Microsoft Flight Simulator

FAQ

Q: What is the combo rank of the Intel Core i5-14600K with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: This combination ranks 1644 out of 1795 tested combos in the database, placing it in the lower percentile of systems tested for this title.

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves at 1080p?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 69.2 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This drops to 40.4 at Ultra settings at the same resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 3050 4 GB's memory bandwidth compare to its memory size?

A: The GPU features 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, producing a bandwidth of 192.0 GB/s. This is a modest figure for a card in the GeForce 30-series.

Q: What is the CPU's percentile ranking among all processors?

A: The Intel Core i5-14600K holds a 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, indicating strong multi-threaded and single-threaded performance relative to the broader processor market.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the best average FPS is 39.7, achieved with Low settings. Ultra settings at this resolution yield an average of 24.3 FPS.

Q: What is the boost clock of the CPU and the base clock of the GPU?

A: The CPU boosts up to 5.30 GHz from a base of 3.50 GHz. The GPU operates with a base clock of 1545 MHz and a boost clock of 1740 MHz.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB is the primary rendering component in this setup, and its specifications directly shape the measured FPS results. The card uses the Ampere architecture on an 8 nm process from Samsung, with a chip designated GA107. It packs 2048 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The GPU's limited memory configuration—4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus—provides a bandwidth of 192.0 GB/s, which proves a bottleneck in a simulation title like Microsoft Flight Simulator that streams large scenery datasets.

Clock speeds for the GPU are set at 1545 MHz base and 1740 MHz boost. These clocks are modest, and the card's thermal design power of 90 W suggests a power-efficient but not high-performance part. The pixel rate is 55.68 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 111.4 GTexel/s, with FP32 throughput at 7.127 TFLOPS. These figures indicate that the card can handle light to medium loads but struggles under heavy graphical demands.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's role is to render terrain, aircraft models, and weather effects. The data shows that at 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 69.2 FPS, but this drops sharply as settings increase. At Ultra 1080p, the average FPS falls to 40.4. This pattern suggests that the GPU's 4 GB VRAM capacity is insufficient for high-detail textures at higher resolutions, leading to performance degradation. The 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores are present, but the game's reliance on rasterization and memory bandwidth means these features offer limited benefit in this context.

The GPU's end-of-life production status and its release date of 2022-01-26 indicate it is an older entry-level card. Its 50th percentile ranking among all GPUs reinforces that it sits in the middle of the performance distribution. For a flight simulator that demands consistent frame delivery, the RTX 3050 4 GB provides playable but not smooth performance at lower settings, with the CPU often waiting on the GPU to complete rendering tasks.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB ranks 1644 out of 1795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the combo in the bottom 9% of all systems tested, a poor showing for a CPU that individually scores in the 93rd percentile of all processors. The disparity highlights a severe imbalance: the CPU is capable of far more, but the GPU holds back the entire system.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks—the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, Intel Core i5-14600KF, AMD EPYC 4345P, and Intel Xeon Gold 5318H—all score within 1% of the i5-14600K's average benchmark score of 49166. For instance, the Ryzen 9 5950X scores 49062, a delta of 0.2%, while the i5-14600KF scores 49367, a delta of -0.4%. These rivals would likely perform similarly in this game when paired with the same GPU, but the ranking data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor.

The low combo rank is not a reflection of the CPU's capabilities. The i5-14600K has 14 cores and 20 threads, with a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, and its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32881 demonstrates strong computational power. However, in a GPU-intensive title like Microsoft Flight Simulator, the frame rate is dictated by the graphics card's ability to process and output frames. The RTX 3050 4 GB, with its 4 GB VRAM and 192.0 GB/s bandwidth, simply cannot keep pace with the CPU's output, resulting in a combo rank that undersells the processor's potential.

The data indicates that pairing this CPU with a more powerful GPU would drastically improve the combo's rank. As it stands, the 1644th position out of 1795 combos is a clear signal that this configuration is unbalanced for this specific game, where GPU memory and raw shading power are critical.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions—1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160—each with four settings levels: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. The results show a consistent trend of decreasing performance as resolution and settings increase.

At 1920x1080, the combo achieves its best results. Low settings produce an average of 69.2 FPS, which is the highest recorded for this configuration. Medium settings yield 56.1 FPS, High settings drop to 41.5 FPS, and Ultra settings bottom out at 40.4 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 28.8 FPS, indicating that settings have a significant impact on performance at this resolution. The jump from Medium to High is particularly steep, with a loss of 14.6 FPS, suggesting that High settings introduce graphical features that strain the GPU.

At 2560x1440, performance falls further. Low settings average 57 FPS, a drop of 12.2 FPS from the 1080p Low result. Medium settings average 45.2 FPS, High settings 32.7 FPS, and Ultra settings 31.8 FPS. The pattern remains similar, with High and Ultra results being nearly identical, differing by only 0.9 FPS. This suggests that at 1440p, the GPU is already saturated, and further setting increases have diminishing returns.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles to maintain playable frame rates. Low settings average 39.7 FPS, which is just above the threshold for smooth gameplay. Medium settings drop to 29.4 FPS, High settings to 22.2 FPS, and Ultra settings to 24.3 FPS. Interestingly, the Ultra result is higher than the High result by 2.1 FPS, which may indicate variability in the test or an anomaly in how the game handles certain settings. Regardless, all 4K results are below 40 FPS, making this resolution impractical for a smooth experience with this hardware.

Across all resolutions, the data shows that Low settings provide the only consistently playable frame rates, with 1080p Low being the only configuration above 60 FPS. Medium settings are playable at 1080p and 1440p, but High and Ultra are only viable at 1080p, where they hover around 40 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals critical insights about the limiting component in this system. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, the average FPS across all settings drops by approximately 17% to 21%. For example, Low settings go from 69.2 to 57 FPS, a reduction of 12.2 FPS, while Ultra settings go from 40.4 to 31.8 FPS, a reduction of 8.6 FPS. This scaling is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where increasing pixel count directly impacts render time.

The transition from 1440p to 4K is even more severe. Low settings drop from 57 to 39.7 FPS, a 30% reduction, and Medium settings drop from 45.2 to 29.4 FPS, a 35% reduction. High settings fall from 32.7 to 22.2 FPS, a 32% reduction. These percentages indicate that the GPU is the primary bottleneck, as the load on the CPU does not change significantly with resolution.

The data points to the RTX 3050 4 GB being the limiting factor, not the Intel Core i5-14600K. The CPU's strong single-threaded performance, evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4642 and Geekbench single-core score of 2803, means it can handle the game's simulation calculations without issue. However, the GPU's 4 GB VRAM and 192.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the high-resolution textures and geometry that Microsoft Flight Simulator demands at 4K.

The scaling pattern—where FPS drops more steeply from 1440p to 4K than from 1080p to 1440p—suggests that the GPU hits a memory bandwidth wall at higher resolutions. The 128-bit bus and 4 GB capacity force the GPU to swap data constantly, reducing efficiency. At 1080p, the GPU can manage with the available bandwidth, but at 4K, the demand exceeds supply, leading to the observed frame rate collapse.

For users, this means that the combo is best suited for 1080p gaming with lower settings. Pushing to 1440p requires dropping to Low settings for acceptable performance, and 4K is only viable with Low settings at roughly 40 FPS. The CPU has headroom to support a more powerful GPU, but as configured, the system is firmly GPU-limited in this title.