Microsoft Flight Simulator

# FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Core i7-12700KF + Intel Arc B370 combination rank in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: This combo ranks 2770th out of 2996 tested combinations in the database. That places it in the bottom 8% of all tested systems, indicating very weak overall performance for this title.

Q: What is the best average frame rate this combo achieves in the measured data?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 50 frames per second at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At the same resolution with Ultra settings, the average drops to 28 FPS.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals in raw 3DMark performance?

A: The Intel Arc B370 scores 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. Its closest competitors are the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, 0.2% faster), ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, 0.5% faster), AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192, 0.7% faster), and AMD FirePro M2000 (1168, 1.4% slower).

Q: What are the CPU's multi-threaded benchmark results?

A: The Core i7-12700KF achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28838, a Geekbench multi-core score of 14367, and a PassMark multi-thread score of 34092. Its 3DMark max-threads score is 9983.

Q: Is there a measurable FPS difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: Yes. At 2560x1440, Medium settings produce an average of 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 and maximum of 36, while High settings produce an average of 24 FPS. That is a 25% reduction in average frame rate when moving from Medium to High.

Q: What memory configuration does this CPU support?

A: The Intel Core i7-12700KF supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration. The GPU relies on system shared memory, making its bandwidth system dependent.

# GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel's 3 nm process node. The data reveals a GPU with 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster operation units, alongside 10 ray tracing cores. Its base clock runs at 300 MHz, boosting up to 2400 MHz, which yields a pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s. The FP32 compute throughput is rated at 6.144 TFLOPS, with FP16 reaching 12.29 TFLOPS via a 2:1 ratio.

The most striking aspect of this GPU is its memory configuration: the memory size, type, and bus width are all listed as "System Shared," meaning the Arc B370 draws from the host system's RAM rather than dedicated VRAM. Bandwidth is therefore "System Dependent," which has profound implications for a flight simulator like Microsoft Flight Simulator, where texture streaming and terrain data loading are memory-intensive operations.

Examining the measured frame rates, the GPU's limitations become apparent. At 4K with Ultra settings, the combo manages only 17 FPS average, which is effectively unplayable. Even at 1080p with Low settings, the average of 50 FPS is the ceiling for this hardware. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184 places this GPU at the 5th percentile among all GPUs, meaning 95% of tested graphics cards perform better. Its nearest rivals are all over a decade old — the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, ATI Radeon HD 5770, AMD Radeon HD 7650M, and AMD FirePro M2000 — which contextualizes just how far behind modern discrete GPUs this integrated solution sits.

The GPU's 25 W TDP and IGP slot width indicate this is not designed for gaming workloads. The ray tracing cores exist on paper, but with only 10 RT cores and shared memory bandwidth, real-world ray-traced performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator would be severely constrained. The data shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, where the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows the frame rate to near-unplayable levels regardless of preset choice.

# Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern of resolution scaling that reveals where the bottleneck lies. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 and then to 3840x2160 produces substantial frame rate drops across all settings, but the magnitude of these drops tells a specific story about component limitations.

At Low settings, the average FPS progresses from 50 at 1080p to 41 at 1440p to 30 at 4K. That represents a 40% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 27% drop from 1440p to 4K. For High settings, the progression is 30 FPS at 1080p, 24 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K — a 20% drop, then a 25% drop. Medium settings show 39 FPS at 1080p, 32 FPS at 1440p, and 23 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings yield 28 FPS at 1080p, 23 FPS at 1440p, and 17 FPS at 4K.

The scaling pattern indicates that the system is heavily GPU-bound at all resolutions. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see frame rates plateau or drop less dramatically at higher resolutions, as the GPU work increases but the CPU work per frame remains similar. Instead, the consistent 20-40% drops as resolution increases point to the integrated GPU's fill-rate and memory bandwidth constraints being the dominant factor.

At 4K resolution, the GPU's shared memory architecture likely becomes a severe bottleneck, as the system memory bandwidth is shared with CPU operations. The fact that Low settings at 4K (30 FPS) barely outperform Ultra settings at 1080p (28 FPS) suggests that pixel throughput is the limiting constraint — the GPU simply cannot push enough pixels regardless of scene complexity.

The resolution scaling data implies that users seeking playable frame rates must stay at 1080p, and even then only with lower settings presets. The 50 FPS at 1080p Low is the only configuration that approaches smooth gameplay, while everything above that dips below 40 FPS.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the Intel Core i7-12700KF and Intel Arc B370 covers three resolutions and four settings presets each, for a total of 12 unique configurations.

At 1920x1080, the results are: Low settings produce an average of 50 FPS; Medium settings produce an average of 39 FPS with a minimum of 33 and maximum of 45; High settings produce an average of 30 FPS; Ultra settings produce an average of 28 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 22 FPS, indicating that settings changes have a moderate impact at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low settings produce an average of 41 FPS; Medium settings produce an average of 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 and maximum of 36; High settings produce an average of 24 FPS; Ultra settings produce an average of 23 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra narrows to 18 FPS, showing that resolution pressure is compressing the performance envelope.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low settings produce an average of 30 FPS; Medium settings produce an average of 23 FPS with a minimum of 20 and maximum of 27; High settings produce an average of 18 FPS; Ultra settings produce an average of 17 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra collapses to just 13 FPS, confirming that the GPU is saturated at 4K.

Notably, the minimum and maximum FPS data is only provided for Medium settings across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the range is 33-45 FPS; at 1440p Medium, it is 27-36 FPS; at 4K Medium, it is 20-27 FPS. These ranges show a consistent ~12 FPS variance, suggesting that frame pacing is relatively stable even at lower performance levels.

The data indicates that no configuration achieves 60 FPS, and only one configuration (1080p Low) breaks the 50 FPS barrier. For a flight simulator where smooth visuals matter for immersion, these numbers are uniformly underwhelming.

# Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings configuration for this combo in Microsoft Flight Simulator is 1920x1080 with the Low preset, which delivers an average of 50 FPS. This is the only measured configuration that approaches playable frame rates, and it does so by a significant margin over the next-best option.

At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 39 FPS with a minimum of 33 FPS. While this is a 22% reduction from Low, the Medium preset likely offers substantially better visual quality. For users who prioritize visuals over frame rate and can tolerate sub-40 FPS averages, 1080p Medium represents the best quality-to-performance tradeoff in the measured data. The minimum of 33 FPS means that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays above 30 FPS.

The High preset at 1080p (30 FPS) and Ultra at 1080p (28 FPS) provide marginal visual improvements over Medium but at a cost of 23-28% lower average frame rates. The difference between High and Ultra at 1080p is only 2 FPS, making Ultra a poor choice — the visual gains are likely minimal while the performance cost is measurable.

At higher resolutions, the recommendations become more constrained. At 1440p, only Low (41 FPS) and Medium (32 FPS) are viable, with High and Ultra both dipping below 25 FPS. At 4K, even Low only achieves 30 FPS, and every other setting falls below 23 FPS, making 4K effectively unplayable for this hardware.

The data suggests that users should treat 1080p Low as the baseline playable configuration, with 1080p Medium as the maximum quality setting that maintains acceptable performance. Anything beyond that requires accepting frame rates below 30 FPS, which is generally considered the minimum for interactive gameplay.

# CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process node. It features a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration and connects via PCIe Gen 4 with 20 lanes.

The CPU's benchmark results demonstrate strong multi-threaded performance. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28838 and PassMark multi-thread score of 34092 place it in the 85th percentile among all CPUs. The 3DMark scores show scaling from 1043 (single-thread) to 2065 (2 threads), 4011 (4 threads), 7211 (8 threads), and 9983 (max threads). The PassMark integer math score of 113521 and floating-point math score of 87449 further indicate robust computational capability.

In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle simulation logic, physics calculations, and AI traffic — workloads that scale well with multi-core performance. The 12-core configuration with 20 threads provides substantial parallelism for these tasks. However, the measured FPS data reveals that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this combo. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 50 FPS, which is likely close to the GPU's maximum output capability. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see frame rates remain constant across resolutions — but they drop consistently as resolution increases, confirming the GPU is the constraint.

The CPU's nearest rival in average benchmark score is the Intel Core i7-13700T (35403, 0.1% slower), followed by the Intel Core 5 213PE (35428, 0.2% slower), Intel Core i5-13600T (35305, 0.2% faster), and Intel Core i7-12700K (35287, 0.2% faster). This clustering shows that the i7-12700KF performs essentially identically to its closest competitors, with deltas under 0.2%.

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-12700KF + Intel Arc B370 combination ranks 2770th out of 2996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the bottom 7.5% of all systems tested. This ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU's severe performance limitations — the CPU is well above average (85th percentile), while the GPU sits at the 5th percentile.

The stark contrast between CPU and GPU capability creates an extreme imbalance. The i7-12700KF offers Cinebench R23 multi-core performance of 28838, which is competitive with modern desktop processors, while the Arc B370's 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1184 places it alongside integrated graphics from over a decade ago. This combination pairs a strong processor with a GPU that cannot translate CPU capability into frame rate.

The measured FPS data reinforces this assessment. At no resolution or settings combination does the system achieve 60 FPS, and the best case scenario (1080p Low at 50 FPS) represents a performance level that most modern gaming systems would consider a floor, not a ceiling. The rank of 2770 out of 2996 means that 92.5% of tested combos perform better in this game, which aligns with the GPU's low percentile ranking.

Looking at the GPU's nearest rivals — the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, ATI Radeon HD 5770, AMD Radeon HD 7650M, and AMD FirePro M2000 — all of these are legacy mobile or entry-level desktop parts from approximately 2010-2012. The Arc B370's performance is statistically indistinguishable from these aging components, which explains why the combo ranks so poorly despite having a modern, capable CPU.

For context, if the CPU were paired with a more powerful GPU, the ranking would likely improve dramatically, as the processor's 85th percentile standing suggests it can feed a much faster graphics solution. As measured, however, the combination is heavily constrained by the GPU, and the resulting 2770th place ranking reflects a system that is only suitable for the most modest of flight simulation settings.