Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the most demanding titles in the benchmark database, and the pairing of the Intel Core i3-12100F with the AMD Radeon RX 570 produces a combination that ranks near the very bottom of tested configurations. The data shows a system that is heavily constrained by both its processor and graphics card, resulting in frame rates that rarely approach playable thresholds at higher resolutions. This analysis breaks down the measured performance across resolutions, the role of the CPU and GPU, and provides settings recommendations based strictly on the empirical rows.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a dramatic collapse in performance as resolution increases, indicating that the graphics card is the primary limiting factor in this configuration. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 48.1 FPS, which is the only row in the entire dataset that approaches a smooth experience. Moving to 1440p at the same Low preset drops the average to 37.1 FPS, a reduction of exactly 11 frames or roughly 23%. At 4K with Low settings, the average falls to 25.8 FPS, which is a further 30% decline from the 1440p figure.

The scaling pattern becomes more punishing when looking at higher quality presets. At 1080p High, the average is 28.5 FPS, but at 1440p High it drops to 25.3 FPS, and at 4K High it plummets to just 16 FPS. This 4K High result is the single worst measured row in the entire set, showing that the RX 570's 4 GB of VRAM and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are simply overwhelmed by the game's high-resolution textures and rendering demands. The gap between Low and High at 4K is particularly telling: 25.8 FPS versus 16 FPS, a difference of nearly 10 frames, which suggests that the GPU is running out of memory and compute resources simultaneously.

Interestingly, the Ultra preset does not scale linearly from High. At 1080p, Ultra produces 27.5 FPS versus 28.5 FPS for High, a negligible difference of one frame. At 1440p, the gap widens slightly to 23.9 FPS versus 25.3 FPS, and at 4K it narrows to 15.8 FPS versus 16 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions indicates that the system is already so bottlenecked that the additional rendering features in Ultra have minimal incremental cost relative to the massive performance hit already incurred.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its benchmark results show strong single-thread performance for a budget chip, with a 3dmark single-thread score of 893 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681. However, its multi-threaded capabilities are modest, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 11912 and a Geekbench multicore score of 7413.

For a flight simulator like Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is known for heavy CPU usage during terrain and physics calculations, this processor's 4-core/8-thread configuration appears to be a limiting factor. The CPU's percentile ranking of 72 against all processors places it above average, but its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (with a delta of -0.1%) and the Intel Core i7-7700K (with a delta of 1.8%). This proximity to much older or much more expensive parts suggests that the i3-12100F's real-world gaming performance is competitive in synthetic benchmarks but may struggle with the sustained multi-threaded load of a simulator.

The data indicates that the CPU is not the sole bottleneck, as the FPS differences between Low and Medium settings at 1080p (48.1 FPS vs 36.9 FPS) are substantial, showing that GPU load changes with quality. However, the fact that 4K Low (25.8 FPS) is barely higher than 1080p Ultra (27.5 FPS) suggests that the CPU cannot feed the GPU enough frames to overcome the resolution penalty, even when the GPU is less stressed.

Settings Recommendations

Based strictly on the measured FPS rows, the optimal experience for this combo is 1080p with Low settings, which delivers an average of 48.1 FPS. This is the only row that exceeds the 40 FPS threshold, and it provides a playable baseline for a flight simulator where frame pacing is less critical than in fast-paced action titles. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p is significant, dropping from 48.1 to 36.9 FPS, a loss of 11.2 frames that is not justified by the modest visual improvement in a simulator context.

For users who prioritize visual fidelity over smoothness, 1440p Low at 37.1 FPS is the second-best option, but it represents a 23% penalty versus 1080p Low. At 4K, the best row is Low at 25.8 FPS, which is below the threshold for comfortable play but could be acceptable for static screenshots or slow taxiing. High and Ultra presets are not recommended at any resolution above 1080p, as they all fall below 28.5 FPS, with 4K High and 4K Ultra producing 16 FPS and 15.8 FPS respectively.

The data clearly shows a trade-off curve where Low settings at 1080p are the only viable choice for actual gameplay. Medium at 1080p (36.9 FPS) is borderline, but the 11-frame drop from Low is substantial. The Ultra preset at 1080p (27.5 FPS) offers no meaningful advantage over High (28.5 FPS) and is therefore never the recommended choice.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Core i3-12100F and RX 570 ranks 1710 out of 1795 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the bottom 5% of all configurations. This ranking is consistent with the hardware's individual percentiles: the CPU sits at the 72nd percentile against all processors, while the GPU sits at the 74th percentile against all graphics cards. However, the low absolute scores of both components relative to modern parts drag the combo down significantly.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (with a deltaPct of 0.2%) and the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (with a deltaPct of 0.2%), which are both far more modern and capable parts. This close ranking in average benchmark score is misleading for gaming, as the RX 570's 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is dwarfed by these newer cards, but the synthetic benchmarks show they are surprisingly close. The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (deltaPct of -0.1%), is a workstation-class part with vastly more cores, but the i3-12100F keeps pace in average score due to its strong single-thread performance.

The rank of 1710 out of 1795 means that only 85 tested combos perform worse than this pairing in the simulator. This is a stark warning for anyone considering this hardware for Microsoft Flight Simulator, as the data shows that even the best-case scenario (1080p Low) barely reaches playable territory.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is a Polaris 20 chip built on a 14 nm process, featuring 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. It has a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz, with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's compute capabilities are rated at 5.095 TFLOPS for FP32, and its pixel rate is 39.81 GPixel/s with a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s.

In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the RX 570's 4 GB VRAM capacity is the most critical limitation. The measured FPS data shows that at 4K, even Low settings produce only 25.8 FPS, and High drops to 16 FPS. This suggests that the card is running out of memory bandwidth and capacity, as the simulator's high-resolution textures and draw distances exceed the 224.0 GB/s bandwidth and 4 GB frame buffer. The GPU's percentile ranking of 74 against all GPUs is respectable, but its nearest rivals include the RTX 5060 and RX 7700 XT, which have significantly more modern architectures and larger memory pools.

The clock speeds of 1168 MHz base and 1244 MHz boost are modest by modern standards, and the 150 W TDP with a 450 W recommended PSU indicates this is a mid-range part from the Polaris generation. The data shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 1440p and 4K, as the FPS differences between Low and High settings at those resolutions (37.1 vs 25.3 at 1440p, and 25.8 vs 16 at 4K) are much larger than the CPU-driven differences seen at 1080p. For this game, the RX 570 is simply outclassed, and the measured results confirm that it can only handle the simulator at the lowest settings and resolution.