Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator with Intel Core i7-13700K + Intel Arc B370

This pairing combines a high-end 13th Gen desktop CPU with an integrated-class graphics solution, and the measured frame rates reflect that imbalance. The data shows a system that is firmly CPU-capable but GPU-limited at every resolution tested, making settings selection the single most important decision for playability. The Intel Core i7-13700K sits in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, while the Intel Arc B370 ranks in the 5th percentile of all GPUs — a gap that defines this entire benchmark set.

Settings Recommendations

Across all three tested resolutions, the Low preset delivers the only frame rates that approach smooth gameplay, and even then only at 1080p does it cross the 50 FPS threshold. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system averages 50 FPS — the best result in the entire measured set. Medium settings at 1080p drop to 39 FPS average, which is playable for a flight simulator but noticeably less fluid. High and Ultra at 1080p yield 30 FPS and 28 FPS respectively, which many sim pilots would find borderline.

At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 41 FPS average, which remains usable for this genre. Medium drops to 32 FPS, and both High and Ultra fall below 25 FPS — 24 FPS and 23 FPS respectively. At 3840x2160, even Low settings only manage 30 FPS average, with Medium at 23 FPS, High at 18 FPS, and Ultra at 17 FPS. The 4K numbers are consistently below playable thresholds for a sim that benefits from smooth panning.

The practical recommendation is clear: run Low settings at 1080p for the best experience, or Low at 1440p if you need the extra resolution and can tolerate 41 FPS. Medium at 1080p is the highest preset that keeps the average above 35 FPS, but the measured minimum of 33 FPS at that setting suggests occasional stutter. The data does not support High or Ultra at any resolution for consistent gameplay; every High and Ultra result sits below 31 FPS. For users who prioritize visual fidelity over smoothness, Medium at 1440p offers a compromise at 32 FPS average with a 27 FPS minimum, but this is a judgment call rather than a recommendation.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is the decisive bottleneck in this configuration, and its specifications explain why. The GPU uses system-shared memory with system-dependent bandwidth, meaning it competes with the CPU for the same memory pool. Its base clock is 300 MHz with a boost of 2400 MHz, and it delivers 6.144 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster output pipelines are modest figures for a desktop gaming context.

The measured FPS scaling across resolutions confirms a GPU that is overwhelmed as pixel count rises. From 1080p Low at 50 FPS to 4K Low at 30 FPS, the drop is 40% — a steep penalty that points to fill-rate limitations rather than CPU constraints. The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184 places it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (score 1186, 0.2% faster), ATI Radeon HD 5770 (score 1190, 0.5% faster), AMD Radeon HD 7650M (score 1192, 0.7% faster), and AMD FirePro M2000 (score 1168, 1.4% slower). These are all legacy or entry-level parts, and the B370's performance class is unambiguous.

The GPU's integrated nature (IGP slot width, no power connectors, 25 W TDP) means it draws from the same thermal and power budget as the CPU. This is not a discrete solution, and the benchmark results reflect that. The texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s are the hardware limits that cap frame rates in this simulator, which is known for heavy texture streaming and geometry loads. The 4K Ultra result of 17 FPS average is the clearest evidence: the B370 lacks the raw throughput to feed a 4K display in this workload.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 2770 out of 2996 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the bottom 8% of all CPU-GPU pairings. This is a low rank, but the context matters: the CPU is strong, the GPU is weak, and the ranking reflects the combined outcome. The i7-13700K alone benchmarks at an average score of 46881, which sits in the 89th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 (46971, 0.2% faster), AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 (47022, 0.3% faster), AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX (46654, 0.5% slower), and Intel Xeon w3-2535 (46653, 0.5% slower) — all essentially identical in aggregate CPU performance.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 1184 places it in the 5th percentile, with rivals like the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 and ATI Radeon HD 5770 within 1% of its performance. The delta between CPU percentile (89th) and GPU percentile (5th) is the widest possible mismatch in this database, and the in-game rank of 2770 out of 2996 quantifies the consequence. For comparison, a balanced pairing with this CPU would likely rank far higher — the constraint is entirely on the graphics side. The data suggests that this combo is only suitable for low-resolution, low-settings play, and even then, the 50 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low is modest by modern standards.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings ladder is available. Low settings produce 50 FPS average. Medium settings produce 39 FPS average with a minimum of 33 FPS and maximum of 45 FPS. High settings drop to 30 FPS average. Ultra settings produce 28 FPS average. The spread from Low to Ultra is 22 FPS, and the step from Low to Medium costs 11 FPS — the largest single-preset drop in this resolution.

At 2560x1440, Low settings yield 41 FPS average. Medium settings yield 32 FPS average with a minimum of 27 FPS and maximum of 36 FPS. High settings produce 24 FPS average. Ultra settings produce 23 FPS average. The resolution jump from 1080p to 1440p costs 9 FPS at Low (50 to 41), 7 FPS at Medium (39 to 32), 6 FPS at High (30 to 24), and 5 FPS at Ultra (28 to 23). The diminishing absolute cost at higher presets suggests the GPU is already saturated at 1080p High and Ultra.

At 3840x2160, Low settings produce 30 FPS average. Medium settings produce 23 FPS average with a minimum of 20 FPS and maximum of 27 FPS. High settings produce 18 FPS average. Ultra settings produce 17 FPS average. The jump from 1440p to 4K costs 11 FPS at Low (41 to 30), 9 FPS at Medium (32 to 23), 6 FPS at High (24 to 18), and 6 FPS at Ultra (23 to 17). At 4K, every preset except Low falls below 25 FPS, and the Low preset is barely at 30 FPS.

The Medium preset is the only one with measured minimum and maximum values across all resolutions. At 1080p, the range is 33 to 45 FPS. At 1440p, the range is 27 to 36 FPS. At 4K, the range is 20 to 27 FPS. These ranges indicate that Medium settings produce the most stable frame pacing of the tested presets, with the 4K Medium minimum of 20 FPS being the lowest recorded value in the entire dataset.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of 60 FPS in Microsoft Flight Simulator at any settings?

A: No. The highest measured average is 50 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. No tested configuration reaches 60 FPS average, and the data shows no preset or resolution combination that would plausibly achieve it given the GPU's 5th percentile ranking.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: 1920x1080 with Low settings provides 50 FPS average, which is the only measured result above 50 FPS. At 2560x1440, Low settings drop to 41 FPS, and at 3840x2160, Low settings drop to 30 FPS. The data supports 1080p as the only resolution where the system approaches smooth playability.

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

A: The Intel Core i7-13700K has an average benchmark score of 46881, which is 0.2% slower than the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 (46971) and 0.3% slower than the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 (47022). It is 0.5% faster than both the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX (46654) and the Intel Xeon w3-2535 (46653). These differences are negligible in practice.

Q: Is the GPU comparable to any known desktop graphics cards?

A: The Intel Arc B370's 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1184 places it within 1.4% of the AMD FirePro M2000 (1168), 0.2% of the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186), 0.5% of the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190), and 0.7% of the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192). All of these are legacy or entry-level parts from a much older era.

Q: Does the CPU hold back the GPU in this game?

A: No. The CPU's benchmark scores are strong — it ranks in the 89th percentile of all CPUs with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 30745 and a single-core score of 2116. The measured FPS drops are consistent with GPU limitations; for example, 4K Ultra produces 17 FPS average, which is a GPU-bound result. The CPU is not the limiting factor in any tested configuration.

Q: What frame rates can I expect at Medium settings?

A: At 1920x1080, Medium produces 39 FPS average with a minimum of 33 FPS and maximum of 45 FPS. At 2560x1440, Medium produces 32 FPS average with a minimum of 27 FPS and maximum of 36 FPS. At 3840x2160, Medium produces 23 FPS average with a minimum of 20 FPS and maximum of 27 FPS. These are the only presets with full min/avg/max data.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a 16-core, 24-thread processor based on Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 30 MB of shared L3. It supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory over a dual-channel bus, and it has 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes. The CPU's launch MSRP is $409.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i7-13700K shows strong multithreaded performance: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 30745, Geekbench multicore scores 19429, and Passmark multithread scores 45887. Single-thread results are equally respectable: Cinebench R23 single-core scores 2116, Geekbench single-core scores 2529, and Passmark single-thread scores 4333. The 3DMark thread scaling from 2 threads (2262) to 16 threads (10717) shows good scaling, and the max-thread score of 12412 indicates the scheduler is using the full thread count effectively.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle flight physics, weather simulation, and scenery streaming logic. The benchmark results show that even at 1080p Low (50 FPS), the system is not CPU-bound — if it were, we would expect similar FPS across resolutions. Instead, the FPS falls from 50 at 1080p Low to 41 at 1440p Low to 30 at 4K Low, a pattern consistent with GPU saturation. The CPU's 89th percentile ranking and its benchmark scores — including a Passmark data compression score of 595292 and a floating-point math score of 114867 — suggest it has ample headroom for this simulator's computational demands.

The practical takeaway is that the i7-13700K is overqualified for this GPU pairing. Its nearest CPU rivals, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 and Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375, all score within 0.3% of it, meaning any of these would perform identically in this game when paired with the Arc B370. The CPU's 16 cores and 24 threads are more than sufficient for Flight Simulator's workload, but they cannot compensate for the GPU's fundamental throughput limitations. If this CPU were paired with a stronger graphics solution, the 5.40 GHz boost clock and 30 MB L3 cache would likely yield far higher frame rates than any result in this dataset.