Microsoft Flight Simulator

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER ranks 3,143rd out of 3,714 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. That places this combo in the bottom 15% of all tested systems, reflecting a hardware pairing that is clearly oriented toward 1080p playability rather than high-resolution or high-fidelity simulation work. The ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU's position in the broader hardware landscape: the GTX 1660 SUPER sits at the 53rd percentile among all GPUs, while the i5-10400F lands at the 68th percentile among all CPUs. The CPU is comparatively stronger, but in a flight sim that is notoriously demanding on both subsystems, the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

Benchmark results indicate a system that can deliver smooth frame rates at 1080p with moderate settings, but struggles to maintain playable performance as resolution climbs. At 4K Ultra, the combo averages just 26 FPS, which is below the threshold for comfortable gameplay. The data shows a clear pattern: the i5-10400F provides enough processing headroom to avoid becoming the primary bottleneck at lower resolutions, but the GTX 1660 SUPER's 6 GB of VRAM and its overall compute capacity cap performance well before the CPU's potential is fully utilized.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the GTX 1660 SUPER's average benchmark score of 12,986 places it just 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile and 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 580, while trailing the NVIDIA Tesla M2090 by 0.7%. This tight clustering means that in practical terms, the GPU is competitive with a range of mid-range options from both the previous and current generation, but none of these rivals would fundamentally change the 4K or even 1440p Ultra experience in a simulation as heavy as Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The CPU side shows similar clustering. The i5-10400F's average benchmark score of 14,185 is 0.2% ahead of the Intel Xeon 6756E, 0.5% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7552, and 0.3% behind the Intel Core 7 160UL. These are negligible differences that would not translate into meaningful FPS variation in game. The data suggests that the combo's rank is driven more by the GPU's limitations than by any CPU deficiency.

Settings Recommendations

For users seeking the best balance between visual quality and frame rate, the measured FPS data offers clear guidance. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers an average of 60 FPS with a minimum of 51 FPS and a maximum of 69 FPS. This is the sweet spot: it maintains a consistent 60 FPS average, which is generally considered the baseline for smooth gameplay, while still providing a meaningful upgrade over the Low preset's 78 FPS average in terms of visual fidelity. The High preset at 1080p drops to 45 FPS average, which is playable but introduces more noticeable frame pacing issues in a simulation where smoothness matters for immersion. Ultra at 1080p averages 43 FPS, barely better than High and not worth the additional graphical load.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset averages 49 FPS with a minimum of 41 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS. This is marginally playable but will feel less fluid than the 1080p Medium experience. The Low preset at 1440p averages 63 FPS, which is smooth, but the visual compromise is significant for a game that relies heavily on scenery detail and cockpit readability. High at 1440p averages 37 FPS, and Ultra drops to 35 FPS — both are below the 40 FPS threshold that most simulation enthusiasts would consider acceptable for sustained flight.

At 3840x2160, the picture is far less encouraging. The Low preset averages 46 FPS, which is the only 4K option that approaches playability. Medium averages 36 FPS, High averages 27 FPS, and Ultra averages 26 FPS. The data indicates that 4K is only viable with the Low preset, and even then, the experience is marginal. Most users with this hardware pairing would be better served by sticking to 1080p or 1440p with Medium settings rather than chasing 4K at reduced quality.

The measured rows also show that the Medium preset consistently provides the most complete dataset, with min and max FPS values recorded at every resolution. This suggests that Medium is the most stable configuration for this combo, with less variance between frames compared to other presets.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Microsoft Flight Simulator at 4K?

A: At 4K, only the Low preset averages above 40 FPS, hitting 46 FPS. Medium averages 36 FPS, High averages 27 FPS, and Ultra averages 26 FPS. The minimum FPS data is only available for Medium at 4K, where it drops to 31 FPS, indicating noticeable stutter during complex scenes.

Q: What is the best resolution for this hardware pairing?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 with the Medium preset delivers 60 FPS average with a minimum of 51 FPS, making it the only configuration that consistently holds a 60 FPS average. At 1440p, Medium averages 49 FPS, and at 4K, even Low only averages 46 FPS.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 SUPER compare to its closest rivals in this game?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score is 12,986, placing it 0.4% ahead of the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile and the RX 580, and 0.7% behind the Tesla M2090. These differences are small enough that in-game performance would be nearly identical across these cards.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-10400F a bottleneck for the GTX 1660 SUPER in this game?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 14,185 places it at the 68th percentile, well above the GPU's 53rd percentile. At lower resolutions like 1080p, the GPU is the limiting factor. At higher resolutions, the GPU becomes even more dominant as the bottleneck.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low averages 78 FPS while Ultra averages 43 FPS. The difference of 35 FPS represents a substantial trade-off between visual quality and smoothness, with Medium at 60 FPS offering the middle ground.

Q: Does the combo have enough VRAM for this game?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 192-bit bus and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth. The measured results show that at Ultra settings across all resolutions, performance drops significantly, suggesting that the VRAM capacity and bandwidth are stretched by the game's high-resolution textures.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings was tested. The Low preset delivers the highest average at 78 FPS, followed by Medium at 60 FPS with a minimum of 51 FPS and a maximum of 69 FPS. High averages 45 FPS, and Ultra averages 43 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 18 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 15 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra is only 2 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset imposes a heavy graphical cost for minimal frame rate impact at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 63 FPS, Medium averages 49 FPS with a minimum of 41 FPS and a maximum of 56 FPS, High averages 37 FPS, and Ultra averages 35 FPS. The pattern here shows a more linear decline from Low to High, with a smaller drop from High to Ultra. The Medium preset's minimum of 41 FPS is close to the 40 FPS threshold often cited as the minimum for smooth simulation gameplay, making 1440p Medium a borderline recommendation.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 46 FPS, Medium averages 36 FPS with a minimum of 31 FPS and a maximum of 41 FPS, High averages 27 FPS, and Ultra averages 26 FPS. The 4K results show a dramatic degradation in performance. The difference between Low and Medium is 10 FPS, while the difference between High and Ultra is just 1 FPS. The minimum FPS of 31 FPS at Medium 4K indicates that even the mid-range settings can produce stutter during demanding flight phases.

Looking at the scaling across resolutions, the data shows that moving from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings costs 11 FPS (from 60 to 49), and moving from 1440p to 4K at Medium costs another 13 FPS (from 49 to 36). This represents a total loss of 24 FPS when moving from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings, which is a significant degradation that underscores the GPU's limitations at higher pixel counts.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture using the TU116 chip, manufactured on a 12 nm process at TSMC. The GPU has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The core clock runs at 1530 MHz base and 1785 MHz boost, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The GPU features 1,408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 render output units, delivering a pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 5.027 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 10.05 TFLOPS.

The GPU's average benchmark score is 12,986, placing it at the 53rd percentile among all GPUs. This mid-range positioning is reflected in the measured FPS data. The 6 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but the 4K results suggest that the memory bus and bandwidth become limiting factors at higher resolutions. The 192-bit bus and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for the game's texture streaming at 1080p, but the data shows that at 4K Ultra, the GPU can only manage 26 FPS, indicating that both memory bandwidth and compute capacity are stretched thin.

The GTX 1660 SUPER's transistor count of 6,600 million on a 284 mm² die gives it a transistor density of 23.2M per mm². The GPU supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which covers the API requirements of Microsoft Flight Simulator. The 125 W TDP and dual-slot design with a single 8-pin power connector suggest that the card is relatively power-efficient for its performance class, though the suggested PSU of 300 W indicates that it does not require an excessive power supply.

The measured data shows that the GPU's performance scales poorly with resolution increases. At Medium settings, the FPS drops from 60 at 1080p to 49 at 1440p to 36 at 4K. This represents a 20% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 27% drop from 1440p to 4K, indicating that the GPU's memory bandwidth is a significant constraint as pixel count increases.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process. The CPU has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. It features 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 256 KB of L2 cache per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. The memory support is DDR4 with dual-channel configuration, providing 42.7 GB/s of bandwidth. The CPU uses the Intel Socket 1200 and supports PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes.

The CPU's average benchmark score is 14,185, placing it at the 68th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Xeon 6756E, scores 14,163 (0.2% behind), while the Intel Core 7 160UL scores 14,232 (0.3% ahead). In multi-threaded workloads, the CPU scores 4,748 in 3DMark 16-thread tests and 4,735 in max-thread tests, while single-thread performance reaches 688 in 3DMark single-thread tests. Cinebench R23 multicore score is 10,283, and single-core is 1,451.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle the simulation's complex physics, AI traffic, and scenery generation. The 6-core, 12-thread configuration is adequate for these tasks, and the boost clock of 4.30 GHz provides solid single-threaded performance, which is important for the game's main simulation thread. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 78 FPS, which suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at lower settings. However, as resolution increases, the GPU becomes increasingly limiting, and the CPU's performance advantage over the GPU becomes less relevant.

The CPU's 12 MB of L3 cache is shared across all cores, which helps with the game's data-heavy workloads. The dual-channel DDR4 memory with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for the game's memory requirements, though it is not exceptional. The CPU's percentile ranking of 68% indicates that it is a solid mid-range processor, capable of feeding the GTX 1660 SUPER adequately at 1080p but not providing enough headroom for higher resolutions where the GPU is already the limiting factor.