Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator — Intel Core i5-10400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080

This combo pairing a 6-core/12-thread Comet Lake CPU with an Ampere flagship GPU produces a wide spread of frame rates in Microsoft Flight Simulator, ranging from 53.3 FPS at 4K Ultra to 132.8 FPS at 1080p Low. The data shows a system that is consistently playable across all tested settings, with the GPU becoming the primary constraint at higher resolutions while the CPU holds up adequately at 1080p.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo if I want to stay above 60 FPS on Ultra settings?

A: At 2560x1440 Ultra, the combo delivers 68.2 FPS, which is the only Ultra preset above the 60 FPS threshold. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average drops to 53.3 FPS, and at 1920x1080 Ultra it reaches 85.3 FPS.

Q: How much performance does dropping from Ultra to Low settings gain at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, moving from Ultra (53.3 FPS) to Low (90.2 FPS) yields a 36.9 FPS improvement, representing a 69% increase in average frame rate.

Q: Does the RTX 3080's 10 GB VRAM appear sufficient for this game's demands?

A: The benchmark data shows no resolution or settings combination producing unplayable results, with the lowest average being 53.3 FPS at 4K Ultra. The 10 GB GDDR6X memory and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth appear adequate for all tested configurations.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: The combo ranks 606th out of 1795 total tested combinations, placing it in the upper third of all systems evaluated for this game.

Q: Which settings preset offers the largest single-step FPS jump at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, moving from High (75.5 FPS) to Medium (99.6 FPS) provides a 24.1 FPS increase, which is the largest gain between consecutive presets at that resolution.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at any resolution?

A: The data suggests the CPU becomes less of a limiting factor as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 132.8 FPS, while at 4K Ultra it drops to 53.3 FPS — a pattern consistent with GPU-bound scaling at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is built on the Ampere architecture with 8704 shading units, 272 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units. Its boost clock of 1710 MHz drives a peak FP32 throughput of 29.77 TFLOPS, with the pixel rate measured at 164.2 GPixel/s and texture rate at 465.1 GTexel/s. The 10 GB GDDR6X memory operates across a 320-bit bus, delivering 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU’s role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution climbs. At 3840x2160, the frame rate spread between Low (90.2 FPS) and Ultra (53.3 FPS) is 36.9 FPS, indicating that rendering load scales heavily with both resolution and visual complexity. The 68 ray tracing cores and 272 tensor cores are present in the architecture, though the flight simulator’s workload appears to rely primarily on traditional rasterization given the frame rate patterns observed.

The GPU’s average benchmark score of 35787 places it at the 80th percentile of all GPUs, with its nearest rival being the AMD Radeon Pro Duo at a 0.2% higher average score. The data shows the RTX 3080 handling even the most demanding preset at 4K with a playable average of 53.3 FPS, suggesting that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and compute resources are well-matched to this title’s demands.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F provides 6 cores and 12 threads with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its 12 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory interface with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth support the GPU’s data throughput needs. The CPU scores 10297 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1453 in single-core, with a 3DMark max-thread score of 4735.

In this game, the CPU’s impact is most visible at lower resolutions where frame rates are higher. At 1920x1080 Low, the system produces 132.8 FPS, which is 42.6 FPS higher than at 2560x1440 Low (121.8 FPS) and 42.6 FPS higher than at 4K Low (90.2 FPS). This pattern suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is better able to feed the GPU, while at 4K the GPU becomes the primary constraint.

The processor’s 73rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14168, places it near the AMD EPYC 7552 (0.4% higher) and AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (0.8% higher). The 12 threads provide adequate parallelism for the flight simulator’s simulation and rendering threads, but the data does not indicate a CPU bottleneck at any tested resolution, as frame rates scale consistently with GPU load.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 achieves a rank of 606 out of 1795 tested combinations, placing it in the 66th percentile of all systems evaluated for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This ranking reflects a balanced pairing where neither component appears to severely limit the other across the tested settings range.

The CPU’s position among rivals — within 1.2% of the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C, Intel Core i5-8500, and AMD Ryzen Embedded V2546 — suggests that the processor’s contribution to the combo’s rank is consistent with mid-range desktop offerings. Meanwhile, the GPU’s 80th percentile standing, with rivals like the AMD Radeon 880M (0.4% lower score) and AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (0.9% higher), indicates that the graphics card is the stronger component in this pairing.

The ranking data shows that while this combo doesn’t reach the top tier of configurations, it sits comfortably above the median. The gap between the 606th rank and the top of the list is substantial, but the measured frame rates demonstrate that this system can handle the game’s most demanding presets at playable levels, making the rank reflective of competitive but not elite performance.

Settings Recommendations

For users targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the data supports different settings choices depending on resolution. At 1920x1080, all four presets exceed 60 FPS, with Ultra delivering 85.3 FPS and Low reaching 132.8 FPS. This makes 1080p the most flexible resolution, allowing users to prioritize visual quality without sacrificing smoothness.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset delivers 68.2 FPS, which is the highest quality setting that remains above 60 FPS. The High preset at 75.5 FPS offers a small performance buffer, while Medium at 99.6 FPS and Low at 121.8 FPS provide increasingly comfortable margins. For 4K, the High preset at 55.3 FPS is close to the 60 FPS target but falls short, while Medium at 71.5 FPS provides a safer experience. The Low preset at 90.2 FPS is the smoothest 4K option.

The optimal balance between visual fidelity and performance appears to be Medium or High settings at 1440p, where the combo delivers 99.6 or 75.5 FPS respectively. These settings provide substantial headroom above 60 FPS while maintaining higher visual quality than Low.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured average frame rates are 53.3 FPS for Ultra, 55.3 FPS for High, 71.5 FPS for Medium, and 90.2 FPS for Low. The step from Medium to High costs 16.2 FPS, while the step from High to Ultra costs only 2.0 FPS, indicating diminishing returns at the highest settings.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are 68.2 FPS for Ultra, 75.5 FPS for High, 99.6 FPS for Medium, and 121.8 FPS for Low. The gap between Ultra and High is 7.3 FPS, while the jump from High to Medium is 24.1 FPS — the largest single-step improvement at this resolution.

At 1920x1080, the system produces 85.3 FPS on Ultra, 93.2 FPS on High, 122.4 FPS on Medium, and 132.8 FPS on Low. The difference between Low and Medium is 10.4 FPS, while High to Ultra costs only 7.9 FPS. The 1080p Low result of 132.8 FPS is the highest frame rate measured across all configurations, while the 4K Ultra result of 53.3 FPS is the lowest.

Across all resolutions, the scaling from Low to Ultra follows a consistent pattern: the largest performance drop occurs between Low and Medium, with progressively smaller penalties for each subsequent settings tier. This suggests that the Medium preset captures most of the visual improvements with a relatively modest frame rate cost, making it a strong default choice for this combination.