Microsoft Flight Simulator

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER delivers a robust, high-refresh-rate experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, though the data reveals a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution climbs. At 1080p, the combination is overwhelmingly CPU-limited, while at 4K, the GPU becomes the primary constraint, with the measured frames per second reflecting this transition across all four quality presets.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a pronounced scaling curve from 1080p to 4K, with the steepest drop occurring between 1440p and 2160p. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate falls from 103.3 FPS at 1920x1080 to 83.0 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 20.3 FPS, and then further to 59.5 FPS at 3840x2160, marking a cumulative decline of 43.8 FPS from the 1080p baseline. This pattern indicates that the RTX 4070 SUPER’s rendering load grows disproportionately with pixel count, while the i5-10400F’s six cores and twelve threads are able to keep feeding frames adequately at the lower resolutions.

The Low preset exhibits the smallest relative drop across resolutions, moving from 133.3 FPS at 1080p to 124.2 FPS at 1440p and then to 103.4 FPS at 4K. This smaller delta suggests that at Low settings, the CPU is the limiting factor even at 4K, as the reduced graphical workload does not saturate the GPU’s capabilities. Conversely, the High preset shows a steeper decline, with 107.0 FPS at 1080p dropping to 87.2 FPS at 1440p and 61.8 FPS at 4K, indicating that the GPU begins to throttle performance more aggressively as the shader and texture demands increase.

The Medium preset sits between these extremes, delivering 120.8 FPS at 1080p, 115.6 FPS at 1440p, and 83.7 FPS at 4K. The 4K Medium result is notably higher than the 4K High figure, which suggests that the transition from Medium to High incurs a substantial rendering cost—likely related to shadow quality, volumetric clouds, and anisotropic filtering—that the RTX 4070 SUPER must process. The overall scaling behavior confirms that for this title, 1440p represents a sweet spot where the CPU and GPU are more evenly balanced, while 4K requires dropping to Medium or Low to maintain frame rates above 60 FPS.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 SUPER’s specifications are well-suited to the demands of Microsoft Flight Simulator, which relies heavily on memory bandwidth and raw shader throughput for terrain rendering and weather simulation. The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s, which is sufficient for the high-resolution textures and streaming geometry that the game employs. The Ada Lovelace architecture’s 7168 shading units and 224 texture mapping units provide the computational headroom needed to handle the game’s complex lighting and atmospheric effects, as evidenced by the 4K Ultra result of 59.5 FPS, which remains playable despite the demanding workload.

The GPU’s boost clock of 2475 MHz, with a base clock of 1980 MHz, contributes to its strong performance in this title. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p, the GPU is not fully utilized, as the CPU’s single-thread performance—evidenced by a 3DMark single-thread score of 688 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1453—becomes the bottleneck, capping frame rates around 133 FPS even on the Low preset. At 4K, however, the GPU’s pixel rate of 198.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 554.4 GTexel/s are pushed to their limits, with the Ultra preset yielding 59.5 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS threshold.

The GPU’s 56 RT cores and 224 tensor cores are not directly benchmarked in the measured FPS data for this game, but their presence indicates that the card is prepared for future updates that may add ray-traced shadows or reflections. The 80 ROPs are sufficient for the fill-rate requirements at 4K, though the data shows that High settings at 4K (61.8 FPS) are only marginally better than Ultra (59.5 FPS), implying that the most demanding settings are nearly saturating the render output units. Overall, the GPU role is clear: it dominates performance at 4K and provides ample headroom at 1080p, where the i5-10400F is the limiting component.

How This Combo Ranks

In the comprehensive database of tested combinations, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER achieves a combo rank of 402 out of 1795 tested combos, placing it in the top 22.4 percent of all systems evaluated for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This ranking reflects the balance between the CPU’s moderate multi-threaded performance—with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 10297 and a PassMark multithread score of 12115—and the GPU’s high-end capabilities, as indicated by its PassMark G3D score of 29995 and average benchmark score of 42576.

The CPU’s percentile ranking of 73 against all CPUs, combined with the GPU’s percentile ranking of 84 against all GPUs, suggests that the system is well-matched for this simulation title, where the CPU’s 12 threads are adequate for the game’s physics and AI computations, while the GPU handles the heavy graphical lifting. The nearest rival CPUs, such as the AMD EPYC 7552 (with an average score of 14115, a delta of 0.4 percent) and the Intel Core i5-8500 (with an average score of 14332, a delta of -1.1 percent), show that the i5-10400F is positioned in a competitive mid-range tier, with no significant performance gap to its immediate competitors.

The GPU’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX A6000 (with an average score of 42653, a delta of -0.2 percent) and the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE (with an average score of 42723, a delta of -0.3 percent), indicating that the RTX 4070 SUPER is closely matched with professional-grade and newer consumer cards. This ranking data suggests that while the combo is not at the very top tier, it sits comfortably above the median, and the measured FPS results confirm that it delivers playable frame rates at all tested resolutions, with the 4K Ultra result of 59.5 FPS being the only sub-60 FPS outcome.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain 60+ FPS on High settings?

A: The data shows that at 2560x1440 with High settings, the combo achieves an average of 87.2 FPS, while at 3840x2160 with High settings, it drops to 61.8 FPS. Therefore, 1440p is the recommended resolution for a comfortable margin above 60 FPS on High.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K on Ultra settings?

A: The average frame rate falls from 103.3 FPS at 1920x1080 to 59.5 FPS at 3840x2160 on Ultra, representing a reduction of 43.8 FPS, or roughly 42.4 percent of the 1080p performance.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K Low settings?

A: At 4K Low, the combo achieves 103.4 FPS, which is close to the 1080p Low result of 133.3 FPS. This relatively small drop indicates that the CPU’s single-thread performance is the primary constraint, as the GPU is not fully taxed by the low graphical workload.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems in this game?

A: It ranks 402 out of 1795 tested combos, placing it in the top 22.4 percent of all systems. The CPU’s percentile of 73 and the GPU’s percentile of 84 support this position.

Q: What is the average FPS difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Medium preset yields 115.6 FPS, while High yields 87.2 FPS, a difference of 28.4 FPS in favor of Medium.

Q: Does the 12 GB VRAM capacity of the RTX 4070 SUPER appear sufficient for 4K gameplay?

A: Based on the measured FPS results, which show playable frame rates at 4K across all presets (from 59.5 FPS on Ultra to 103.4 FPS on Low), the 12 GB memory allocation is not causing the GPU to fail, as the frame rates are consistent with the expected rendering load.

Settings Recommendations

For the best balance between visual fidelity and frame rate, the data suggests that High settings at 2560x1440 are the optimal choice, delivering 87.2 FPS with a substantial improvement in image quality over Medium. At this resolution, the combo provides a smooth experience that exceeds the 60 FPS threshold by a comfortable margin, and the drop to Ultra (83.0 FPS) is small enough to be acceptable for users who prioritize maximum detail. The 1440p High setting is the sweet spot, as it avoids the CPU bottleneck seen at 1080p while not overburdening the GPU as severely as 4K.

For users with 1080p displays, the Ultra preset is the recommended choice, as it achieves 103.3 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most monitors. The jump from High (107.0 FPS) to Ultra (103.3 FPS) at 1080p costs only 3.7 FPS, making Ultra a free upgrade in practical terms. At 4K, the Medium preset is the best compromise, offering 83.7 FPS, which is significantly smoother than the High preset’s 61.8 FPS and the Ultra preset’s 59.5 FPS, while still providing a noticeably better visual experience than Low (103.4 FPS). Users who prioritize frame rate above all else should select Low at 4K, but the Medium preset is recommended for the best experience, as it maintains a high frame rate while retaining acceptable graphical quality for a flight simulator.