Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the Intel Core i7-13700K and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT reveals a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, though the severity of that drop depends heavily on the quality preset. At 1080p, the combination delivers an average of 153.8 FPS on Low settings, which drops to 121 FPS at 1440p and then to 92.1 FPS at 4K. That represents a 21.3% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a further 23.9% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The scaling behavior indicates that at lower resolutions, the system has headroom to push frame rates well beyond display refresh rates, while at 4K the workload begins to saturate the GPU more substantially.

Moving to Medium settings, the average FPS falls from 118.2 at 1080p to 95.4 at 1440p, then to 69.7 at 4K. The percentage drop between consecutive resolutions is more pronounced here than at Low, suggesting that the additional shading and texture work at Medium amplifies the resolution penalty. At High settings, the numbers are 89.5 FPS at 1080p, 72.5 at 1440p, and 54.7 at 4K — a steady decline that keeps the frame rate playable at every step, though the 4K figure is only marginally above the 50 FPS threshold. Ultra settings produce the steepest curve: 87.6 FPS at 1080p, 67.4 at 1440p, and 50.2 at 4K. The gap between High and Ultra at 1080p is just 1.9 FPS, indicating that Ultra's additional effects are largely GPU-bound even at lower resolutions.

The data suggests that the limiting component shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the CPU's high single-thread performance (a 3DMark single-thread score of 1136) keeps the GPU well fed, allowing frame rates to scale nearly linearly with settings reductions. At 4K, the RX 6800 XT's rendering throughput becomes the dominant constraint, as evidenced by the fact that dropping from Ultra to Low at 4K yields a 41.9 FPS improvement, whereas the same settings change at 1080p yields a 66.2 FPS improvement. This indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, while the CPU remains capable of delivering higher frame rates if the GPU could keep pace.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-13700K combined with the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT achieves a combo rank of 599 out of 1795 tested combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the pairing in the 66.6th percentile of all tested combos, meaning roughly two-thirds of the configurations in the database outperform it in this specific title. Given that both components are high-end parts from their respective generations, this mid-tier ranking is somewhat surprising and reflects the game's unusual performance characteristics.

The CPU alone sits in the 93rd percentile against all processors, with an average benchmark score of 47282. Its closest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13700KF (scoring 47334, a delta of -0.1%) and the AMD EPYC 4364P (scoring 47131, a delta of 0.3%). The GPU ranks in the 87th percentile against all graphics cards, with an average score of 49982, and its nearest competitors include the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti SUPER (scoring 48704, a 2.6% delta) and the NVIDIA CMP 50HX (scoring 49071, a 1.9% delta). Both components individually perform well above average, yet their combined ranking in Flight Simulator is dragged down by the game's engine characteristics, which appear to favor other hardware configurations.

The gap between the combo's rank and the individual component percentiles suggests that Microsoft Flight Simulator does not scale perfectly with raw compute resources. The game's heavy reliance on terrain streaming and physics simulation means that memory bandwidth and cache architecture play outsized roles, and the 16-core/24-thread configuration of the i7-13700K may not be fully utilized by this title. The observed rank of 599 out of 1795 indicates that while this is a strong pairing for most workloads, Flight Simulator-specific optimizations favor different combinations.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K brings 16 cores and 24 threads to the table, operating at a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. This Raptor Lake-S architecture processor features a 10 nm process node and a 125 W TDP, with 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. For Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is primarily to handle the game's complex simulation logic, including flight physics, weather systems, and the streaming of terrain data.

The benchmark data for the CPU shows strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 39000 and a single-core score of 5505. The 3DMark scores demonstrate scaling from 2262 with 2 threads to 12412 with max threads, indicating that the processor's performance does not plateau early. In Flight Simulator, which historically relies heavily on single-thread performance for its main simulation loop, the 5.40 GHz boost clock is likely the key differentiator. The PassMark single-thread score of 4333 further confirms that the CPU can sustain high clock speeds under load.

The combination of high boost clocks and a substantial L3 cache (30 MB) helps mitigate the game's tendency to stutter when loading new scenery. The measured FPS at 1080p with Low settings (153.8 FPS) suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor at lower resolutions, as the frame rate exceeds what most displays can show. However, the fact that the combo ranks only 599th out of 1795 implies that other CPUs, perhaps those with even higher single-thread performance or more efficient cache hierarchies, may deliver better results in this specific title. The CPU's 16 cores are likely underutilized, as Flight Simulator's engine may not scale well beyond 8 threads, but the high clock speed ensures that the primary simulation thread is not starved.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Intel Core i7-13700K and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT combination delivers an average of 153.8 FPS on Low settings, 118.2 FPS on Medium, 89.5 FPS on High, and 87.6 FPS on Ultra. The difference between High and Ultra at this resolution is only 1.9 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional draw distance and shadow quality options have minimal impact at 1080p where the GPU has ample headroom. The jump from Low to Medium costs 35.6 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High costs 28.7 FPS — the scaling is relatively linear until High, after which diminishing returns set in.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 121 FPS on Low, 95.4 FPS on Medium, 72.5 FPS on High, and 67.4 FPS on Ultra. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p reduces frame rates by 21.3% at Low, 19.3% at Medium, 19.0% at High, and 23.1% at Ultra. These consistent reductions indicate that the GPU is handling the additional pixel count efficiently, with the memory bandwidth of 512.0 GB/s proving sufficient to avoid severe penalties. The 16 GB of GDDR6 memory ensures that texture streaming is not constrained by VRAM capacity at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops to 92.1 FPS on Low, 69.7 FPS on Medium, 54.7 FPS on High, and 50.2 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Ultra result is just above the 50 FPS mark, which remains playable but indicates that the GPU is nearing its limits. The scaling from 1440p to 4K shows reductions of 23.9% at Low, 26.9% at Medium, 24.6% at High, and 25.5% at Ultra. Notably, the Ultra preset at 4K delivers only 50.2 FPS, which is 37.4 FPS lower than the same preset at 1080p. The frame rate differences between presets at 4K are compressed relative to lower resolutions, with Ultra only 4.5 FPS below High, indicating that the GPU's rasterization throughput, not the preset's additional effects, is the primary constraint at this resolution.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a Navi 21 chip manufactured on a 7 nm process from TSMC. It features 4608 shading units, 288 texture mapping units, and 128 raster operation pipelines, with 72 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1825 MHz, a boost clock of 2250 MHz, and a game clock of 2015 MHz, with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus delivering 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The compute capabilities include 20.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 41.47 TFLOPS of FP16 performance.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU's role is to render the highly detailed cockpit, terrain, and weather effects. The measured FPS data shows that the RX 6800 XT is capable of maintaining above 60 FPS at 1440p on High settings (72.5 FPS) but drops below 60 FPS at 4K on the same preset (54.7 FPS). The 16 GB VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for the game's highest texture packs, and the 512.0 GB/s memory bandwidth prevents bandwidth-related stuttering even at 4K resolution. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 24980 and its 87th percentile ranking against all GPUs confirm that it is a strong performer, though its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, which scores 2.6% higher on average.

The RX 6800 XT's 128 ROPs are particularly relevant for Flight Simulator, as the game's heavy use of alpha blending for clouds and vegetation places significant demand on pixel throughput. The 288.0 GPixel/s pixel rate helps maintain consistent frame times in dense scenery areas. The GPU's 72 ray tracing cores are not heavily utilized in this title, as the game's default rendering path relies primarily on traditional rasterization, but they are available for future updates or user modifications. The 300 W TDP and dual-slot design indicate that this is a power-hungry part, but the benchmark results show that the performance delivered justifies the power envelope. The combination with the i7-13700K, which has a 125 W TDP, creates a balanced system where neither component consistently bottlenecks the other across the tested resolutions, though the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K Ultra as evidenced by the 50.2 FPS result.