Microsoft Flight Simulator

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 places at rank 302 out of 1795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This position places the pairing comfortably within the top 17% of all configurations tested, indicating a strong overall capability for this specific title. The ranking reflects the combined output of the CPU and GPU working together, and given the game's demanding nature, achieving a top-quartile result suggests the system is well-balanced for the workload presented by the flight simulator.

The CPU itself holds a percentile rank of 73 among all processors, while the GPU sits at the 89th percentile among all graphics cards. The disparity between these two percentile positions is notable; the GPU is a more exceptional performer relative to its peers than the CPU. In the context of this game's ranking, the combination still manages to secure a high position, which implies that the RTX 5080 is able to compensate for the more modest standing of the Core i5-10400F. The data suggests that, for this specific title, the overall combo rank is driven more heavily by the GPU's strength than by the CPU's relative performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture and features 10752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units. The card operates with a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2617 MHz, providing substantial compute throughput for rendering the complex scenery and weather systems in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The GPU's memory subsystem includes 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s. This high bandwidth and large memory capacity are critical for streaming the vast amounts of terrain and texture data that the game loads as the player flies over different regions.

The RTX 5080's FP32 performance is rated at 56.28 TFLOPS, which is the primary metric for the raw shading power used in traditional rasterization. The card also includes 84 RT cores and 336 tensor cores, which are available for ray-traced effects and AI-driven features. In the measured benchmarks, the GPU achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8637 and a Passmark G3D score of 36565. Its average benchmark score is 59188, placing it at the 89th percentile. When compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 5080 is 1.6% ahead of the Intel Arc A570M but 1.9% behind the Intel Arc Pro A60, showing that it sits in a tight competitive cluster in synthetic tests. For this game, the GPU's ability to handle high-resolution textures and maintain frame rates at high settings is directly reflected in the measured FPS data.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F provides six cores and twelve threads, based on the Comet Lake architecture on a 14 nm process node. It operates with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with a 12 MB shared L3 cache. The processor supports DDR4 memory in a dual-channel configuration with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. While this is an older platform, the data shows it remains competitive in synthetic benchmarks, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 10297 and a single-core score of 1453. Its Passmark multi-thread score is 12115, and its average benchmark score is 14168.

In terms of its competitive standing, the Core i5-10400F's average score places it just 0.4% above the AMD EPYC 7552 and 0.8% below the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C. It is also 1.1% below the Intel Core i5-8500. This indicates that the CPU's raw processing power is in line with several other mainstream and server-class options, though it is not a standout performer in pure compute tests. For Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU is responsible for physics calculations, flight model updates, and AI traffic management. The six-core, twelve-thread configuration provides enough parallelism to handle these tasks, but the data indicates that it may become a limiting factor in scenarios with heavy CPU loads. The boost clock of 4.30 GHz helps ensure that single-threaded performance remains adequate for the game's primary simulation loop.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how this combination performs across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested, the average frame rates range from 132 FPS at Low settings to 109 FPS at Ultra settings. The Medium preset yields 121.3 FPS, and the High preset yields 110.3 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 23 FPS, showing that the game's settings have a moderate impact on performance at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the average frame rates decrease slightly but remain robust. At Low settings, the combo achieves 122.5 FPS, which drops to 114.8 FPS at Medium, 103.1 FPS at High, and 96.7 FPS at Ultra. The difference between the lowest and highest settings is 25.8 FPS. At 3840x2160, the highest resolution tested, the frame rates show a more pronounced drop at higher settings. Low settings produce 110.4 FPS, Medium produces 101.2 FPS, High produces 73.4 FPS, and Ultra produces 71.2 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 39.2 FPS, indicating a heavier load on the GPU at this resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a clear pattern in how frame rates scale with resolution. When moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS drops from 110.3 to 103.1, a decrease of approximately 6.5%. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 109 FPS to 96.7 FPS, a decrease of 11.3%. This relatively small reduction suggests that the system is not entirely GPU-bound at 1440p, as the frame rates remain high.

The transition from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 is more dramatic. At High settings, the frame rate falls from 103.1 FPS to 73.4 FPS, a reduction of 28.8%. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 96.7 FPS to 71.2 FPS, a 26.4% decrease. This significant drop indicates that the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor at 4K resolution, as the increased pixel count demands more from the RTX 5080's shading units and memory bandwidth. The scaling from Low settings at 1080p (132 FPS) to Low settings at 4K (110.4 FPS) shows a 16.4% decrease, which is smaller than the decreases at higher settings. This suggests that at lower settings, the CPU is able to keep up with the GPU, but at higher settings, the GPU's workload increases disproportionately.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers 109 FPS, which is only slightly lower than the High preset's 110.3 FPS. Given the small performance difference, the Ultra preset provides a better visual experience without a significant frame rate penalty. The Low preset offers the highest frame rate at 132 FPS, but the visual quality trade-off is substantial for only a 21 FPS gain over Ultra.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset maintains a playable 96.7 FPS, while the High preset achieves 103.1 FPS. The difference of 6.4 FPS may be worth the visual improvements of Ultra for users with high refresh rate monitors, but High is a safer choice for ensuring a consistent frame rate above 100. The Medium preset at 114.8 FPS is also a strong option for users who prefer smoother motion over maximum visual fidelity.

At 3840x2160, the High preset produces 73.4 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The Ultra preset drops to 71.2 FPS, a marginal decrease of 2.2 FPS that may not be noticeable in practice. However, the Low preset at 110.4 FPS offers a much higher frame rate, which could be preferable for simulation enthusiasts who prioritize fluidity over graphical details. The Medium preset at 101.2 FPS provides a balanced approach for 4K, delivering high frame rates while retaining some visual enhancements. For the best overall experience at 4K, the Medium preset appears to be the most sensible choice, as it offers a significant frame rate advantage over High and Ultra while still providing a richer visual experience than Low.