Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator — Intel Core i5-11400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti

The pairing of Intel's six-core Core i5-11400F with NVIDIA's RTX 5070 Ti produces a strikingly consistent experience across Microsoft Flight Simulator's resolution ladder — the data reveals a system where the GPU dominates at 4K, but the CPU's influence becomes increasingly apparent as resolution drops. At 1080p Ultra, the combo delivers 110 FPS average, while 4K Ultra falls to 66 FPS; the spread between Low and Ultra settings narrows from 47 FPS at 1080p to 52 FPS at 4K, suggesting the simulator's engine is sensitive to both component limits depending on the workload.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern: as resolution increases, the average frame rate drops consistently across every settings tier. At 1080p Ultra, the system produces 110 FPS; stepping up to 1440p Ultra reduces this to 89 FPS (a 19% decline), and 4K Ultra further drops to 66 FPS (another 26% reduction). This scaling behavior is typical of a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions — the RTX 5070 Ti's 16 GB of GDDR7 memory and 896.0 GB/s bandwidth are being taxed more heavily as pixel count grows.

However, the Low settings tier tells a different story. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 157 FPS, which falls to 146 FPS at 1440p (only 7% lower) and 118 FPS at 4K (19% lower than 1440p). The relatively modest drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings — just 11 FPS — indicates that the CPU is becoming a limiting factor at lower graphical loads. The Core i5-11400F's 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost up to 4.40 GHz, appear sufficient for the simulator's simulation logic, but the gap between Low and Medium at 4K (118 vs 92 FPS) suggests the GPU still has headroom that the CPU cannot fully exploit.

The Medium settings tier provides the most complete data, including min and max FPS values. At 1080p Medium, the average is 144 FPS with a minimum of 122 and maximum of 165; at 1440p Medium, the average drops to 124 FPS (min 106, max 143); at 4K Medium, it falls further to 92 FPS (min 78, max 106). The min-to-max ranges are remarkably tight — roughly 30% of the average across all three resolutions — indicating that frame pacing is stable and the system does not suffer from severe hitches. This stability is noteworthy for a flight simulator, where sudden frame drops can disrupt the experience.

What the resolution scaling implies is that Microsoft Flight Simulator is heavily GPU-bound at 4K, but the CPU's role becomes more pronounced at 1080p. The 157 FPS at 1080p Low versus 118 FPS at 4K Low represents a 25% difference, while the Ultra tier shows a 40% difference (110 vs 66 FPS). This suggests that at lower settings, the simulation's CPU-side processing (weather, physics, terrain loading) is the primary bottleneck, while at higher settings, the GPU's rendering workload takes over.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain high FPS?

A: At 1080p, the system averages 110 FPS on Ultra and 157 FPS on Low, making it ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. At 1440p, the Ultra setting still holds 89 FPS, which is playable, while 4K Ultra drops to 66 FPS — smoother than 60 FPS but with less headroom.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at the same resolution?

A: Across all three resolutions, Ultra is consistently 4-6 FPS slower than High. At 1080p, High yields 116 FPS versus 110 FPS on Ultra; at 1440p, it's 94 vs 89; at 4K, it's 69 vs 66. The difference is modest, suggesting Ultra's extra effects cost little performance here.

Q: Is the RTX 5070 Ti the limiting factor at 4K?

A: Yes, the data supports this. At 4K, dropping from Ultra to Low only increases FPS from 66 to 118 — a 79% gain — but the CPU's 6 cores may still be constraining the maximum. The GPU's 16 GB VRAM and 896.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient, as the 4K Medium min FPS of 78 indicates no VRAM overflow.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested configurations?

A: It ranks 542nd out of 3714 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the top 15% of all configurations. This is a strong result, though not elite — the rank suggests there are many faster pairings, but this combo outperforms the vast majority of systems tested.

Q: What is the CPU-to-GPU balance at 1080p Low?

A: At 157 FPS, the Core i5-11400F appears to be the bottleneck, as the RTX 5070 Ti should be capable of higher frame rates with its 43.94 TFLOPS FP32 performance. The CPU's 12 MB shared L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth may limit simulation-thread throughput.

Q: Does the combo support high-refresh-rate gaming?

A: At 1080p, yes — even Ultra hits 110 FPS, exceeding typical 100 Hz monitors. At 1440p, High and Medium both exceed 94 FPS, while 4K requires Medium (92 FPS) or lower to approach 100 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo. At 1080p Medium, the system averages 144 FPS with a minimum of 122 — well above the 60 FPS threshold and comfortably within high-refresh territory. The min FPS of 122 means the system rarely dips below playable levels, and the max of 165 FPS shows headroom for VRR displays.

At 1440p, Medium delivers 124 FPS average (min 106, max 143), which is excellent for a flight simulator where smooth panning over terrain is critical. The 106 FPS minimum ensures that even dense urban areas or complex weather systems won't cause jarring stutters. For users with 4K displays, Medium at 92 FPS (min 78) is the highest setting that maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS; Ultra at 66 FPS is still playable but leaves little room for demanding scenarios.

Comparing to High, the difference is small — at 1440p, High averages 94 FPS versus 124 FPS on Medium. That 30 FPS gap is substantial, but High's visual uplift may not be worth the frame rate sacrifice on some displays. Low, at 157 FPS (1080p) or 146 FPS (1440p), offers maximum smoothness but sacrifices the visual fidelity that makes Flight Simulator immersive. The empirical data points to Medium as the sweet spot: it delivers the highest setting that consistently exceeds 90 FPS across all resolutions, and the min-to-max spread (122-165 at 1080p) indicates stable performance.

For users prioritizing visual quality over speed, Ultra at 1080p (110 FPS) is viable, but at 1440p (89 FPS) or 4K (66 FPS), it approaches the edge of comfort. The 4K Ultra figure of 66 FPS is technically above 60, but flight simulators often experience frame dips when loading new scenery; the lack of min FPS data for Ultra makes it a riskier choice.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 542 out of 3714 tested configurations places it in the 85th percentile of all systems tested for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This is a strong showing, considering the Core i5-11400F is a mid-range 2021 CPU (launch MSRP $157) paired with a high-end 2025 GPU. The ranking implies that the system outperforms roughly 3,172 other combos, which likely include older or lower-tier hardware.

In context, this rank suggests the RTX 5070 Ti is doing most of the heavy lifting — the GPU's percentile of 86 vs all GPUs is nearly identical to the combo's overall standing. The CPU's percentile of 71 vs all CPUs is lower, indicating that the processor is the weaker link. Yet the combo still cracks the top 15%, which speaks to the simulator's optimization for high-end graphics cards.

The nearest rival comparison for the GPU shows the RTX 5070 Ti (avg benchmark score 49,957) is within 2% of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (50,951, delta -2%) and 3.1% ahead of the RX 6800 XT (48,477). This positioning means the GPU is competitive with last-generation AMD flagship cards, though the 5070 Ti's newer Blackwell 2.0 architecture may offer better ray tracing or DLSS features not captured in raw scores.

For the CPU, the Core i5-11400F's average benchmark score of 17,177 is nearly identical to the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17,120, delta 0.3%) and the Intel Core i5-12450H (17,239, delta -0.4%). This tight clustering means the CPU's performance is unremarkable — it sits squarely in the middle of the pack, neither excelling nor lagging in synthetic tests. The 6-core/12-thread configuration with a 4.40 GHz boost clock is adequate for the simulator, but not exceptional.

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 a solid foundation for the simulator's single-threaded simulation logic, which is evidenced by the 3DMark single-thread score of 868 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,024.

The CPU's performance in multi-threaded tests — Cinebench R23 multicore of 14,340 and Geekbench multicore of 7,737 — suggests it handles the simulator's background tasks (AI traffic, weather simulation, flight physics) without major bottlenecks. However, the 12 MB shared L3 cache is modest by modern standards, and the dual-channel DDR4 memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s may limit data throughput in dense environments.

The measured FPS data reveals the CPU's influence most clearly at 1080p Low, where the system hits 157 FPS. This is likely near the CPU's maximum frame generation capability, as the GPU could theoretically render far faster. The fact that 1440p Low only drops to 146 FPS (a 7% reduction) while 4K Low drops to 118 FPS (a 19% reduction from 1440p) indicates that the CPU maintains a high frame ceiling but cannot push beyond ~160 FPS in this title.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the CPU's average benchmark score (17,177) is statistically tied with the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17,120) and the Intel Core i5-12450H (17,239). This means the 11400F is not holding back the RTX 5070 Ti in a way that would make the combo underperform relative to similar CPU choices. The 71st percentile ranking shows it outperforms 71% of all CPUs, which is respectable for a chip that is now end-of-life.

The Rocket Lake architecture's 14 nm process is older than the GPU's 5 nm node, but the CPU's performance in this simulator appears adequate — the 1080p Medium min FPS of 122 and 1440p Medium min of 106 suggest that even in complex scenes, the CPU doesn't cause drops below smooth thresholds.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data spans three resolutions and four settings tiers, providing 12 data points. At 1920x1080, the averages are: Low 157 FPS, Medium 144 FPS (min 122, max 165), High 116 FPS, Ultra 110 FPS. The 47 FPS gap between Low and Ultra is substantial, but the step from High to Ultra is only 6 FPS, indicating diminishing returns at the top end.

At 2560x1440, the averages drop to: Low 146 FPS, Medium 124 FPS (min 106, max 143), High 94 FPS, Ultra 89 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread is 57 FPS, wider than at 1080p, showing that the GPU's workload increases more rapidly at higher pixel counts. The Medium tier's min of 106 FPS is still excellent for 1440p gaming.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 118 FPS, Medium 92 FPS (min 78, max 106), High 69 FPS, Ultra 66 FPS. The drop from High to Ultra is just 3 FPS, suggesting that Ultra's additional effects (likely shadows or reflections) have minimal GPU cost at 4K. The Medium min of 78 FPS is the key figure here — it shows the system can maintain >75 FPS even in demanding 4K scenes, but Ultra has no min FPS data, leaving uncertainty about worst-case performance.

Comparing settings across resolutions, the Medium tier shows the most consistent behavior: 144 FPS at 1080p, 124 FPS at 1440p, 92 FPS at 4K. This roughly linear scaling (each resolution step reduces FPS by about 20-25%) aligns with the GPU's pixel throughput capabilities. The Low tier scales less aggressively (157 to 146 to 118), which indicates the CPU's frame ceiling is approached at 1080p but the GPU still dominates at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is the clear performance driver in this combo, with its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory, 256-bit bus, and 896.0 GB/s bandwidth providing ample headroom for Microsoft Flight Simulator's high-resolution textures. The GPU's 5 nm Blackwell 2.0 architecture, with 8,960 shading units and 70 RT cores, delivers 43.94 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, which explains the strong 4K performance.

The GPU's benchmark scores are mixed — the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,604 and Passmark G3D of 32,974 are solid, but the Geekbench OpenCL score of 212,363 and Vulkan score of 225,122 show strong compute capabilities. The GPU's 86th percentile ranking places it in the top 14% of all GPUs, which is consistent with the combo's overall rank of 542/3714.

In this game, the GPU's VRAM capacity of 16 GB is likely sufficient — the 4K Medium min FPS of 78, paired with no reported VRAM issues, suggests the simulator's texture streaming is well-managed. The 896.0 GB/s bandwidth ensures fast texture loading when flying over varied terrain, and the 96 ROPs handle pixel fill rates efficiently at 4K.

The RTX 5070 Ti's nearest rival comparison shows it is nearly tied with the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (avg score 50,001, delta -0.1%) and slightly behind the RX 6900 XT (50,951, delta -2%). This is surprising given the 5070 Ti's newer architecture, but the average benchmark scores may not capture game-specific optimizations. In Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically, the 4K Ultra FPS of 66 indicates the GPU is being pushed hard, but the fact that 4K Low reaches 118 FPS shows significant headroom when settings are reduced.

The GPU's TDP of 300 W and suggested PSU of 700 W are not directly reflected in the FPS data, but the stable performance across all resolutions suggests the power delivery is adequate. The PCIe 5.0 x16 interface ensures no bandwidth bottleneck, and the 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b outputs support high-refresh displays. The GPU's 5 nm process and 45,600 million transistors enable the high clock speeds (base 2295 MHz, boost 2452 MHz) that drive the 4K Medium performance above 90 FPS.