Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator with Intel Core i5-11400F + Intel Arc B580

This combination pairs Intel's 11th-generation 6-core/12-thread Rocket Lake processor with Intel's Battlemage-based Arc B580 graphics card, producing a system that lands at rank 2788 out of 3714 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets reveal a configuration that handles the simulator's demanding rendering workloads with moderate success, though users seeking high-refresh-rate experiences will need to make deliberate settings choices. The data indicates this pairing sits in the 75th percentile of tested configurations, with both components showing benchmark scores that place them near mid-pack performers in their respective categories.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data points to Medium settings as the optimal balance point for this combination across all three resolutions tested. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 76 FPS average with a minimum of 64 FPS and maximum of 87 FPS, which represents a substantial 19 FPS improvement over High settings while remaining well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay in a flight simulator context. The Medium preset also provides the only complete min/max FPS data in the entire measured set, indicating more consistent frame delivery compared to other presets.

At 2560x1440, Medium maintains 61 FPS average with 52 FPS minimum and 70 FPS maximum, keeping the experience playable while High drops to 46 FPS average and Ultra falls to 44 FPS. The 4K resolution at Medium produces 45 FPS average with 38 FPS minimum and 52 FPS maximum, which remains playable for a flight simulator where precise control input matters more than twitch-response timing. The Low preset at 1080p achieves 97 FPS but sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a game where terrain detail and cockpit readability directly impact the experience.

Ultra settings prove demanding across all resolutions, with 1080p yielding 54 FPS, 1440p producing 44 FPS, and 4K dropping to 32 FPS. These numbers suggest Ultra is only viable at 1080p for users who prioritize maximum visual quality over frame rate stability. High settings offer a reasonable middle ground at 1080p with 57 FPS, but the jump to Medium's 76 FPS represents a 33% improvement that most users would find worthwhile. For users with 1440p displays, Medium at 61 FPS provides the best combination of visual quality and performance, while 4K users should accept Medium as the practical ceiling for this configuration.

FAQ

Q: How does this CPU+GPU combination perform at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured data shows 54 FPS average at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, which is below the 60 FPS threshold but represents the highest quality preset that remains playable at this resolution.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combination to achieve 60+ FPS?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the combination achieves 76 FPS average with a 64 FPS minimum, while 2560x1440 with Medium produces 61 FPS average with a 52 FPS minimum. Only the 1080p Medium preset guarantees 60+ FPS throughout the measured range.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B580 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Arc B580's average benchmark score of 23021 places it within 0.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (23172) and 0.6% ahead of the RTX 2080 (22895). It trails the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP by 0.2% and the NVIDIA P106-100 by 1%.

Q: What CPU benchmark scores indicate about this processor's multi-threaded capability?

A: The Core i5-11400F achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14340 and a 3DMark max-threads score of 5652, with a PassMark multithread score of 16908. These results place it near the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17120 average score, 0.3% delta) and Intel Core i5-12450H (17239, -0.4% delta).

Q: Is there a significant performance gap between Low and Ultra settings at 4K?

A: Yes, the data shows Low at 4K produces 58 FPS average while Ultra drops to 32 FPS, representing an 81% performance reduction from Low to Ultra. Medium at 45 FPS sits between these extremes with a 38 FPS minimum.

Q: How does the combination's overall ranking compare to other tested configurations?

A: This combo ranks 2788 out of 3714 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the lower 25% of all tested configurations despite individual component benchmarks showing mid-pack performance.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core i5-11400F and Intel Arc B580 achieves rank 2788 out of 3714 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the 25th percentile of all configurations evaluated. This ranking reflects the demanding nature of the simulator, which stresses both CPU and GPU heavily given its complex physics and rendering workloads. The CPU alone holds a 71st percentile ranking among all processors tested, while the GPU sits at the 68th percentile among all graphics cards, yet their combined performance in this specific title lands notably lower than either component's individual standing.

This discrepancy suggests Microsoft Flight Simulator's engine creates bottlenecks that neither component fully overcomes when paired together. The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7H12 with an average score of 17120 (0.3% delta), the Intel Core i5-12450H at 17239 (-0.4% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G at 17278 (-0.6% delta), indicating the 11400F performs consistently with comparable mid-range processors. The GPU's rival landscape shows the Arc B580 competing closely with the RTX 3080 (23172, -0.7% delta) and RTX 2080 (22895, 0.6% delta), despite the substantial generational gap between these NVIDIA parts.

The gap between component-level percentiles and the in-game ranking highlights how flight simulation workloads differ from synthetic benchmarks. While 3DMark and Cinebench scores suggest a capable mid-range system, the actual frame rates in Microsoft Flight Simulator at 4K Ultra (32 FPS) and even 1440p Ultra (44 FPS) indicate this title requires more headroom than this configuration provides for maximum-quality play. Users should interpret the 2788 rank as a warning that high-fidelity settings will strain this pairing, while medium presets remain the practical sweet spot.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS values span from 54 FPS at Ultra to 97 FPS at Low, with Medium achieving 76 FPS (64 min, 87 max) and High reaching 57 FPS. The progression shows a 43 FPS spread between the lowest and highest quality presets, representing a 79.6% performance increase from Ultra to Low. Medium provides the only complete frame time data at this resolution, indicating more stable performance than the other presets which only recorded average values.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages drop to 44 FPS at Ultra, 46 FPS at High, 61 FPS at Medium (52 min, 70 max), and 78 FPS at Low. The delta between Ultra and Low narrows slightly to 34 FPS (77.3% increase), suggesting the GPU becomes more of a limiting factor at higher resolutions. The Medium preset maintains its position as the most complete dataset with full min/max information, showing a 18 FPS range between minimum and maximum frame times.

At 3840x2160, the averages fall to 32 FPS at Ultra, 34 FPS at High, 45 FPS at Medium (38 min, 52 max), and 58 FPS at Low. The spread between Low and Ultra grows to 26 FPS (81.3% increase), and all presets except Medium recorded only average values without min/max data. The 4K results show this configuration struggles to maintain even 60 FPS at Low settings, with Medium providing the only viable path to playable frame rates at this resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals a predictable decline as resolution increases, but the rate of decline varies meaningfully by preset. From 1080p to 1440p, Medium settings drop from 76 FPS to 61 FPS, a 19.7% reduction, while the same resolution change at Low reduces performance from 97 FPS to 78 FPS, a 19.6% decline. High settings experience a 19.3% drop from 57 FPS to 46 FPS, and Ultra falls 18.5% from 54 FPS to 44 FPS. This consistent 18-20% penalty across all presets suggests the scaling from 1080p to 1440p is primarily resolution-bound rather than component-limited.

The transition from 1440p to 4K shows a different pattern. Medium drops from 61 FPS to 45 FPS, a 26.2% reduction, while Low falls from 78 FPS to 58 FPS, a 25.6% decline. High experiences a 26.1% drop from 46 FPS to 34 FPS, and Ultra falls 27.3% from 44 FPS to 32 FPS. The steeper penalty at 4K indicates the GPU's memory bandwidth and processing capacity become more significant constraints at this resolution, with the Arc B580's 456.0 GB/s bandwidth and 13.67 TFLOPS FP32 throughput struggling to maintain the same scaling efficiency.

The overall scaling from 1080p Low (97 FPS) to 4K Low (58 FPS) represents a 40.2% performance retention, while the same comparison at Ultra retains 59.3% of performance (54 FPS to 32 FPS). This pattern suggests the CPU maintains adequate frame delivery at lower resolutions, but the GPU's workload scaling at 4K creates the more pronounced frame rate collapse. The 12 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient across all tested configurations, as no memory-related anomalies appear in the data.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F provides 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process with a 276 mm² die size. Its base clock of 2.60 GHz boosts to 4.40 GHz, and the processor includes 12 MB of shared L3 cache alongside 512 KB L2 cache per core and 80 KB L1 cache per core. These specifications place it as a solid mid-range performer, with Cinebench R23 scores of 14340 multi-core and 2024 single-core indicating balanced throughput for both multi-threaded and lightly-threaded workloads.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role involves managing flight physics, AI traffic, and world streaming, which benefit from the 12 threads available. The 3DMark results show scaling from 1691 at 2 threads to 5652 at max threads, representing a 3.34x improvement that demonstrates reasonable multi-threading efficiency. However, the single-thread score of 868 in 3DMark suggests the 4.40 GHz boost clock provides adequate but not exceptional single-thread performance for the simulator's main simulation loop.

The CPU's PassMark scores reveal strengths in integer math (57624) and floating-point math (34127), while data compression (208472) and extended instructions (14976) show strong capabilities for the streaming and decompression tasks common in flight simulation. The processor's 65W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth align with mid-range expectations. At higher resolutions, the CPU appears less likely to bottleneck, as evidenced by the 4K frame rates remaining proportional to 1080p performance across most presets, suggesting the GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher pixel counts.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 represents Intel's Battlemage generation built on TSMC's 5 nm process with 19,600 million transistors on a 272 mm² die. The GPU operates at a 2670 MHz base and boost clock, with memory running at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective) across a 192-bit bus providing 456.0 GB/s bandwidth. The 12 GB GDDR6 VRAM capacity proves sufficient for Microsoft Flight Simulator's texture-heavy environments across all tested resolutions and presets.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, 80 ROPs, and 20 ray tracing cores, delivering 13.67 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 427.2 GTexel/s texture rate. These specifications place it near the NVIDIA RTX 2080 in average benchmark scores (23021 vs 22895, 0.6% delta) and within 0.7% of the RTX 3080 (23172), despite the significant architectural differences between these generations. The PassMark G3D score of 15748 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3068 provide additional context for its DirectX 12 Ultimate capabilities.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's workload scales heavily with resolution and settings, particularly for terrain rendering, lighting, and cloud effects. The measured FPS data shows the Arc B580 handling 1080p Medium (76 FPS) and even 1440p Medium (61 FPS) competently, but 4K Medium (45 FPS) and 4K High (34 FPS) reveal the 192-bit memory bus and 456.0 GB/s bandwidth as limiting factors. The GPU's 190W TDP and PCIe 4.0 x8 interface provide adequate bandwidth for the simulator's data streaming requirements, though the x8 connection may slightly constrain texture uploads at higher resolutions compared to x16 implementations.