Microsoft Flight Simulator

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER delivers a robust experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with measured data indicating that the configuration ranks in the 78th percentile (394 out of 1795 tested combos). The benchmark results show a consistent pattern across resolutions and presets, with the pairing exhibiting a strong preference for graphical fidelity at lower resolutions while maintaining playable frame rates at 4K. The following analysis breaks down the optimal settings, the role of the GPU, and the scaling characteristics of this specific hardware combination.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the High preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, High produces an average of 111.4 FPS, which is only 4.0 FPS below the Ultra preset’s 107.1 FPS but provides a significant uplift over Medium’s 122.3 FPS. This makes High the sweet spot for 1080p, as it avoids the diminishing returns of Ultra while maintaining a substantial frame rate advantage over the lower presets.

For 2560x1440, the High preset again emerges as the recommended choice, delivering 92.4 FPS. This is notably superior to Ultra’s 86.5 FPS, a 5.9 FPS difference, while remaining comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth simulation gameplay. The Medium preset at 112.3 FPS is available, but the visual quality degradation is not justified by the performance gain when High already exceeds the typical monitor refresh rate.

At 3840x2160, the High preset yields 68.3 FPS, which is the highest setting that maintains a frame rate above 60 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to 60.8 FPS, which is technically playable but leaves no headroom for complex scenery or weather effects. The data suggests that High is the optimal preset for 4K, as it provides a 7.5 FPS buffer over Ultra while still delivering the enhanced visual detail that the simulator is known for.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 672.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is particularly relevant for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is known for streaming large textures and terrain data. The GPU’s 44.10 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power and 66 RT cores support the simulator’s DirectX 12 Ultimate rendering path, which can leverage hardware-accelerated ray tracing for certain effects.

The GPU’s boost clock of 2610 MHz and base clock of 2340 MHz are the primary drivers of the performance differences between presets. The data shows that as the settings move from Low to Ultra, the frame rate drops consistently across all resolutions, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher quality levels. For instance, at 1080p, the transition from Low (133.6 FPS) to Ultra (107.1 FPS) represents a 26.5 FPS decrease, which is a 19.8% reduction.

The 16 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the Ultra preset at 4K, as no out-of-memory stutters are indicated in the measured data. The GPU’s percentile ranking of 86 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48704, places it in the upper tier of hardware, although its nearest rivals show close scores (e.g., NVIDIA CMP 50HX at 49071, a -0.7% delta), suggesting that the 4070 Ti SUPER is near the top of its performance class but not the absolute fastest.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 394 out of 1795 total combinations places this system in the top 22% of all tested configurations. This is a strong result, but the rank is heavily influenced by the CPU’s performance. The Intel Core i5-10400F has a percentile ranking of 73 against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14168. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115, +0.4%), AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (14277, -0.8%), and Intel Core i5-8500 (14332, -1.1%), indicating that the CPU is a mid-range performer.

The GPU’s percentile ranking of 86 is notably higher than the CPU’s 73, suggesting that the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is the stronger component in this pairing. This imbalance is reflected in the game’s frame rates, where the GPU’s power is not fully utilized at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads may become a bottleneck, as evidenced by the relatively small FPS difference between Medium (122.3) and Ultra (107.1) compared to the larger gap seen at higher resolutions.

The CPU’s 3DMark scores provide context: a single-thread score of 688 and a max-thread score of 4735. These figures suggest that while the CPU can handle the simulator’s primary thread, it may struggle to feed the GPU at higher frame rates. The data shows that at 1080p, the FPS ceiling appears to be around 133.6 FPS (Low preset), which is likely near the CPU’s limit for this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low 133.6, Medium 122.3, High 111.4, and Ultra 107.1. The spread from Low to Ultra is 26.5 FPS, with the largest single-step drop occurring between Low and Medium (11.3 FPS). The High to Ultra transition is the smallest, at 4.3 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset offers marginal gains over High in this resolution.

For 2560x1440, the FPS values are: Low 123.1, Medium 112.3, High 92.4, and Ultra 86.5. The drop from Medium to High is substantial at 19.9 FPS, which is the largest single-step decrease across all resolutions. This suggests that the High preset at 1440p introduces a significant graphical workload increase, likely from higher-quality textures and shadow rendering.

At 3840x2160, the FPS values are: Low 110.4, Medium 85.8, High 68.3, and Ultra 60.8. The total spread is 49.6 FPS, which is nearly double the 1080p spread. The Medium to High drop is 17.5 FPS, and the High to Ultra drop is 7.5 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration tested that drops below 61 FPS, indicating that this is the absolute limit of the hardware’s capability.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a clear pattern of FPS scaling as resolution increases. At the Low preset, the FPS drops from 133.6 at 1080p to 123.1 at 1440p (a 10.5 FPS decrease) and then to 110.4 at 4K (a further 12.7 FPS decrease). This represents a total 17.4% reduction from 1080p to 4K, which is relatively modest and indicates that the GPU has ample headroom at Low settings.

The High preset shows a more dramatic scaling curve: 111.4 FPS at 1080p, 92.4 at 1440p, and 68.3 at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 24.1 FPS, which is significantly larger than the 19.0 FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p. This accelerating decline suggests that the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor as resolution increases, with the 4K resolution requiring nearly twice the pixel fill rate of 1440p.

The Ultra preset exhibits the steepest scaling: 107.1 FPS at 1080p, 86.5 at 1440p, and 60.8 at 4K. The total drop of 46.3 FPS (43.2%) from 1080p to 4K is the largest of any preset. This pattern indicates that at Ultra settings, the system is heavily GPU-bound at 4K, with the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER’s 250.6 GPixel/s pixel rate being the limiting factor.

The data also shows that the CPU’s influence diminishes at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 26.5 FPS, but at 4K this difference grows to 49.6 FPS. This widening gap confirms that the GPU becomes the dominant bottleneck as resolution increases, while at 1080p the CPU’s single-thread performance (688 in 3DMark) constrains the maximum achievable frame rate.