balance depends on the target resolution and frame rate preference. At 1080p, all four settings tiers deliver playable results, but the data shows that Medium provides the best blend of visual quality and performance headroom. The 1080p Medium average of 198 FPS with a minimum of 168 FPS and maximum of 227 FPS demonstrates that this tier never drops below 168 FPS, which is well above typical display refresh rates. The jump from Low (223 FPS) to Medium (198 FPS) costs only 25 FPS but provides substantially improved visual fidelity, while the jump from Medium to High (149 FPS) costs 49 FPS, which is a much steeper price for the visual upgrade.

At 1440p, the Medium preset again emerges as the recommended choice. The 1440p Medium average of 159 FPS with a minimum of 136 FPS and maximum of 183 FPS keeps frame rates in a range that supports high-refresh-rate monitors. The High preset at 1440p produces 120 FPS, which is still smooth, but the 39 FPS drop from Medium to High is significant. The Ultra preset at 1440p yields 114 FPS, only 6 FPS below High, which suggests that the Ultra tier's additional effects are relatively inexpensive at this resolution.

At 4K, the recommendation shifts. The 4K Medium result of 118 FPS with a minimum of 100 FPS is the only 4K tier that guarantees triple-digit frame rates. The 4K High result of 88 FPS and 4K Ultra result of 84 FPS are both playable but may not suit users with 144 Hz or higher refresh rate displays. For 4K users, the Medium preset offers the best combination of visual quality and frame rate stability, with the 100 FPS minimum ensuring no drops below the triple-digit threshold.

The Ultra preset at any resolution is difficult to justify from a pure performance standpoint. At 1080p, Ultra (142 FPS) is 56 FPS below Medium (198 FPS). At 1440p, Ultra (114 FPS) is 45 FPS below Medium (159 FPS). At 4K, Ultra (84 FPS) is 34 FPS below Medium (118 FPS). While the Ultra preset may offer visual improvements, the measured data shows that the frame rate cost is substantial across all resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset provides a comprehensive view of the combo's performance across all tested configurations. At 3840x2160 resolution, the results are as follows: Low settings produce an average of 151 FPS, Medium produces 118 FPS (with a minimum of 100 and maximum of 135), High produces 88 FPS, and Ultra produces 84 FPS. The 4K results show a clear hierarchy where each settings tier reduces the average by a meaningful margin, with the exception of the High to Ultra transition which only costs 4 FPS.

At 2560x1440 resolution, the measured averages are: Low at 205 FPS, Medium at 159 FPS (minimum 136, maximum 183), High at 120 FPS, and Ultra at 114 FPS. The 1440p results demonstrate that the combo can drive high refresh rates even at High settings, with the 120 FPS average being suitable for most gaming displays. The Medium tier at 1440p offers the best combination of high average FPS and strong minimum performance.

At 1920x1080 resolution, the averages are: Low at 223 FPS, Medium at 198 FPS (minimum 168, maximum 227), High at 149 FPS, and Ultra at 142 FPS. The 1080p results are all above 140 FPS, meaning even the most demanding preset at the lowest resolution maintains a high frame rate. The Medium tier at 1080p is particularly impressive, with a 198 FPS average and a 168 FPS minimum that guarantees smooth gameplay in all but the most intensive scenes.

The minimum FPS values, which are only provided for the Medium tier at each resolution, show that the combo handles frame time spikes well. At 1080p Medium, the minimum of 168 FPS is 85% of the average, indicating consistent frame pacing. At 1440p Medium, the minimum of 136 FPS is 86% of the average. At 4K Medium, the minimum of 100 FPS is 85% of the average. This consistency across resolutions suggests that the combo does not suffer from severe frame rate drops during complex simulation moments, which is crucial for a flight simulator where sudden scenery changes or weather effects could otherwise cause stuttering.