Microsoft Flight Simulator

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The measured data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 presents a clear hierarchy across the three presets tested. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers an average of 126 FPS, which is substantially ahead of the 98 FPS from Medium and the 74 FPS from High. The Ultra preset sits at 70 FPS, only 4 FPS behind High, suggesting that the visual fidelity jump from High to Ultra costs less performance than the step from Medium to High. This pattern is consistent at 1440p, where Low hits 102 FPS, Medium drops to 79 FPS, High manages 60 FPS, and Ultra settles at 57 FPS.

The data indicates that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience for this combination. At 1080p, Medium provides 98 FPS with a minimum of 84 FPS and a maximum of 113 FPS, meaning even the worst-case frame time stays well above the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset at 1440p yields 79 FPS with a minimum of 67 FPS, which still holds above 60 FPS. Moving to High at 1440p drops the average to exactly 60 FPS, and while this is playable, there is no headroom for demanding scenes. Ultra at 1440p falls to 57 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target.

For 4K, the situation becomes more constrained. Medium at 4K averages 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS, which means some scenes will dip below the smoothness threshold. High at 4K averages 44 FPS, and Ultra drops to 42 FPS. The Low preset at 4K reaches 75 FPS, but that setting sacrifices too much visual detail for a flight simulator where visibility is gameplay-critical. The best experience per the measured rows is the Medium preset at 1080p or 1440p; the 1440p Medium option is particularly compelling because it provides 79 FPS average while maintaining a 67 FPS minimum, giving both visual clarity and smoothness. The 4K Medium row is the only 4K option that approaches playability, but the 50 FPS minimum makes it risky for consistent performance.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combination can achieve at 1080p?

A: The Low preset at 1080p produces an average of 126 FPS. This is the highest measured value across all resolutions and settings in the data.

Q: Does the Ultra preset provide a meaningful frame rate advantage over High?

A: No. At 1080p, Ultra averages 70 FPS versus 74 FPS for High, a difference of only 4 FPS. At 1440p, Ultra averages 57 FPS versus 60 FPS for High. At 4K, Ultra averages 42 FPS versus 44 FPS for High. The performance gap between these two presets is consistently small, suggesting that the added visual features in Ultra do not heavily tax this GPU.

Q: Which resolution and preset combination maintains a minimum frame rate above 60 FPS?

A: The Medium preset at 1080p has a minimum of 84 FPS, and the Medium preset at 1440p has a minimum of 67 FPS. These are the only two measured rows with minFps data that stay above 60 FPS. The other rows with minFps data include the 4K Medium row, which has a minimum of 50 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's single-core performance compare to its multi-core performance in synthetic benchmarks?

A: In Cinebench R23, the Intel Core i5-9400 scores 935 in single-core and 6629 in multi-core. The multi-core score is roughly 7.1 times the single-core score, which is expected for a 6-core, 6-thread processor. The Geekbench results show 1389 single-core and 5141 multi-core, a ratio of about 3.7 times.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested GPUs?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7700 sits at the 58th percentile among all GPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score is 15852. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon R9 370X, scores 15862, which is 0.1% higher, placing the RX 7700 essentially at parity with that older card.

Q: Is this CPU or GPU more likely to be the limiting factor in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The data suggests the GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combination reaches 126 FPS, indicating the CPU can feed frames quickly. But at 4K Ultra, the average drops to 42 FPS, a 67% reduction from 1080p Low. This large drop from resolution scaling points to GPU-bound behavior. The CPU's 47th percentile ranking among all CPUs, however, means it is not a top-tier part, so it may still limit at very low settings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a Navi 32 chip manufactured on a 5 nm process. It carries 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 96 raster operation pipelines. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1900 MHz, a game clock of 2041 MHz, and a boost clock of 2459 MHz. Memory is 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 2438 MHz, which translates to 19.5 Gbps effective.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's role is evident from the measured FPS scaling across settings. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves 126 FPS, but moving to Medium drops to 98 FPS, High to 74 FPS, and Ultra to 70 FPS. This 56 FPS spread between Low and Ultra shows that the GPU's rendering workload increases substantially with each preset tier. The 16 GB VRAM is a notable asset for a flight simulator, which loads extensive terrain and scenery data; the large memory pool helps avoid texture thrashing in complex scenes. The 624.1 GB/s bandwidth supports high-resolution texture streaming, which is critical for a game that renders distant landscapes and detailed cockpits simultaneously.

The GPU's benchmark profile shows a PassMark G3D score of 20974 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2865. Its Geekbench OpenCL score is 106028. These synthetic results place the GPU at the 58th percentile overall. The nearest rival data shows the RX 7700 trading blows with the AMD Radeon R9 370X (0.1% slower), the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (1% faster), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (1.7% faster). This close grouping indicates the RX 7700 sits in a crowded performance tier, but the flight simulator results show it handles this game's demands well up to 1440p Medium.

The pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s provide raw throughput that benefits the high-detail cockpit and terrain rendering. The FP32 compute of 25.18 TFLOPS is relevant for the physics and weather simulations that Microsoft Flight Simulator runs. The GPU's 40 ray accelerators are present, though the measured data does not include ray tracing-specific tests for this game, so their impact here is not quantified. The 200 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest a mid-range power envelope, and the PCIe 4.0 x16 interface provides ample bandwidth for the massive texture sets used in flight simulation.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured rows show a clear progression. The Low preset averages 126 FPS. The Medium preset averages 98 FPS with a minimum of 84 FPS and a maximum of 113 FPS. The High preset averages 74 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 70 FPS. This represents a 56 FPS difference between the lowest and highest presets, or a 44% reduction from Low to Ultra. The Medium preset's minimum of 84 FPS is noteworthy because it is 14 FPS higher than the High preset's average, indicating that Medium offers smooth performance even in demanding scenes.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 102 FPS. The Medium preset averages 79 FPS with a minimum of 67 FPS and a maximum of 91 FPS. The High preset averages 60 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 57 FPS. The 1080p to 1440p transition costs approximately 19% of the average FPS across all presets (126 to 102 for Low, 98 to 79 for Medium, 74 to 60 for High, 70 to 57 for Ultra). The Medium preset at 1440p still maintains a minimum above 60 FPS, which is a strong result for a resolution that nearly doubles the pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 75 FPS. The Medium preset averages 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 67 FPS. The High preset averages 44 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 42 FPS. The 4K Medium row is the only 4K measurement with min/max data, and the 50 FPS minimum is below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating occasional stutter in busy areas. The Low preset at 4K delivers 75 FPS, but the visual quality trade-off is significant for a game that relies on visual cues for navigation and situational awareness.

Comparing across all resolutions, the data shows that the combination is capable of high frame rates at lower settings, but the preset choice matters more at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the gap between Medium and High is 24 FPS, while at 4K, the gap between the same presets is 15 FPS. This suggests that the GPU's workload becomes more uniformly heavy at 4K, reducing the relative difference between settings. The Ultra preset never exceeds 70 FPS at any resolution, and at 4K, it drops to 42 FPS, which is below the playability threshold for most users.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how the combination scales from 1080p to 4K. At the Low preset, performance drops from 126 FPS at 1080p to 102 FPS at 1440p to 75 FPS at 4K. This represents a 19% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 26% drop from 1440p to 4K. The total reduction from 1080p to 4K is 51 FPS, or 40% of the original performance. At the Medium preset, the progression is 98 FPS at 1080p, 79 FPS at 1440p, and 59 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 19%, and from 1440p to 4K is 25%, totaling 39 FPS or 40% lower.

The High preset scales from 74 FPS at 1080p to 60 FPS at 1440p to 44 FPS at 4K. This is a 19% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 27% drop from 1440p to 4K, totaling 30 FPS or 41% lower. The Ultra preset goes from 70 FPS at 1080p to 57 FPS at 1440p to 42 FPS at 4K, with drops of 19% and 26% respectively, totaling 28 FPS or 40% lower. The consistency of these percentage drops across all presets is striking. Every preset loses approximately 19% when moving from 1080p to 1440p, and approximately 26% when moving from 1440p to 4K.

This uniform scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller FPS differences at higher resolutions, because the CPU's workload does not increase with pixel count. Instead, the FPS drops proportionally with the pixel count increase: 1080p has 2.07 million pixels, 1440p has 3.69 million pixels (a 78% increase), and 4K has 8.29 million pixels (a 125% increase from 1440p). The observed FPS drops are smaller than the pixel count increases, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario where some work is resolution-independent (such as physics and AI). The fact that the percentage drops are nearly identical across all presets further confirms that the GPU is the bottleneck, regardless of the visual workload.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 256 KB of L2 per core, and 9 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR4 in dual-channel configuration, providing 42.7 GB/s of bandwidth. The CPU connects via PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes. Its TDP is 65 W.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-9400 scores 6629 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 935 in single-core. In Geekbench, it scores 5141 multi-core and 1389 single-core. Its average benchmark score is 2254, placing it at the 47th percentile among all CPUs. The nearest rivals show it performing within 0.4% of the Intel Core i7-1068NG7, the Intel Core i7-10710U, the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500, and the Intel Core i3-10305. This tight grouping indicates the i5-9400 is a solid mid-range part from its era, though not a top performer.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle the simulation logic, including flight dynamics, weather systems, and AI traffic. The game is known for being CPU-intensive in scenarios with heavy scenery or many ground vehicles. The measured data shows the combination reaching 126 FPS at 1080p Low, which suggests the CPU can keep up with the GPU at lower settings. However, the 47th percentile ranking means there are many CPUs that would feed frames faster. The 6-core, 6-thread configuration lacks hyper-threading, which can be a limitation in a game that may utilize more than 6 threads.

The CPU's single-core performance is particularly relevant for flight simulation, as many game engines have a primary thread for game logic. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 935 is respectable but not exceptional; newer CPUs with higher IPC would score higher. The boost clock of 4.10 GHz helps, but the 14 nm process limits how much frequency can be sustained under load. The 9 MB of L3 cache is also a factor; flight simulators with large world data can benefit from larger caches. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (126 FPS) being lower than what a top-tier CPU might achieve with the same GPU suggests the CPU is not entirely transparent, but its impact is masked at higher settings where the GPU takes over as the bottleneck.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 combination ranks 1324 out of 2996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the 44th percentile of all tested combinations, meaning it outperforms 44% of the combos in the database. The rank is based on measured FPS data, which is marked as confirmed measured rather than estimated.

This ranking is lower than what the GPU's 58th percentile would suggest, indicating that the CPU holds the combination back. The GPU alone sits comfortably above the median, but the CPU at the 47th percentile drags the overall combo down. The delta between the GPU percentile (58) and the combo percentile (44) is 14 points, which quantifies the CPU's limiting effect. If the CPU were upgraded to a part with higher single-core and multi-core scores, the same GPU would likely achieve a much higher combo rank.

The combo's position at 1324 out of 2996 means there are 1672 combos that perform better and 1323 that perform worse. This is a middle-of-the-pack result for a game that demands both strong CPU and GPU performance. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Medium, the combo delivers 98 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS target for most displays. At 1440p Medium, it delivers 79 FPS, which is also playable. This suggests that while the combo does not rank in the top tier, it is entirely capable of running the game smoothly at reasonable settings.

The ranking also reflects the game's release date of 2020-08-17. The CPU was released in 2018-10-18, and the GPU in 2025-09-17. This is an unusual pairing of an older mid-range CPU with a newer mid-range GPU. The data shows that the GPU has headroom that the CPU cannot fully utilize, particularly at lower resolutions and settings where the CPU becomes the constraint. At 4K Ultra, the combo's 42 FPS is below the 60 FPS threshold, confirming that higher resolutions are the best use case for this pairing, as the GPU bottleneck dominates and the CPU's limitations are less exposed.