Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the most demanding titles in the benchmark database, and the data for the Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT reveals a configuration that is heavily influenced by both resolution and graphical presets. The measured frames per second (FPS) across the three primary resolutions—1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160—show a clear pattern of scaling that defines the experience. The data indicates that this combo is capable of playable performance at lower resolutions but becomes increasingly constrained as pixel count rises.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and tells a clear story about system balance. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 98.6 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same Low preset reduces the average to 79.8 FPS, a decline of roughly 19%. Pushing further to 3840x2160 at Low drops the average to 60.2 FPS, which represents a 39% reduction compared to the 1080p result. This scaling pattern suggests that the graphics card is becoming the primary limiting factor as resolution increases, even at the lowest fidelity settings.

The High preset shows a similar but more pronounced trend. At 1080p, the average is 58.6 FPS, which is already a significant step down from the Low setting. At 1440p, it falls to 47 FPS, and at 4K, it reaches 32.3 FPS. The gap between 1080p and 4K at High is 26.3 FPS, a 45% drop. This is a larger relative decrease than what is seen at Low, indicating that the higher preset’s additional shading and texture work amplify the GPU's workload disproportionately at higher resolutions. The Ultra preset follows suit, with 53.3 FPS at 1080p, 47.6 FPS at 1440p, and 35.7 FPS at 4K. Interestingly, the Ultra results at 1440p and 4K are very close to the High results at those same resolutions, suggesting that the game's Ultra settings may introduce settings that are less resolution-sensitive, or that the GPU is hitting a performance ceiling that narrows the gap between presets.

The data strongly implies that the CPU is not the bottleneck at 1080p. The fact that the Low preset at 1080p nearly reaches 100 FPS indicates that the processor can feed frames quickly enough to keep the GPU busy. However, the rapid decline at higher resolutions points to the RX 6600 XT's 8 GB memory buffer and 128-bit bus becoming a limiting factor. The scaling behavior is typical of a GPU-bound scenario in a simulation title, where the rendering complexity of the world—rather than physics or AI calculations—dominates frame time.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a Navi 23 chip. Its specifications include a base clock of 1968 MHz, a boost clock of 2589 MHz, and a game clock of 2359 MHz. The memory configuration is 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s. These figures are central to understanding the measured performance. The 8 GB frame buffer is likely sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at most presets, but at 4K with Ultra settings, the memory capacity and bandwidth can become a concern, potentially causing texture streaming or memory swapping that would explain the relatively small difference between High (32.3 FPS) and Ultra (35.7 FPS) at that resolution—the latter is actually higher, which is anomalous and could indicate variance in the measured data.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 71st percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27985. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (deltaPct 0.1), AMD Radeon R9 M395X (deltaPct 0.4), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (deltaPct -0.9). The deltaPct values are small, showing that the RX 6600 XT sits in a tight performance band relative to these cards. In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's FP32 performance of 10.60 TFLOPS and texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s are more relevant than raw compute scores. The game's heavy use of procedural generation and high-resolution textures taxes the shader units and texture mapping units, which number 2048 and 128 respectively. The 64 ROPs handle pixel output, which is critical at 4K where fill rate demands increase. The data suggests that the GPU is the dominant factor in frame rate at 1440p and 4K, as evidenced by the FPS drops seen when moving from Low to Medium to High at each resolution.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal experience depends heavily on the target resolution. For a 1080p display, the Medium preset yields an average of 79.7 FPS, which is a solid balance of visual fidelity and smoothness. High at 1080p drops to 58.6 FPS, which is still playable but noticeably less fluid. Ultra at 1080p is 53.3 FPS, and given the modest improvement in visual quality over High for a 5.3 FPS loss, High is arguably the better choice if frame rate is a priority. However, if the user is willing to accept lower fidelity, Low at 98.6 FPS provides the highest headroom for demanding scenarios like busy airports or complex weather.

At 1440p, the Medium preset is the best option, delivering 63.6 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold and offers better visuals than Low, which runs at 79.8 FPS. High at 1440p is 47 FPS, which may be acceptable for a slower-paced simulation but risks stuttering in dense areas. Ultra at 1440p is 47.6 FPS, nearly identical to High, so there is no reason to choose Ultra over High unless the specific settings differences are desired. For 4K, the situation is more challenging. Low provides 60.2 FPS, which is the only preset at this resolution to reach a playable average. Medium drops to 48.2 FPS, and High and Ultra fall below 36 FPS. The data indicates that 4K is only viable with reduced settings on this combo, and even then, the 60.2 FPS average at Low is borderline.

The best experience per the measured rows is Medium at 1440p, which offers a 63.6 FPS average while maintaining a reasonable level of detail. For 1080p users, Medium at 79.7 FPS is a strong choice. The Ultra preset is generally not recommended, as it provides negligible performance gains over High at 1440p and 4K, and only a modest advantage at 1080p that does not justify the FPS cost.

How This Combo Ranks

In the overall database, this specific combination of CPU and GPU holds a combo rank of 1256 out of 1795 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the lower-middle tier of all configurations, which is consistent with the measured FPS figures. The rank reflects that while the RX 6600 XT is a capable mid-range GPU, the Core i3-12100F, despite its strong single-thread performance, does not boost the combo into the upper echelons of results. The CPU's benchmark scores—such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11912 and a single-core score of 1681—are respectable, but the game's engine seems to favor higher core counts or faster memory subsystems for maximum performance.

The combo's percentile ranking for the CPU is 72nd among all CPUs, and the GPU is in the 71st percentile, but the combined result is lower than either component's individual standing. This suggests that the pairing is not perfectly balanced for this specific title. The data shows that the combo is capable of achieving high frame rates at lower resolutions, but it falls behind configurations with stronger GPUs or more powerful CPUs at higher settings. The nearest CPU rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-7700K (deltaPct 1.8) and Intel Core i3-10105 (deltaPct 0.6), have similar average scores, indicating that the i3-12100F is not a performance outlier in either direction. The rank of 1256 out of 1795 is a clear indicator that users seeking maximum fidelity in Flight Simulator would need to consider more powerful hardware.

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. It has 12 MB of shared L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR4 and DDR5 memory. In the measured data, the CPU's role is apparent primarily at 1080p, where the Low preset achieves 98.6 FPS. This high frame rate indicates that the processor can handle the game's simulation and rendering tasks without becoming a bottleneck at lower GPU loads. However, the CPU's multi-threaded performance is limited by its 4 cores, which is reflected in its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11912. In a game like Flight Simulator, which uses multiple threads for terrain loading, AI traffic, and physics, this limitation could manifest in frame time spikes or reduced performance in complex scenarios.

The CPU's single-thread performance is strong, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2224. This is crucial because Flight Simulator's rendering thread often relies on a single core for draw call submission. The data shows that at 1080p High (58.6 FPS) and Ultra (53.3 FPS), the frame rates are lower than at Low, but the CPU is not the primary limiter—the GPU is. The difference between the 1080p Low and 1080p High results (40 FPS) is much larger than any CPU-bound variance would suggest. The CPU's nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-1250U (deltaPct 0.4) and AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (deltaPct -0.1), show that the i3-12100F's average benchmark score is competitive with processors that have vastly different core counts, but in-game, the 4-core design may struggle to maintain consistent performance when the GPU is not the bottleneck. The conclusion from the data is that the CPU is adequate for the GPU at 1080p, but at higher resolutions where the GPU is fully loaded, the CPU has ample headroom, meaning the combo's performance is ultimately dictated by the Radeon RX 6600 XT.