Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable but telling pattern as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo delivers 164.7 FPS, but this drops to 129.4 FPS at 2560x1440 and further to 93.1 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 43.5% reduction from 1080p to 4K on Low settings. The pattern holds across other presets: High settings yield 96.8 FPS at 1080p, 75.9 FPS at 1440p, and 55.8 FPS at 4K. The scaling is nearly linear, suggesting the GPU is the primary constraint as pixel count rises.

What is more revealing is the behavior at Ultra settings. Here, 1080p produces 93.9 FPS, 1440p produces 72.9 FPS, and 4K produces 55.8 FPS. Notice that 4K Ultra and 4K High both land at exactly 55.8 FPS. This is a significant data point. It implies that beyond a certain visual complexity threshold at 4K, the frame rate becomes pinned by something other than raw shading workload. The identical result at High and Ultra strongly suggests a bottleneck that is not purely GPU compute—likely memory bandwidth or geometry throughput limits.

Between 1080p and 1440p, the FPS drop is roughly 21-24% across all settings. Between 1440p and 4K, the drop is 26-31%. The slightly steeper decline at higher resolutions points to the 12 GB GDDR6X memory and its 912.4 GB/s bandwidth being taxed more heavily. The RTX 3080 Ti's 384-bit bus width helps, but the data shows that 4K pushes the memory subsystem to its limits for this title.

The 1080p results are interesting for a different reason. At Low settings, the combo reaches 164.7 FPS, yet at Ultra it falls to 93.9 FPS. That is a 43% performance spread purely from settings changes at the same resolution. This indicates that at 1080p, the CPU (Intel Core i5-14400F with 10 cores and 16 threads) has enough headroom to feed the GPU, and the frame rate is dictated almost entirely by how much work the GPU is asked to do. The picture changes at 4K, where even Low settings drop to 93.1 FPS, confirming that the GPU becomes the limiting component.

FAQ

Q: What is the best frame rate this combo achieves at 4K?

A: The highest 4K result is 93.1 FPS on Low settings. Medium yields 74.4 FPS, while High and Ultra both produce 55.8 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 3080 Ti compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The GPU scores 41,224 on average, placing it 0.5% behind the RTX 3090 and 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 5300. It sits 1.1% below the RTX 5070.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck this game at any resolution?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not a limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 164.7 FPS, and the CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21,914 indicates strong throughput. The FPS scales consistently with resolution, pointing to GPU limitation.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low produces 129.4 FPS while Ultra produces 72.9 FPS. This is a 43.6% reduction from lowest to highest settings.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: The combo ranks 445th out of 1,795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the top 25% of all configurations.

Q: Is the 12 GB VRAM sufficient for this game at 4K?

A: The measured data shows playable results at 4K, with 55.8 FPS on High and Ultra. The 12 GB capacity appears adequate, but the identical High and Ultra scores suggest memory bandwidth constraints at that resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is a large Ampere-based GPU with 10,240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. It operates at a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz. Its memory subsystem is substantial: 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, delivering 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications are critical to understanding the measured FPS.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's role is dominant. The frame rate scales almost perfectly with resolution changes, which is the signature of a GPU-bound workload. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 164.7 FPS, but the GPU's 34.10 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 532.8 GTexel/s texture rate are not fully utilized at that resolution. The game is likely limited by draw calls and scene complexity at lower resolutions, but the GPU can still process frames quickly.

The identical 55.8 FPS at 4K High and 4K Ultra is a curious anomaly. The GPU's 186.5 GPixel/s pixel rate and 80 RT cores should theoretically handle both settings, but the data shows no difference. This could indicate that the game's engine caps certain workloads, or that the memory bandwidth of 912.4 GB/s becomes the ceiling. The 28,300 million transistors on a 628 mm² die suggest a heavily provisioned chip, yet the 4K results show its limits.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its position. It achieves a Passmark G3D score of 26,896 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5,077. Its OpenCL score of 191,309 and Vulkan score of 171,798 indicate strong compute capabilities. In the context of this game, the RTX 3080 Ti is clearly the determining factor for frame rates above 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo produces a wide spread of results. Low settings yield 164.7 FPS, Medium drops to 127.2 FPS, High falls to 96.8 FPS, and Ultra brings up the rear at 93.9 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium is 37.5 FPS, while the jump from High to Ultra is just 2.9 FPS. This suggests diminishing returns from High to Ultra at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the numbers shift downward proportionally. Low produces 129.4 FPS, Medium 105.2 FPS, High 75.9 FPS, and Ultra 72.9 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 56.5 FPS. Notably, the gap between High and Ultra narrows to 3.0 FPS, mirroring the 1080p pattern. This consistency indicates that the Ultra preset adds complexity that this GPU handles with minimal additional cost at these resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the results compress further. Low achieves 93.1 FPS, Medium 74.4 FPS, and both High and Ultra sit at 55.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 37.3 FPS, which is smaller than at lower resolutions. The compression at the top end is the key finding: High and Ultra are indistinguishable, meaning the GPU has hit a hard ceiling.

Comparing across resolutions, the 1080p Low result of 164.7 FPS is the highest measured. The 4K Ultra result of 55.8 FPS is the lowest. The overall pattern shows that this combo can handle 4K at playable frame rates, but only at lower settings. At 1440p, all settings are playable, with even Ultra exceeding 70 FPS. At 1080p, every setting produces over 90 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 445th out of 1,795 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the 75th percentile of all tested systems, meaning it outperforms roughly three-quarters of the field. The rank reflects the combined capability of the i5-14400F and RTX 3080 Ti.

The CPU's individual standing is strong. It achieves an 88th percentile ranking against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32,508. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-12800H, scores nearly identically at 32,513 (0% delta). The AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 is 0.2% behind, while the AMD Ryzen 7 250 and Intel Core i7-13705H are each 0.2% ahead. This places the CPU in a tight competitive cluster.

The GPU's percentile is 83rd against all GPUs, with an average score of 41,224. Its nearest rival is the RTX 3090 at 41,441 (0.5% ahead), followed by the Radeon Pro 5300 at 41,610 (0.9% ahead) and the RTX 5070 at 41,687 (1.1% ahead). The Tesla M40 trails at 41,897 (1.6% behind). This indicates the GPU is competitive with top-tier cards from its generation.

The combo's 445th rank out of 1,795 is notable because it combines a mid-range CPU with a high-end GPU. The data suggests that for this game, the GPU is the primary driver of the rank, as the CPU has ample headroom. The rank would likely be higher if the game were more CPU-bound, but the measured FPS shows a clear GPU dependency.

Settings Recommendations

For a balanced experience, Medium settings at 1440p provide 105.2 FPS, which is smooth and visually acceptable. This represents a good middle ground between the 129.4 FPS of Low and the 72.9 FPS of Ultra. At this resolution, Medium offers a 44.3% improvement over Ultra while maintaining high frame rates.

At 1080p, High settings at 96.8 FPS are the recommended choice. The jump from High to Ultra yields only 2.9 FPS, making Ultra a poor tradeoff for the visual cost. Low at 164.7 FPS is excessive for most scenarios, and Medium at 127.2 FPS is viable, but High provides the best balance of fidelity and performance.

For 4K, the data points to Medium as the optimal preset. It delivers 74.4 FPS, which is 18.6 FPS higher than High and Ultra's 55.8 FPS. Since High and Ultra produce identical results, there is no benefit to selecting either over the other. Low at 93.1 FPS is the only way to exceed 60 FPS at 4K, but the visual compromise may be too severe for a flight simulator.

The overall recommendation is to prioritize resolution over settings. At 1440p Medium, the combo offers a superior experience to 4K High, given the higher frame rate and the fact that 4K High cannot surpass 55.8 FPS. For those with 4K displays, Medium is the pragmatic choice, as it nearly doubles the frame rate of High while maintaining reasonable fidelity.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on Raptor Lake architecture. It runs at a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. It features 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core. These specifications are more than adequate for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The CPU's benchmark results confirm its capability. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21,914 and single-core score of 3,093 indicate strong performance in both threaded and lightly-threaded workloads. The Geekbench multi-core score of 11,209 and single-core score of 2,333 further validate this. The Passmark multithread score of 25,783 and single-thread score of 3,723 round out the picture.

In this game, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU. The FPS scaling with resolution is consistent, which would not be the case if the CPU were a bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 164.7 FPS, which is a high frame rate that would expose CPU limitations if they existed. The fact that it scales smoothly from 1080p to 4K indicates the CPU can feed the GPU adequately at all settings.

The CPU's 88th percentile ranking against all CPUs places it well above average. Its nearest rivals are all within 0.2% in benchmark scores, showing that the i5-14400F is competitive with much more expensive processors. The 10 cores and 16 threads handle the game's background tasks and physics calculations without issue, as evidenced by the consistent FPS across resolutions.

The data suggests that for Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU is not a limiting factor in this combination. The GPU is clearly the dominant component, and the CPU provides sufficient headroom at all tested resolutions and settings. The 65W TDP and 4.70 GHz boost clock allow it to sustain performance without thermal throttling, further supporting its role as a stable foundation for the RTX 3080 Ti.