Microsoft Flight Simulator

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is a combination that places in the 85th percentile of all tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator, ranking 572nd out of 3714 configurations. The data shows this pairing is capable of delivering smooth frame rates at 1440p High settings, with the 11400F’s six cores proving sufficient to feed the RTX 4070 Ti’s substantial rendering power in this simulation title.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The data indicates 2560x1440 is the sweet spot. At High settings, the combo delivers 91 FPS at 1440p, which is a 24 FPS drop from the 113 FPS seen at 1080p but remains well within smooth-play territory. At 4K High, the average drops to 67 FPS, which is playable but leaves less headroom.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 Ti's 12 GB VRAM affect performance at 4K?

A: The 12 GB of GDDR6X memory is sufficient for this game's demands. The data shows the card maintains playable averages at 4K across all settings, from 64 FPS at Ultra to 115 FPS at Low. The 504.2 GB/s bandwidth helps sustain these frame rates without visible stutter in the measured results.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-11400F a bottleneck for the RTX 4070 Ti in this game?

A: The benchmark results suggest the CPU keeps pace. The 11400F scores 14,340 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,024 in single-core, placing it in the 71st percentile of all CPUs. The 1080p Ultra result of 108 FPS, compared to 1080p Medium at 144 FPS, shows the GPU is still the primary scaling factor rather than a hard CPU wall.

Q: What kind of FPS uplift do you get from dropping settings from Ultra to Low?

A: The measured data shows a substantial gain. At 1080p, Low settings produce 157 FPS versus 108 FPS at Ultra, a 45% improvement. At 4K, the jump is even larger proportionally: 115 FPS at Low versus 64 FPS at Ultra, representing a 79% increase in frame rate.

Q: How does this combo compare to other configurations in the database?

A: With a rank of 572 out of 3714 tested combos, it sits comfortably in the top 15% of all pairings. The RTX 4070 Ti itself ranks in the 84th percentile of all GPUs, while the 11400F sits in the 71st percentile of CPUs, making this a balanced pairing where neither component dramatically overshadows the other.

Q: Is the combo's performance consistent across resolutions, or does it scale poorly?

A: Scaling is relatively linear. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at High settings reduces FPS from 113 to 91, a 19.5% drop. Moving from 1440p to 4K at High settings reduces FPS from 91 to 67, a 26.4% drop. The slightly steeper decline at higher resolutions points toward the GPU becoming the primary limiter at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is the dominant component in this pairing, and the measured FPS data confirms it is doing the heavy lifting in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, the GPU contains 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die. Its 7,680 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 80 ROPs provide the raw throughput needed for this game's dense geometry and complex lighting.

Clock speeds are critical here. The GPU runs at a 2310 MHz base clock and boosts to 2610 MHz, which is what allows the card to push 40.09 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The memory subsystem is equally important: 12 GB of GDDR6X running at an effective 21 Gbps across a 192-bit bus yields 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. In a game that streams vast terrain and photogrammetry data, this bandwidth prevents texture pop-in and maintains consistent frame pacing, as evidenced by the 4K Medium results showing a 76 FPS minimum against an 89 FPS average.

The RTX 4070 Ti's 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores are relevant even in a flight simulator, as the game uses ray-traced shadows and reflections in cockpit views. The card's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) ensures full feature compatibility. The 285 W TDP and dual-slot cooler design indicate this is a high-power part, but the performance per watt is strong given the 84th percentile ranking among all GPUs in the database.

Pixel and texture rates round out the picture. The 208.8 GPixel/s pixel rate and 626.4 GTexel/s texture rate allow the GPU to fill the screen with high-detail textures at 4K without dropping below 64 FPS even at Ultra settings. The 1x 16-pin power connector and 600 W suggested PSU rating are worth noting for system planning, but the data shows the card delivers consistent performance across all tested settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame field places this pairing at 572 out of 3714 total tested configurations. This is a top-15.4% result, meaning the vast majority of system builds in the database perform worse in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The ranking reflects the balance between the 11400F and the RTX 4070 Ti, where the CPU's 71st percentile standing and the GPU's 84th percentile standing combine to produce a system that handles this simulation title well.

To contextualize the GPU's contribution, the RTX 4070 Ti's nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, which scores 45,152 versus the 4070 Ti's 44,795 average benchmark score, a negligible 0.8% difference. The AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT scores 45,384, just 1.3% higher. This places the 4070 Ti in elite company despite being a previous-generation card. The AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT's margin of 1.3% is within run-to-run variance, so the 4070 Ti effectively trades blows with these competitors.

On the CPU side, the Intel Core i5-11400F's nearest rivals show a similar clustering. The AMD EPYC 7H12 scores 17,120, just 0.3% lower than the 11400F's 17,177 average. The Intel Core i5-12450H scores 17,239, a 0.4% gap. These margins are trivial, meaning the 11400F delivers performance equivalent to far more expensive server and mobile parts in synthetic benchmarks. The combo's 572nd ranking out of 3714 is therefore not a fluke but a reflection of two components that each punch above their class.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers strong results across all settings. Low settings produce 157 FPS average, while Medium reaches 144 FPS with a minimum of 122 and maximum of 165 FPS. High settings drop to 113 FPS, and Ultra settles at 108 FPS. The tight spread between High and Ultra (only 5 FPS) suggests the game's Ultra preset adds visual fidelity without proportionally taxing the GPU at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains solid. Low settings deliver 146 FPS, which is only 11 FPS less than at 1080p. Medium settings show 121 FPS average with a 103 FPS minimum and 139 FPS maximum. High settings produce 91 FPS, and Ultra drops to 87 FPS. The 1440p results indicate this resolution is where the RTX 4070 Ti's 12 GB VRAM and high bandwidth start to matter, as the frame rate drop from 1080p is moderate but not severe.

At 3840x2160, the GPU begins to feel the load. Low settings still produce 115 FPS, showing the card's raw compute power. Medium settings yield 89 FPS average with a 76 FPS minimum and 103 FPS maximum. High settings drop to 67 FPS, and Ultra falls to 64 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 64 FPS is exactly at the threshold of smooth gameplay, though the lack of a stated minimum FPS for Ultra suggests the average is the better indicator of sustained performance.

The Medium settings at each resolution provide the most complete picture, as they include minimum and maximum FPS values. At 1080p, the 122-165 FPS range shows a 35% variance. At 1440p, the 103-139 FPS range shows a 35% variance. At 4K, the 76-103 FPS range shows a 36% variance. This consistency in variance across resolutions indicates the game's frame pacing is stable regardless of resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals how the system scales from 1080p to 4K, and the pattern points to the GPU as the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions. At High settings, the FPS progression is 113 at 1080p, 91 at 1440p, and 67 at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 19.5%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 26.4%. The steeper decline at 4K indicates the GPU's pixel throughput is becoming constrained.

At Low settings, the scaling is 157 at 1080p, 146 at 1440p, and 115 at 4K. Here, the 1080p to 1440p drop is only 7%, while the 1440p to 4K drop is 21.2%. The relatively flat 1080p to 1440p transition at Low settings suggests the CPU is keeping pace, but the larger 4K drop confirms the GPU's pixel rate of 208.8 GPixel/s is the bottleneck at that resolution.

The Medium settings results show a similar trend: 144 at 1080p, 121 at 1440p, and 89 at 4K. The percentage drops are 16% from 1080p to 1440p and 26.4% from 1440p to 4K. This consistent pattern across three settings presets points to a system that is well-balanced at 1080p and 1440p but becomes GPU-limited at 4K. The CPU's 12 MB of L3 cache and 6 cores handle the game's simulation logic without introducing a CPU-side bottleneck at lower resolutions.

The fact that 4K Low (115 FPS) nearly matches 1080p Ultra (108 FPS) is instructive. It shows that the GPU has ample headroom to brute-force the game at lower settings, but the visual load of Ultra at 4K brings it down to 64 FPS. This suggests that for 4K gameplay, users should stick with High settings to maintain a 67 FPS average, which is a better sweet spot than the 64 FPS at Ultra.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process. Its base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz provide the single-thread performance that Microsoft Flight Simulator's simulation engine requires. The 11400F's single-core scores are strong: 2,024 in Cinebench R23, 850 in Cinebench R20, and 868 in 3DMark single-thread. These results place it in the 71st percentile of all CPUs.

The CPU's cache hierarchy is modest by modern standards but sufficient: 80 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. The dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth is a potential limitation, but the measured FPS data shows it does not bottleneck the GPU in this game. The 1080p Medium result of 144 FPS, with a 122 FPS minimum, demonstrates that the CPU can sustain high frame rates when the GPU is not the limiting factor.

Multi-threaded performance is where the 11400F shows its age relative to newer parts, but it remains adequate. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14,340 and 3DMark max-thread score of 5,652 indicate solid throughput for the game's background tasks. The 65 W TDP and end-of-life production status mean this is a mature platform, but the processor's 4.40 GHz boost clock ensures it can handle the single-threaded simulation logic that dominates flight sim workloads.

The nearestRivals data contextualizes the 11400F's standing. The AMD EPYC 7H12, a server-class chip, scores 17,120, just 0.3% lower. The Intel Core i5-12450H scores 17,239, 0.4% higher. These differences are within noise, meaning the 11400F delivers performance on par with both a high-end server CPU and a newer mobile part. For Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and process game logic, and the data shows it does so without creating a significant bottleneck until 4K Ultra, where the GPU becomes the limiting factor.