Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator reveals a pronounced performance curve as resolution climbs, but the shape of that curve is not uniform across settings presets. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 209.3 FPS at 1920x1080 to 168.3 FPS at 2560x1440, a decline of roughly 19.6%, and then to 119.9 FPS at 3840x2160, a further 28.8% drop from the 1440p figure. This scaling pattern suggests that even at Low settings, the GPU is beginning to feel the pixel-pushing burden at 4K, though the headroom at 1080p indicates the CPU is capable of feeding frames well beyond what this resolution demands.

At Ultra settings, the story shifts. The 1080p result of 116.3 FPS falls to 92.3 FPS at 1440p (a 20.6% reduction) and then to 65.9 FPS at 4K (a 28.6% reduction from 1440p). Interestingly, the percentage drop from 1440p to 4K is nearly identical to what we see at Low settings, which implies that the rendering load scales consistently regardless of preset complexity. However, the absolute gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 54.0 FPS (119.9 vs 65.9), while at 1080p that gap is 93.0 FPS (209.3 vs 116.3). The shrinking delta at higher resolutions is a classic sign that the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck as pixel count rises, compressing the performance differences between presets.

What is particularly telling is the Medium preset behavior. At 1080p, Medium achieves 160.9 FPS, which is 44.6 FPS higher than High's 120.1 FPS. At 4K, Medium delivers 93.1 FPS versus High's 71.7 FPS, a 21.4 FPS advantage. The consistent ordering — Low > Medium > High > Ultra at every resolution — confirms that the game's settings hierarchy scales predictably, but the magnitude of the gaps narrows at 4K. This narrowing suggests that at 4K, the RTX 4080 SUPER's rendering throughput, not the CPU's ability to prepare draw calls, is the limiting factor. The data supports a conclusion that Microsoft Flight Simulator is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while at 1080p the balance tips toward CPU involvement, particularly at lower presets where the GPU has surplus capacity.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER holds the 116th position out of 1795 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it comfortably within the top 6.5% of all configurations evaluated for this game. Given that this is a flight simulator known for taxing both CPU and GPU heavily, ranking in the top 6.5% indicates that this pairing is well above the median experience, but not at the absolute frontier.

To contextualize the CPU's contribution, the i7-14700F sits at the 94th percentile against all CPUs in general benchmark performance. Its average benchmark score of 54097 places it within a narrow margin of its nearest rivals: the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X scores 54450 (a 0.6% advantage for AMD), the Ryzen 9 9900X3D scores 54681 (1.1% higher), while the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 scores 53469 (1.2% lower) and the AMD EPYC 7313P scores 53206 (1.7% lower). This clustering means the CPU is competitive with top-tier alternatives, though it trails the leading AMD parts by a hair in synthetic workloads.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4080 SUPER ranks at the 88th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53610. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT at 53489 (0.2% behind), the Radeon Pro W6600M at 53414 (0.4% behind), the Radeon RX 7700S at 52505 (2.1% behind), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti at 52086 (2.9% behind). The 4080 SUPER leads all of these, but the margins are slim, which suggests that in this game, the combo's rank is driven more by the synergy of both components rather than a dominant single part. The 116th rank out of 1795 combos implies that many configurations with slightly faster CPUs or GPUs edge it out, but the overall experience remains high-end.

GPU Role

The RTX 4080 SUPER brings 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth. For Microsoft Flight Simulator, which streams vast terrain and photogrammetry data, this memory capacity and bandwidth are directly relevant. The 16 GB frame buffer is sufficient for 4K Ultra textures without spilling into system memory, which is critical for maintaining the 65.9 FPS average at 4K Ultra rather than stuttering from memory pressure.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2550 MHz, with memory running at 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective). These clocks, combined with 10240 shading units and 320 TMUs, produce a texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s. In a game where ground detail and cockpit instrumentation require high texture throughput, these figures translate to the observed FPS numbers. The FP32 performance of 52.22 TFLOPS is substantial, but the data indicates that it is the memory subsystem and rasterization throughput that matter more here, given how FPS scales with resolution.

Notably, the GPU's passmark DirectX 12 score is 134, while DirectX 11 scores 301. Microsoft Flight Simulator's rendering path can leverage DX12, and the lower DX12 score relative to DX11 suggests that the game might not fully exploit the card's DX12 capabilities, potentially leaving performance on the table. The Vulkan score of 226163 and OpenCL score of 246994 show strong compute potential, but the game's measured results are what they are. The 4080 SUPER's 88th percentile ranking among all GPUs, combined with its nearest rival delta of only 2.9% over the RTX 5070 Ti, indicates that it is a solid but not overwhelming performer in this title.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting 4K, the data shows that Ultra settings yield 65.9 FPS, which is playable but may feel slightly below the smoothness threshold for some. Dropping to High increases the average to 71.7 FPS, a gain of 5.8 FPS, while Medium reaches 93.1 FPS and Low hits 119.9 FPS. Given the visual complexity of a flight simulator, where cockpit readability and terrain clarity matter, the High preset at 4K offers the best compromise: 71.7 FPS is fluid enough for most scenarios, and the visual uplift over Medium is likely worth the 21.4 FPS cost. Ultra's 65.9 FPS is only 5.8 FPS lower than High, so for those who prioritize maximum fidelity, it remains viable.

At 1440p, High delivers 100.1 FPS, which is excellent for a game of this scope. Medium reaches 128.7 FPS, and Low hits 168.3 FPS. The step from High to Ultra costs 7.8 FPS (from 100.1 to 92.3), which is a reasonable trade for the highest quality. For most users, High at 1440p is the sweet spot, offering triple-digit FPS without sacrificing much visual quality. At 1080p, even Ultra maintains 116.3 FPS, so players with 1080p displays can enable maximum settings and still enjoy a smooth experience, though the gap between High (120.1 FPS) and Ultra (116.3 FPS) is minimal, making Ultra the obvious choice.

The data suggests that the preset scaling is consistent, but the diminishing returns at higher resolutions mean that users should prioritize resolution over preset. A 4K Medium experience at 93.1 FPS is likely more immersive than a 1440p Ultra experience at 92.3 FPS, given the pixel density advantage. However, for those with high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors, the Low preset's 168.3 FPS opens the door to very high refresh rates, which could be beneficial in fast-paced scenarios like landing approaches.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: At 1440p, the combo achieves 100.1 FPS on High and 92.3 FPS on Ultra, which is an excellent balance of visual quality and frame rate. At 4K, High delivers 71.7 FPS and Ultra 65.9 FPS, both playable but less headroom for demanding scenes. 1080p is the only resolution where Ultra stays above 116 FPS.

Q: How much FPS do you lose going from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings?

A: At Ultra, the average FPS drops from 116.3 at 1920x1080 to 92.3 at 2560x1440 (a 24.0 FPS loss), and then to 65.9 at 3840x2160 (a further 26.4 FPS loss). The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 50.4 FPS.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 SUPER's 16 GB VRAM matter for this game?

A: Yes. The 16 GB GDDR6X memory with 736.3 GB/s bandwidth is crucial for handling the high-resolution textures and terrain data in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The 4K Ultra result of 65.9 FPS suggests the frame buffer is adequate, as there is no evidence of memory-related stuttering in the measured data.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: It ranks 116th out of 1795 combos, placing it in the top 6.5% of all tested systems for this game. This is a strong result, though not the absolute top tier.

Q: What is the CPU's benchmark standing relative to its rivals?

A: The i7-14700F's average benchmark score of 54097 is 0.6% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and 1.1% behind the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, but it is 1.2% ahead of the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 and 1.7% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7313P. It sits at the 94th percentile of all CPUs.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU more important for this game at 4K?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K. The FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 54.0 FPS (119.9 vs 65.9), which is much smaller than the 93.0 FPS gap at 1080p (209.3 vs 116.3), suggesting that the CPU has less influence as resolution increases.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. It draws a 65 W TDP and supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory via a dual-channel bus. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is known for heavy single-threaded physics and AI calculations, the boost clock of 5.40 GHz is likely the key driver of the 1080p Low result of 209.3 FPS. That number indicates the CPU can feed the GPU well beyond typical refresh rates at lower resolutions.

The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3. This large L3 cache helps with the game's asset streaming and world-building tasks. In synthetic benchmarks, the i7-14700F scores 35443 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 5003 in single-core, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 16571 and single-core of 2711. These figures, while not directly game FPS, correlate with the CPU's ability to handle the simulation's background tasks while maintaining frame pacing.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 94 against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54097, places it slightly below the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X (54450) and Ryzen 9 9900X3D (54681), but the differences are under 1.1%. In a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator, where the CPU must manage dynamic weather, air traffic, and physics, this level of performance is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 4080 SUPER at 1080p, as evidenced by the 209.3 FPS Low result. However, at 4K, the CPU's role diminishes, and the GPU becomes the dominant factor, explaining why the FPS differences between presets shrink at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 209.3 FPS, Medium reaches 160.9 FPS, High delivers 120.1 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 116.3 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 48.4 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is just 3.8 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset offers marginal gains over High at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the averages are as follows: Low 168.3 FPS, Medium 128.7 FPS, High 100.1 FPS, and Ultra 92.3 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across presets, ranging from 41.0 FPS for Low (209.3 to 168.3) to 24.0 FPS for Ultra (116.3 to 92.3). The smaller absolute drop for Ultra suggests that at higher settings, the GPU is already working harder at 1080p, leaving less headroom to lose when resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the results are Low 119.9 FPS, Medium 93.1 FPS, High 71.7 FPS, and Ultra 65.9 FPS. The transition from 1440p to 4K costs 48.4 FPS for Low (168.3 to 119.9), 35.6 FPS for Medium (128.7 to 93.1), 28.4 FPS for High (100.1 to 71.7), and 26.4 FPS for Ultra (92.3 to 65.9). This pattern — where higher presets lose fewer absolute FPS when resolution increases — confirms that the GPU's rendering load is the bottleneck at 4K, and lower presets allow the GPU to render more frames per second, but the CPU's frame generation capacity caps the low-preset results.

Notably, the 4K Low result of 119.9 FPS is nearly identical to the 1080p High result of 120.1 FPS. This suggests that the game's rendering engine scales such that reducing settings at 4K can yield the same frame rate as increasing settings at 1080p, offering users flexibility in how they prioritize resolution versus visual fidelity. The Ultra preset at 1080p (116.3 FPS) outperforms the High preset at 1440p (100.1 FPS) by 16.2 FPS, reinforcing that resolution has a greater impact on FPS than preset level in this title.