Microsoft Flight Simulator

FAQ

Q: What is the measured 1080p performance of this CPU/GPU combo in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: At 1920x1080, the combo delivers an average of 77.8 FPS on Low settings, 62.0 FPS on Medium, 46.0 FPS on High, and 40.9 FPS on Ultra settings.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9900X compare to its closest rival in CPU benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X has an average benchmark score of 54,450, which places it 0.7% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700F (score 54,097) and 1.5% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K (score 55,304, meaning the 9900X is actually 1.5% behind that chip).

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER sits in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14,286. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11, scores 14,314, which is 0.2% higher.

Q: What frame rate can be expected at 4K with this combination?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 45.1 on Low settings down to 24.5 on Ultra. Medium settings yield 33.6 FPS, while High settings produce 28.9 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to limit performance in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The FPS drops significantly from 1080p to 4K (e.g., from 46.0 to 28.9 FPS on High settings), while the CPU has substantial headroom with 12 cores and 24 threads.

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

A: This particular CPU/GPU pairing ranks 1,576 out of 1,795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the lower portion of the field.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor built on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) using a 4 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, backed by a 64 MB shared L3 cache and 1 MB L2 cache per core. This configuration provides substantial multi-threaded throughput, which matters for flight simulation because the game must process physics, weather, and terrain streaming concurrently.

The CPU's benchmark profile reinforces its capability. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 46,438 and single-core score of 6,555 indicate strong performance in both lightly and heavily threaded workloads. The Geekbench multicore result of 19,827 and single-core score of 3,341 further confirm balanced compute power. In PassMark's multithread test, the chip scores 54,643, while single-thread performance is 4,672. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 12,552 and max-thread score of 13,929 show that scaling remains consistent beyond 16 threads.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the 9900X is effectively tied with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D, which scores 54,681 (only 0.4% higher). It also edges out the Intel Core i7-14700F by 0.7% and trails the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K by 1.5% and the Core Ultra 5 245KF by 1.8%. These margins are small, meaning the 9900X is competitively positioned within its segment.

The CPU's 94th percentile ranking among all processors suggests it provides ample compute headroom for Microsoft Flight Simulator. The game's simulation logic is known to be sensitive to single-thread performance, and the 9900X's 5.60 GHz boost clock, along with a strong single-core Cinebench R20 score of 2,753, ensures that CPU-bound scenarios are handled effectively. The combination of 12 cores and high clock speeds means the processor is unlikely to be the limiting factor at lower resolutions, where the GPU takes on more of the rendering load.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is based on the Turing architecture (TU116 chip) fabricated on a 12 nm process. It features 1,408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs, with a base clock of 1530 MHz and a boost clock of 1785 MHz. The memory subsystem consists of 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, yielding 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's FP32 throughput is 5.027 TFLOPS, and its texture rate is 157.1 GTexel/s.

These specifications place the GTX 1660 SUPER in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, which is a mid-range position. Its average benchmark score of 14,286 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals: the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 scores 14,314 (0.2% higher), the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics scores 14,315 (0.2% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT scores 14,389 (0.7% higher). The tight clustering of these scores indicates that the GTX 1660 SUPER's performance level is well established and not an outlier.

The 6 GB VRAM capacity is a relevant factor for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which can be memory-intensive at higher resolutions and detail settings. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Ultra, the combo achieves 40.9 FPS, while dropping to 24.5 FPS at 4K Ultra. This scaling suggests the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute capacity become increasingly strained as resolution rises.

The GTX 1660 SUPER's DirectX 12 support (12_1) ensures compatibility with the game's modern rendering pipeline. Its Vulkan 1.4 API support also provides an alternative path for performance optimization. However, the absence of dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores means the card relies purely on traditional rasterization, which aligns with the game's non-ray-traced default rendering.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested system combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER ranks 1,576 out of 1,795 combos. This places the system in the bottom 12% of tested configurations, which is a notable finding given the CPU's high performance tier.

The discrepancy between the CPU's 94th percentile standing and the combo's low rank highlights the significant imbalance in this pairing. The GTX 1660 SUPER's 55th percentile GPU ranking is far below the processor's capability, creating a situation where the GPU limits overall system performance in a graphically demanding title like Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The rank of 1,576 indicates that most other tested combos achieve better frame rates, likely due to more balanced or higher-end GPU selections. This does not reflect poorly on the CPU, which is demonstrably competitive with its nearest rivals. Instead, the data shows that the GPU is the dominant factor in determining this combo's position in the rankings.

For users considering this pairing, the benchmark results suggest that upgrading the GPU would yield a substantial improvement in game performance, while the CPU would remain relevant for years due to its strong multi-threaded and single-threaded capabilities.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU-limited configuration. At 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 77.8 FPS, which drops to 60.9 FPS at 1440p and 45.1 FPS at 4K. This represents a 42% reduction from 1080p to 4K on Low settings.

On High settings, the scaling is even more pronounced: 46.0 FPS at 1080p falls to 36.8 FPS at 1440p (a 20% drop) and then to 28.9 FPS at 4K (a 37% drop from 1080p). The Ultra settings show a similar trajectory, with 40.9 FPS at 1080p, 36.3 FPS at 1440p, and 24.5 FPS at 4K, representing a 40% reduction from the lowest to highest resolution.

The difference between settings at a given resolution also grows with resolution. At 1080p, the gap between Low and Ultra is 36.9 FPS (77.8 vs. 40.9). At 4K, this gap narrows to 20.6 FPS (45.1 vs. 24.5), indicating that the GPU's compute capacity is saturated at higher resolutions regardless of detail level.

These results strongly indicate that the GTX 1660 SUPER is the limiting component. The CPU's high clock speeds and 12-core configuration provide sufficient headroom to maintain frame times, but the GPU's 6 GB VRAM and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth cannot keep pace with the increased pixel count at 1440p and 4K. The game becomes increasingly GPU-bound as resolution rises, which means users targeting higher resolutions would need a more powerful graphics card to achieve playable frame rates beyond 1080p Medium or High settings.