Microsoft Flight Simulator

# FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Core i5-14400F compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i5-14400F posts an average benchmark score of 32,508, placing it in the 88th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-12800H, scores 32,513 (a 0% delta), while the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 trails at 32,446 (0.2% behind). The gap between the i5-14400F and its top four rivals is within ±0.2%, indicating near-identical synthetic performance.

Q: What is the GPU's standing relative to other graphics cards?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 570 holds an average benchmark score of 30,158, placing it in the 74th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, scores 30,109 (0.2% ahead), while the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT scores 30,097 (0.2% ahead). The RX 570's performance is statistically tied with these much newer cards in synthetic tests.

Q: What memory configuration does the RX 570 use, and what bandwidth does it provide?

A: The RX 570 comes with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Memory clocks are set at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective). This configuration is typical of the Polaris generation and is a key constraint in high-resolution gaming.

Q: How does the CPU's cache hierarchy affect its multi-threaded performance?

A: The i5-14400F features 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core, and a shared 20 MB L3 cache. In Cinebench R23, it scores 21,914 in multi-core and 3,093 in single-core. These cache sizes contribute to its strong PassMark multi-thread score of 25,783 and its single-thread score of 3,723.

Q: What is the GPU's compute capability in raw numbers?

A: The RX 570 delivers 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, with a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s. It has 2,048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. These figures place it as a mid-range card for its era, with DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.3 API support.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations for this game?

A: The combo of i5-14400F and RX 570 ranks 1,698 out of 1,795 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the bottom 5.4% of all combos, indicating a significant performance bottleneck when running this simulation title.

# How This Combo Ranks

The benchmark data is unambiguous: this pairing sits at rank 1,698 out of 1,795 tested combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator. That places the configuration in the bottom percentile of all hardware combinations evaluated, and it is a direct consequence of the GPU's limitations rather than the CPU's capabilities.

The i5-14400F is a strong processor, scoring in the 88th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 32,508. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-12800H, scores 32,513 with a delta of 0%, confirming that the CPU is performing exactly as expected for its class. The CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads, boosted by a 4.70 GHz turbo clock, are more than adequate for the simulation's physics and AI calculations.

However, the RX 570's 74th percentile ranking among GPUs masks its real-world weakness here. The card's 4 GB VRAM and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for Microsoft Flight Simulator's demanding scenery streaming and terrain rendering. The combo's bottom-5% ranking reflects that the GPU becomes the hard bottleneck, dragging the entire system down regardless of the CPU's headroom.

The data suggests that this combo is not balanced for this specific title. The CPU is capable of feeding frames far faster than the GPU can render them, and the measured FPS numbers confirm this imbalance. For a simulation that is notoriously CPU-heavy at lower settings, the GPU still fails to keep up, indicating that the RX 570 is simply outclassed by the workload's requirements.

# GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570's role in Microsoft Flight Simulator is defined by its memory and clock characteristics. The card operates with a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz, which are modest by modern standards. Its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, a figure that becomes a critical constraint when the game streams high-resolution textures.

The GPU's 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 159.2 GTexel/s texture rate are sufficient for older titles but struggle with the density of Microsoft Flight Simulator's world geometry. The card's 32 ROPs limit pixel throughput, directly impacting fill-rate-bound scenarios like cockpit displays and dense urban areas.

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern: at every resolution, the gap between Low and Ultra settings is significant, but the card never achieves playable frame rates at 4K. At 3840x2160, the RX 570 delivers 27.2 FPS on Low and drops to 13.5 FPS on Ultra. Even at 1920x1080, the card only reaches 48.6 FPS on Low, which is barely acceptable for a flight simulator where smoothness is critical.

The 4 GB VRAM is the most likely culprit for the poor performance at higher settings. Microsoft Flight Simulator is known to exceed 4 GB of VRAM usage at High and Ultra presets, forcing the GPU to spill into system memory. This explains why the performance delta between Low and Medium is less pronounced than between Medium and Ultra — the card is hitting a memory wall rather than a compute limit.

# Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal experience for this combo is at 1920x1080 with Low settings, where the card averages 48.6 FPS. This is the only configuration that approaches a playable frame rate for a simulation that requires smooth panning and instrument readability. At 2560x1440 Low, the average drops to 39.9 FPS, which may be acceptable for less demanding flight phases, but the margin for error is thin.

The Medium preset at 1920x1080 yields 38.7 FPS, which is a 20% reduction from Low. For a game where visual clarity of terrain and weather is important, this trade-off might be tempting, but the data shows that the GPU's 4 GB VRAM is already saturated at this setting. The High preset at 1920x1080 drops to 29.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 28.1 FPS — both are below the 30 FPS threshold that most simulation users consider a minimum.

At 3840x2160, there are no viable options. The best case is Low at 27.2 FPS, and Ultra at 13.5 FPS is essentially a slideshow. The recommendation is clear: 1080p Low is the only setting where the RX 570 provides a consistent, smooth experience. Users who prioritize visuals over frame rate may accept 1080p Medium at 38.7 FPS, but the data suggests that the VRAM limitation introduces stutter beyond what the average FPS indicates.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent scaling pattern across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, the card delivers 48.6 FPS on Low, 38.7 FPS on Medium, 29.1 FPS on High, and 28.1 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Medium is 9.9 FPS (20%), while the drop from Medium to High is 9.6 FPS (25%). The High-to-Ultra gap is only 1.0 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional effects are largely CPU-limited at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but with lower absolute values: 39.9 FPS on Low, 32.2 FPS on Medium, 23.6 FPS on High, and 19.5 FPS on Ultra. The Low-to-Medium drop is 7.7 FPS (19%), Medium-to-High is 8.6 FPS (27%), and High-to-Ultra is 4.1 FPS (17%). The percentage drops are consistent, indicating that the GPU is scaling predictably with workload.

At 3840x2160, the card struggles across the board: 27.2 FPS on Low, 24.0 FPS on Medium, 19.9 FPS on High, and 13.5 FPS on Ultra. The Low-to-Medium drop is only 3.2 FPS (12%), but the Medium-to-High drop is 4.1 FPS (17%), and the High-to-Ultra drop is 6.4 FPS (32%). The larger High-to-Ultra penalty at 4K suggests that the card's 4 GB VRAM is being overwhelmed, causing severe texture thrashing.

Comparing resolutions at the same settings, the scaling is nonlinear. At Low, going from 1080p to 1440p costs 8.7 FPS (18%), and from 1440p to 2160p costs 12.7 FPS (32%). At Ultra, the same transitions cost 8.6 FPS (31%) and 6.0 FPS (31%), respectively. The consistent ~31% penalty for 4K over 1440p at higher settings indicates that the GPU's memory bandwidth is the limiting factor, not the compute units. This is a classic symptom of a 256-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth being saturated by 4K textures.