Microsoft Flight Simulator

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with this Intel Core i5-14600KF and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT combination reveals a clear hierarchy across presets. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers 153.3 FPS average, while Medium drops to 116.9 FPS, High to 90 FPS, and Ultra to 84.8 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium represents a 36.4 FPS loss, while the step from High to Ultra is a much smaller 5.2 FPS loss. This suggests the Ultra preset is extracting nearly all available visual fidelity for a relatively modest performance penalty over High.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts. Low produces 119.5 FPS, Medium 94.8 FPS, High 71.6 FPS, and Ultra 65.8 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows further to 5.8 FPS, making Ultra the more compelling choice at this resolution. At 4K, High and Ultra nearly converge: High averages 50.3 FPS while Ultra averages 50.4 FPS — a negligible 0.1 FPS difference. The data indicates that at 4K, the Ultra preset is essentially free in performance terms relative to High, which is unusual for a flight simulator where draw distances and terrain detail typically scale heavily with settings.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on the target display. For 1080p users with high refresh rate monitors, Medium at 116.9 FPS or even High at 90 FPS provides smooth gameplay while retaining substantial visual quality. At 1440p, the High preset's 71.6 FPS is playable, but Ultra at 65.8 FPS is close enough that the visual uplift justifies the small cost. For 4K, the choice is unambiguous: Ultra at 50.4 FPS matches High's 50.3 FPS, so the highest preset should be selected without hesitation. The data implies that this combination's performance ceiling is most efficiently utilized at 1440p, where the 65.8 FPS Ultra result balances fidelity and fluidity.

FAQ

Q: Which resolution provides the highest average FPS for this combination?

A: The 1080p Low preset achieves the highest measured average at 153.3 FPS, followed by 1080p Medium at 116.9 FPS and 1440p Low at 119.5 FPS. The data shows 1080p consistently outperforms higher resolutions across all settings.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Ultra averages 50.4 FPS while High averages 50.3 FPS — a difference of 0.1 FPS. The benchmark results indicate essentially identical performance, meaning the Ultra preset's additional visual features cost almost nothing at this resolution.

Q: What is the performance drop from 1080p to 1440p at High settings?

A: High settings at 1080p produce 90 FPS, while the same preset at 1440p yields 71.6 FPS. This represents an 18.4 FPS reduction, or roughly a 20% decrease in average frame rate.

Q: Does the combo's 4K Ultra performance exceed 60 FPS?

A: No. The measured 4K Ultra average is 50.4 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold. Users targeting 4K Ultra will need to accept sub-60 FPS performance or lower the resolution.

Q: How large is the gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: Low averages 119.5 FPS, while Ultra averages 65.8 FPS. The difference is 53.7 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset costs nearly half the frame rate of Low at this resolution.

Q: Is there a settings preset that delivers near-60 FPS at 4K?

A: The Medium preset at 4K averages 70.8 FPS, which exceeds 60 FPS. High and Ultra both fall below 60 FPS at 50.3 and 50.4 FPS respectively, making Medium the highest preset that maintains 60+ FPS at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific configuration ranks 628 out of 1,795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the upper third of all combinations tested. The percentile positioning suggests that while this pairing is not at the extreme top tier, it sits comfortably above the median performer. The CPU itself holds the 93rd percentile against all CPUs in the broader benchmark database, while the GPU ranks in the 87th percentile against all GPUs — both components are strong individually, and their combined ranking reflects this.

The CPU's nearest rivals contextualize its standing. The Intel Core i5-14600K scores 0.4% higher on average, a nearly identical result. The AMD EPYC 4345P is 0.5% ahead, while the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X trails by 0.6%. The Intel Xeon Gold 5318H is 1.4% behind. These tiny deltas mean the i5-14600KF is effectively performance-equivalent to its closest competitors, with differences well within measurement noise. For the GPU, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT sits near the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, which is 2.6% ahead, while the Intel Arc A550M is 0.5% ahead and the NVIDIA RTX A1000 is 1.7% ahead. The NVIDIA CMP 50HX trails by 1.9%.

The rank of 628 out of 1,795 means roughly 65% of tested combinations outperform this one in Microsoft Flight Simulator specifically. The data suggests that while both components are individually strong, the game's engine may favor other architectures or configurations. The measured FPS results at 4K Ultra of 50.4 FPS indicate that this combo is playable but not exceptional at the highest settings, which aligns with its mid-upper ranking.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings sweep shows a wide performance envelope. The Low preset delivers 153.3 FPS average, Medium drops to 116.9 FPS, High falls to 90 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 84.8 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra is a 68.5 FPS reduction, representing a 44.7% decrease in average frame rate. The step from Medium to High is the largest single drop at 26.9 FPS, while the High-to-Ultra step costs only 5.2 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the pattern compresses. Low averages 119.5 FPS, Medium 94.8 FPS, High 71.6 FPS, and Ultra 65.8 FPS. The total range from Low to Ultra is 53.7 FPS. The Medium-to-High step remains the steepest at 23.2 FPS, while High-to-Ultra costs just 5.8 FPS. Compared to 1080p, each preset loses roughly 22-34 FPS, with the largest absolute loss occurring at Low (33.8 FPS) and the smallest at Ultra (19 FPS).

At 3840x2160, performance tightens further. Low averages 88.7 FPS, Medium 70.8 FPS, High 50.3 FPS, and Ultra 50.4 FPS. Notably, High and Ultra are virtually identical, with Ultra actually 0.1 FPS higher. The Low-to-Medium drop is 17.9 FPS, Medium-to-High is 20.5 FPS, and High-to-Ultra is essentially zero. The 4K results show that the Ultra preset's additional rendering demands are entirely absorbed by the resolution's pixel count, making the highest preset a free upgrade over High.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals where this combination's bottleneck lies. At Low settings, performance falls from 153.3 FPS at 1080p to 119.5 FPS at 1440p and 88.7 FPS at 4K. That is a 64.6 FPS total reduction, or a 42.1% decrease. At Medium settings, the drop is from 116.9 to 94.8 to 70.8 FPS — a 46.1 FPS total reduction (39.4%). At High, the sequence is 90, 71.6, and 50.3 FPS — a 39.7 FPS total reduction (44.1%). At Ultra, the numbers are 84.8, 65.8, and 50.4 FPS — a 34.4 FPS total reduction (40.6%).

The scaling is relatively consistent across presets, with roughly 40-44% performance loss from 1080p to 4K. This consistency suggests the GPU is the primary limiting factor as resolution increases, since the CPU load from resolution scaling is minimal. The fact that the High-to-Ultra gap collapses at 4K (0.1 FPS difference) versus 5.2 FPS at 1080p further indicates that pixel throughput is the dominant constraint at higher resolutions. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 512.0 GB/s bandwidth appear sufficient for the game's data demands, as the performance curve follows a predictable resolution-based pattern rather than showing memory-capacity cliffs.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF brings 14 cores and 20 threads from the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.30 GHz. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache and per-core L2 cache of 2 MB provide the data locality needed for a flight simulator's complex scenery-loading and physics calculations. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU scores 32,889 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4,643 in single-core, placing it in the 93rd percentile against all CPUs.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is known for heavy single-threaded dependency in its main rendering loop, and the 5.30 GHz boost clock is critical here. The single-core Cinebench R20 score of 1,950 and Geekbench single-core score of 2,778 indicate strong per-thread performance that should keep the main simulation thread fed. However, the measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the combination reaches 153.3 FPS, which suggests the CPU can drive high frame rates when the GPU is not the bottleneck. The 14-core count also provides headroom for background tasks and the simulator's auxiliary threads.

The CPU's nearest rival, the Core i5-14600K, is essentially identical at 0.4% higher average score, confirming that the unlocked multiplier on the KF variant does not yield meaningful performance differences in this workload. The fact that the CPU ranks in the 93rd percentile overall while the combo ranks 628th out of 1,795 suggests the CPU is not the limiting factor in most settings — the GPU's 87th percentile ranking and the game's known GPU intensity at higher resolutions point to the graphics card as the primary constraint.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 21 chip, featuring 4,608 shading units, 288 texture mapping units, and 128 ROPs. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial for high-resolution texture streaming in a flight simulator. The GPU's boost clock of 2250 MHz and game clock of 2015 MHz are paired with a 300 W TDP, and its FP32 performance reaches 20.74 TFLOPS.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution rises. The data shows that at 4K, the difference between High and Ultra is negligible (0.1 FPS), which indicates the GPU is fully saturated at that resolution regardless of settings. At 1080p, the GPU has more headroom, allowing settings changes to have a larger impact — the 68.5 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p demonstrates this. The GPU's 87th percentile ranking against all GPUs places it in the upper tier, though its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, is 2.6% ahead in average score.

The 16 GB VRAM capacity is noteworthy for flight simulation, where large photogrammetry textures and high-resolution terrain can consume significant memory. The absence of min/max FPS data prevents a full analysis of frame time consistency, but the average FPS figures suggest the GPU can sustain playable performance at all tested settings. The 4K Ultra result of 50.4 FPS indicates that this GPU, while strong, does not provide 60+ FPS at the highest settings and resolution — a limitation that the measured data attributes to the GPU's rendering throughput rather than memory capacity or bandwidth constraints.