Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator: Intel Core i5-9400 + AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT produces a combination that ranks 676th out of 1,795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all configurations. This pairing leverages a six-core Coffee Lake processor with a 50th percentile standing among all CPUs, alongside a RDNA 3.0 graphics card that sits at the 76th percentile among all GPUs. The measured frame rates reveal a system that handles the sim's demanding flight environments competently at 1080p and 1440p, while 4K Ultra settings push the GPU to its limits, producing an average of 48.4 FPS that remains playable but far from fluid.

FAQ

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The combination ranks 676th out of 1,795 tested combos, placing it in the 62nd percentile of all configurations tested for this game. This indicates a solid mid-to-upper tier result, with the GPU's strong 76th percentile standing contributing more to the ranking than the CPU's 50th percentile position.

Q: What is the maximum average frame rate achievable with this setup?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 128.2, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At the same resolution, Medium settings deliver 114.7 FPS, High settings produce 87.2 FPS, and Ultra settings yield 81.7 FPS, showing that even at maximum quality presets, the combo maintains above 60 FPS at 1080p.

Q: Can this system handle 4K resolution in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: At 3840x2160, the combo delivers 47.7 FPS on High settings and 48.4 FPS on Ultra settings. Low settings at 4K produce 86.8 FPS, while Medium settings yield 68.7 FPS. The 4K results indicate playable performance but with noticeable compromises needed for smoother gameplay.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2,305, placing it nearly identical to the Intel Core i3-10305 (2,300, deltaPct 0.2) and Intel Core i3-1125G4 (2,299, deltaPct 0.2). It sits slightly above the Intel Xeon E-2134 (2,295, deltaPct 0.4) and marginally below the Intel Core i7-8809G (2,319, deltaPct -0.6).

Q: What is the GPU's relative performance against its nearest competitors?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT scores an average of 32,619 in benchmarks. This places it 0.2% ahead of the AMD FirePro S9300 X2 (32,540) and 0.7% ahead of the AMD FirePro S10000 (32,388). It trails the NVIDIA P104-100 (32,747, deltaPct -0.4) and NVIDIA T600 Mobile (32,849, deltaPct -0.7) by small margins.

Q: Which resolution provides the best balance between visual quality and performance?

A: At 2560x1440 with High settings, the combo achieves 71.3 FPS, which represents a reasonable balance. Ultra settings at 1440p drop to 64.5 FPS, while Low settings reach 120.3 FPS and Medium settings produce 92.5 FPS, offering flexibility depending on whether visual fidelity or frame rate takes priority.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT serves as the primary graphics engine in this configuration, built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 32 chip manufactured on a 5 nm process. The GPU operates with a base clock of 1,295 MHz and a boost clock of 2,430 MHz, with a game clock of 2,124 MHz that reflects real-world sustained performance. Memory consists of 16 GB of GDDR6 across a 256-bit bus, delivering 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves critical for the texture streaming demands of Microsoft Flight Simulator's expansive terrain and aircraft detail.

The GPU's benchmark profile shows a PassMark G3D score of 24,176 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 139,381, with Vulkan performance reaching 143,060. These figures place the card at the 76th percentile among all GPUs, indicating strong overall capability. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4,157 provides additional context for modern DirectX 12 workloads, which the game leverages through its API support. With 3,840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, the card processes geometry and pixel data efficiently, while 60 ray tracing cores enable enhanced lighting effects where the sim supports them.

The GPU's role in flight simulation becomes apparent when examining the frame rate scaling across settings at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the difference between Low (128.2 FPS) and Ultra (81.7 FPS) amounts to 46.5 FPS, showing that graphics settings have a substantial impact even at lower resolutions. The pixel rate of 233.3 GPixel/s and texture rate of 583.2 GTexel/s provide the raw throughput needed for dense scenery rendering, while the FP32 performance of 37.32 TFLOPS supports the complex shader work required for realistic lighting and weather effects. The 16 GB memory capacity ensures that high-resolution textures can reside in VRAM without stuttering from memory swapping, a critical factor for a game that streams vast geographical areas.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 provides six physical cores and six threads, operating with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. This Coffee Lake architecture processor, built on Intel's 14 nm process, features 9 MB of shared L3 cache and 256 KB of L2 cache per core. The CPU supports DDR4 memory through a dual-channel interface with 42.7 GB/s of bandwidth, and its PCIe Gen 3 interface with 16 lanes connects to the GPU. The 65 W TDP indicates modest power requirements, and the locked multiplier prevents overclocking, meaning performance is fixed at factory specifications.

Benchmark results show the CPU achieving a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7,969 and a single-core score of 1,125, while Cinebench R20 produces 3,346 multi-core and 472 single-core scores. The average benchmark score of 2,305 places this processor at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, indicating average performance relative to the broader market. The nearest rivals demonstrate how tightly clustered this segment is: the Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2,300 (deltaPct 0.2), the Intel Core i3-1125G4 scores 2,299 (deltaPct 0.2), and the Intel Xeon E-2134 scores 2,295 (deltaPct 0.4), while the Intel Core i7-8809G leads slightly with 2,319 (deltaPct -0.6).

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, CPU performance dictates the simulation rate, physics calculations, and AI traffic processing, which are heavily single-thread dependent. The single-core Cinebench R23 score of 1,125 suggests adequate but not exceptional per-thread performance, which can become a bottleneck in complex scenarios with dense scenery and many simultaneous simulation elements. The six-thread configuration means the CPU can handle moderate multi-threading, but games that scale beyond six threads will not benefit from additional logical processors. The 4.10 GHz boost clock provides responsive single-thread execution when needed, though sustained all-core workloads may see clocks settle closer to base frequencies.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 676 out of 1,795 tested combinations places this system in the 62.3rd percentile of all configurations evaluated in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This ranking reflects the combined capability of the CPU and GPU working together, with the GPU contributing more significantly to the overall position due to its higher 76th percentile standing versus the CPU's 50th percentile. The delta between these two components suggests that the CPU may limit the GPU's full potential in certain scenarios, particularly at lower resolutions where CPU overhead becomes more prominent.

When examining the performance data, the frame rates at 1920x1080 demonstrate that the CPU can feed the GPU sufficiently at this resolution across all settings. The jump from Low (128.2 FPS) to Ultra (81.7 FPS) shows a 36.3% reduction in frame rate, which aligns with the GPU becoming more heavily utilized as settings increase. At 2560x1440, the progression from Low (120.3 FPS) to Ultra (64.5 FPS) represents a 46.4% decrease, indicating that the GPU is handling more of the workload as resolution increases. The 4K results show a tighter spread between High (47.7 FPS) and Ultra (48.4 FPS), suggesting that at this resolution, the GPU is the dominant factor and CPU limitations are less relevant.

The ranking position becomes clearer when considering that 1,119 combinations out of 1,795 perform worse than this setup. The GPU's strong synthetic benchmarks, including a PassMark G3D score of 24,176 and an average benchmark score of 32,619, position it well above median GPU performance. The CPU's average score of 2,305 sits near the median, but in a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator where single-thread performance matters greatly, the 4.10 GHz boost clock helps maintain acceptable simulation rates even if multi-threaded workloads are less efficiently handled.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across three resolutions reveals distinct scaling patterns that indicate the limiting component at each level. At 1920x1080, the frame rates range from 81.7 FPS (Ultra) to 128.2 FPS (Low), showing that even at maximum settings, the system maintains playable performance. The transition from 1080p Low to 1080p Ultra results in a 36.3% FPS reduction, which suggests the GPU has sufficient headroom at this resolution and the CPU's six threads can keep up with the simulation workload.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops are more pronounced: High settings produce 71.3 FPS compared to 87.2 FPS at 1080p High, representing a 18.2% decrease. The Ultra settings at 1440p deliver 64.5 FPS versus 81.7 FPS at 1080p Ultra, a 21.1% reduction. These decreases indicate that the GPU is becoming more constrained as pixel count rises, but the CPU still manages to maintain adequate simulation performance. The Medium settings show a 19.3% drop from 114.7 FPS to 92.5 FPS, while Low settings decrease by 6.2% from 128.2 FPS to 120.3 FPS, suggesting that at Low settings, the CPU may be the limiting factor since the GPU has enough spare capacity.

At 3840x2160, the scaling changes character dramatically. High settings produce 47.7 FPS compared to 71.3 FPS at 1440p High, a 33.1% reduction, while Ultra settings fall from 64.5 FPS to 48.4 FPS, a 25.0% decrease. Interestingly, the gap between High and Ultra at 4K narrows to just 0.7 FPS (47.7 vs 48.4), whereas at 1080p the difference is 5.5 FPS and at 1440p it is 6.8 FPS. This convergence suggests that at 4K, the GPU is fully saturated and additional graphics settings have minimal impact because the pixel throughput bottleneck dominates. The Medium settings at 4K produce 68.7 FPS, while Low settings reach 86.8 FPS, showing that reducing graphical complexity can recover significant performance even at 4K resolution.

The data indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting component at 4K, with the CPU's role diminishing as resolution increases. At 1080p and 1440p, the combination of CPU and GPU works more evenly, with the CPU capable of driving high frame rates when the GPU is not heavily loaded. The 16 GB of VRAM proves sufficient even at 4K Ultra, as no memory-related performance collapse occurs, and the 624.1 GB/s bandwidth handles the high-resolution texture streaming without causing frame rate instability.