Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator with Intel Core i7-13700K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

This combination of the Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers a robust Microsoft Flight Simulator experience, with measured frame rates ranging from 70 FPS at 4K Ultra to 211 FPS at 1080p Low. The data shows a system that comfortably handles the simulation's demanding rendering workloads, though the scaling patterns across resolutions reveal interesting insights about where the bottleneck shifts between CPU and GPU.

FAQ

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested configurations in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: This combination ranks 215th out of 3,714 tested combos, placing it in the top 5.8% of all configurations tested for this game. That percentile position indicates a high-performing setup that should provide a smooth experience across most settings.

Q: What is the best resolution and settings pairing for this system?

A: The data shows 2560x1440 at High settings provides 99 FPS average, which strikes a strong balance between visual fidelity and performance. For those wanting maximum smoothness, 1080p High delivers 123 FPS, while 4K Ultra still maintains a playable 70 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its nearest rivals in overall benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 4080's average benchmark score of 54,247 places it within 0.1% of the RTX 4080 SUPER (54,209), making them essentially equivalent in aggregate performance. It sits 1.1% above the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54,828) and 2.6% above the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698).

Q: What is the CPU's multithreaded performance profile relative to similar processors?

A: The Core i7-13700K achieves an average benchmark score of 46,881, which is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 (46,971, -0.2% delta) and the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 (47,022, -0.3% delta). It edges out the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX (46,654, +0.5%) and Intel Xeon w3-2535 (46,653, +0.5%).

Q: Does this system perform better at lower resolutions or higher resolutions?

A: The frame rate scaling is substantial: from 211 FPS at 1080p Low to 70 FPS at 4K Ultra. The gap between 1080p High (123 FPS) and 4K High (73 FPS) represents a 40.7% performance drop, suggesting the GPU becomes increasingly dominant as resolution increases.

Q: What is the VRAM capacity and memory bandwidth of the GPU in this configuration?

A: The RTX 4080 features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 716.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This capacity is well-suited for high-resolution flight simulation textures and scenery data.

How This Combo Ranks

The 215th place ranking out of 3,714 tested combinations places this system firmly in the upper echelon of configurations tested for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This percentile position—roughly the top 5.8%—indicates that the Core i7-13700K and RTX 4080 pairing delivers performance that should satisfy most users seeking high-fidelity flight simulation.

The CPU's performance context is notable: the i7-13700K's average benchmark score of 46,881 places it at the 89th percentile among all CPUs tested, with its nearest rivals—the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 and Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375—showing deltas of just -0.2% and -0.3% respectively. This effectively ties the i7-13700K with these competitors, meaning the CPU portion of this combo is not an outlier but rather representative of top-tier mainstream performance.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4080 holds the 86th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54,247. Its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores 54,209—just 0.1% lower—indicating the two are essentially interchangeable in aggregate benchmarks. The interesting comparisons come from the AMD side: the Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54,828 (1.1% higher), while the Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB and Radeon 8060S score 55,698 and 55,757 respectively (2.6% and 2.7% higher). These deltas suggest that while the RTX 4080 is competitively positioned, it is not the absolute fastest in its immediate benchmark neighborhood.

The synergy between these two components manifests in the measured FPS data. The combination achieves playable frame rates even at the most demanding settings, which aligns with its strong ranking. However, the ranking also suggests that there are 214 other combinations that deliver better performance in this specific title, likely including configurations with higher-end GPUs or CPUs that excel in single-threaded workloads.

Settings Recommendations

For users prioritizing a smooth, immersive experience without compromising visual quality, the 2560x1440 High preset emerges as the optimal choice from the measured data. At 99 FPS average, this setting provides well above the 60 FPS threshold typically desired for flight simulation, while maintaining the higher resolution that showcases the game's detailed cockpits and terrain.

Those with 1080p displays can afford to push settings higher. The 1080p Ultra preset delivers 117 FPS, which is only 4.9% lower than the 1080p High setting (123 FPS). The minimal difference between High and Ultra at 1080p suggests that users should select Ultra for maximum visual fidelity without meaningful performance cost.

For 4K displays, the High preset (73 FPS) offers a better experience than Ultra (70 FPS) when considering the relatively small 4.1% performance gap but potentially significant visual differences. The Medium preset at 4K (97 FPS) provides a substantial frame rate boost over High—32.9% higher—which may be preferable for users who prioritize smoothness over maximum detail.

The Medium presets across all resolutions show consistent behavior with documented minimum and maximum FPS values. At 1080p Medium, the range spans 139-188 FPS, at 1440p Medium it spans 112-152 FPS, and at 4K Medium it spans 83-112 FPS. These ranges indicate that the Medium preset provides the most stable frame delivery, with the narrowest relative variance between minimum and maximum values.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the system demonstrates its peak performance ceiling. The Low preset achieves 211 FPS, representing the highest measured frame rate across all configurations. Medium delivers 164 FPS with a range of 139-188 FPS, while High reaches 123 FPS. Ultra rounds out the 1080p results at 117 FPS, showing only a 4.9% drop from High—a surprisingly small penalty for the additional visual features.

The 1440p results show a predictable step down from 1080p. Low settings produce 170 FPS (19.4% lower than 1080p Low), Medium achieves 132 FPS (19.5% lower than 1080p Medium), High reaches 99 FPS (19.5% lower than 1080p High), and Ultra delivers 95 FPS (18.8% lower than 1080p Ultra). This remarkably consistent ~19% reduction across all settings indicates a uniform scaling behavior as pixel count increases.

At 4K, the performance penalty becomes more pronounced. Low settings yield 125 FPS, which is 26.5% lower than 1440p Low. Medium produces 97 FPS (26.5% lower than 1440p Medium), with a documented range of 83-112 FPS. High settings achieve 73 FPS, representing a 26.3% drop from 1440p High. Ultra delivers 70 FPS, a 26.3% reduction from 1440p Ultra. The consistency of these scaling factors—hovering around 26%—suggests a predictable relationship between resolution and performance.

The full progression from 1080p Low to 4K Ultra spans from 211 FPS down to 70 FPS, a total reduction of 66.8%. This wide range demonstrates the system's flexibility: it can deliver esports-level frame rates at lower settings or maintain playable performance at maximum fidelity.

GPU Role

The RTX 4080's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory with 716.8 GB/s bandwidth provides substantial headroom for Microsoft Flight Simulator's high-resolution textures and streaming scenery data. The 256-bit memory bus and 22.4 Gbps effective memory speed ensure that texture loading and terrain streaming do not become bottlenecks at the measured settings.

The GPU's clock behavior—2205 MHz base and 2505 MHz boost—combined with its 9728 shading units and 304 texture mapping units, delivers the raw compute throughput necessary for the game's complex rendering pipeline. The 112 ROPs handle pixel output efficiently, while the 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores provide dedicated hardware for any ray-traced or DLSS-enhanced workloads the simulation might employ.

The FP32 performance of 48.74 TFLOPS (with FP16 at the same 48.74 TFLOPS due to 1:1 ratio) indicates strong general-purpose compute capability. This is reflected in the benchmark scores: the GPU achieves 34,457 in Passmark G3D and 20,671 in Passmark GPU Compute, with DirectX 12 performance measured at 132 in Passmark's DirectX 12 test.

The scaling pattern observed in the FPS data—particularly the consistent ~19% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~26% drop from 1440p to 4K—suggests the GPU becomes increasingly load-bound as resolution increases. The fact that 4K Ultra (70 FPS) maintains playability indicates the 4080's memory bandwidth and compute resources are sufficient for even the most demanding settings at 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K brings 16 cores and 24 threads to the simulation, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz. This configuration—8 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores—provides both the high single-thread performance that flight simulators typically favor and the multithreaded capability for background simulation tasks.

The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. This substantial cache allocation helps maintain smooth frame delivery by reducing memory latency in scenarios with large working sets.

Benchmark results reveal the CPU's balanced performance profile. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1,136 and 2-thread score of 2,262 show strong single-core capabilities, while the 16-thread score of 10,717 and max-thread score of 12,412 demonstrate scaling across cores. The Cinebench R23 results—2,116 single-core and 30,745 multi-core—confirm this pattern.

In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is primarily in physics simulation, flight dynamics, and AI traffic processing. The 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates the i7-13700K is well above average for these workloads. However, the measured FPS data suggests that at higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the limiting factor—the consistent scaling percentages across settings at each resolution imply the CPU maintains sufficient headroom to feed the GPU without becoming a bottleneck.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a clear pattern in how this system scales across resolutions. From 1080p to 1440p, the average drop across all settings is approximately 19.3%, while from 1440p to 4K, the drop averages approximately 26.4%. This increasing penalty at higher resolutions is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios.

The most telling comparison comes from the Low settings across resolutions: 211 FPS at 1080p, 170 FPS at 1440p, and 125 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop of 19.4% and 1440p to 4K drop of 26.5% both align closely with the aggregate scaling seen at other settings. This uniformity suggests that even at low graphical settings, where CPU overhead might become more apparent, the system remains consistently GPU-limited.

The Medium preset offers the most complete data with min/max values, allowing for variance analysis. At 1080p Medium, the frame range spans 139-188 FPS (a 49 FPS spread). At 1440p Medium, the range tightens to 112-152 FPS (a 40 FPS spread). At 4K Medium, the range narrows further to 83-112 FPS (a 29 FPS spread). This decreasing variance at higher resolutions indicates that as the GPU becomes more saturated, frame delivery becomes more consistent—the GPU's workload dominates and reduces the impact of CPU-induced frame time spikes.

The scaling data implies that for users targeting 4K, the system will provide a stable experience with frame rates in the 70-125 FPS range depending on settings. For those seeking maximum frame rates, 1080p with High or Ultra settings (123 and 117 FPS respectively) offers an excellent balance. The consistent scaling behavior across all settings suggests the RTX 4080 is the primary driver of performance at resolutions above 1080p, while the i7-13700K provides sufficient processing power to avoid introducing significant bottlenecks at any measured configuration.