Microsoft Flight Simulator

FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Core i7-14700KF compare to its closest CPU rivals in overall benchmark scores?

A: The i7-14700KF posts an average benchmark score of 70104, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. It sits statistically even with the Intel Core i7-14700K (deltaPct 0), is 0.3% ahead of the AMD EPYC 9115, and is 0.4% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X.

Q: What is the GPU's standing among all graphics cards, and which rival is closest?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER lands in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 19774. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN, which trails by 0.3%, followed by the RTX 2070 at 0.5% ahead.

Q: What is the best playable settings combination at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset delivers 60.2 FPS average, making it the only 4K setting that clears the 60 FPS mark. Medium yields 45.7 FPS, High drops to 32.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 36.1 FPS, so Low is the recommended 4K target.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at the High preset?

A: At High settings, the average FPS falls from 58.9 at 1920x1080 to 47.6 at 2560x1440, then to 32.2 at 3840x2160. That represents a 45.3% drop from 1080p to 4K, indicating the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

Q: Does the CPU have enough headroom for this game, given its core and thread configuration?

A: The i7-14700KF provides 20 cores and 28 threads with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its strong single-thread performance (Geekbench single-core score of 2972) suggests ample capacity for flight simulation's physics and AI workloads, especially at lower resolutions where the GPU is less stressed.

Q: What is the overall rank of this CPU+GPU combination in this specific game?

A: The combo ranks 1239 out of 1795 tested combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the field. This reflects the GPU's mid-range standing rather than the CPU, which is a top-tier performer.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip fabricated on a 12 nm process. It carries 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's base clock is 1470 MHz, boosting to 1650 MHz, and it houses 2176 shading units alongside 34 RT cores and 272 tensor cores. Its FP32 throughput is rated at 7.181 TFLOPS, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), DirectX 12, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6 APIs.

For a flight simulator like Microsoft Flight Simulator, VRAM capacity and memory bandwidth are critical because the game streams vast amounts of terrain and scenery data. The 8 GB frame buffer is adequate for 1080p and 1440p play but becomes a limiting factor at 4K, where the Ultra preset demands more memory than the card can comfortably supply. The GPU's 448.0 GB/s bandwidth helps mitigate some of this pressure, but the data shows a clear ceiling: at 4K Ultra, the average FPS falls to 36.1, while at 4K Low it climbs to 60.2. This spread of 24.1 FPS between Low and Ultra at the same resolution demonstrates how heavily the game's visual fidelity taxes the GPU's shading units and memory subsystem.

The RTX 2060 SUPER's benchmark scores reflect its mid-range positioning. Its Passmark G3D score is 16462, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 2011. In the Passmark suite, the DirectX 11 score of 130 significantly outperforms the DirectX 12 score of 61, suggesting that the card is better optimized for older APIs or that driver overhead affects DX12 performance. The GPU's Geekbench OpenCL score of 87670 and Vulkan score of 83503 indicate solid compute performance. The card's overall percentile ranking of 63 places it just above the RTX 2070 in the rival list, which trails by only 0.5%, making the 2060 SUPER a surprisingly close competitor to its higher-tier sibling.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling. Moving from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 at the High preset, the average FPS drops from 58.9 to 32.2, a reduction of 45.3%. At Low settings, the drop is from 101.4 to 60.2, a 40.6% decrease. At Medium, the figures go from 78.1 to 45.7, a 41.5% decline. The Ultra preset shows the steepest relative drop: from 55.5 at 1080p to 36.1 at 4K, a 35.0% reduction, though the absolute numbers remain low across all resolutions.

These scaling patterns indicate that the GPU is the dominant limiting component at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra result of 36.1 FPS is barely above the 1440p High result of 47.6 FPS, showing that pixel count increases disproportionately tax the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth. The RTX 2060 SUPER's pixel rate of 105.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 224.4 GTexel/s are the relevant hardware limits here. At 1080p, the CPU's strong single-thread performance (Geekbench single-core score of 2972) allows the GPU to stretch its legs, as evidenced by the 101.4 FPS Low result. But as resolution climbs, the GPU's 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 compute becomes the bottleneck, with the CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads largely idle waiting for frames.

The data also shows that the game is not purely GPU-bound at lower settings. At 1080p Low, the 101.4 FPS result is more than double the 4K Low result of 60.2 FPS, yet the CPU is capable of far more than 101 FPS in multithreaded workloads (Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44557). This suggests that even at 1080p, the game engine imposes some serialization that prevents the GPU from being fully saturated, though the effect is modest. The practical takeaway is that users targeting 1440p or 4K should expect the GPU to be the sole limiting factor, while 1080p users may see minor CPU involvement.

Settings Recommendations

For this specific combination of Intel Core i7-14700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER, the measured FPS table offers clear guidance. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves 101.4 FPS, which is more than sufficient for smooth simulation play, but the Medium preset at 78.1 FPS and High at 58.9 FPS both remain playable. The Ultra preset at 55.5 FPS is borderline but workable. Given that the game is a flight simulator where frame pacing matters less than visual detail, the High preset at 1080p provides the best balance: 58.9 FPS is comfortably above the 30 FPS minimum for acceptable simulation, and the visual uplift over Medium is substantial.

At 1440p, the situation tightens. The Low preset delivers 82.6 FPS, which is smooth but visually sparse. Medium drops to 61.8 FPS, still solid, while High falls to 47.6 FPS and Ultra to 45.4 FPS. For most users, Medium at 1440p is the sweet spot—61.8 FPS is high enough to avoid stutter, and the medium detail level retains enough terrain and aircraft fidelity to be immersive. Pushing to High at 47.6 FPS is viable for users who prioritize visuals over frame rate, but the marginal gain from Medium to High is not worth the 23% performance hit.

At 4K, the options narrow considerably. The Low preset at 60.2 FPS is the only setting that achieves a full 60 FPS average. Medium drops to 45.7 FPS, High to 32.2 FPS, and Ultra to 36.1 FPS. Notably, High at 4K (32.2 FPS) is actually slower than Ultra at 4K (36.1 FPS), which is an anomaly in the data that may reflect variable scene complexity or driver behavior. Regardless, 4K users should stick to Low for playable performance, or accept sub-50 FPS on Medium if visual fidelity is paramount. The GPU's 8 GB VRAM is a limiting factor here, as the Ultra preset likely exceeds the frame buffer capacity, causing texture thrashing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average FPS across settings is as follows: Low 101.4, Medium 78.1, High 58.9, Ultra 55.5. The spread from Low to Ultra is 45.9 FPS, showing that the GPU has significant headroom at this resolution. The step from Medium to High costs 19.2 FPS, while High to Ultra costs only 3.4 FPS, indicating diminishing returns at the top end.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS figures are: Low 82.6, Medium 61.8, High 47.6, Ultra 45.4. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low is 18.8 FPS, at Medium 16.3 FPS, at High 11.3 FPS, and at Ultra 10.1 FPS. The smaller absolute drops at higher settings suggest that the GPU is already near its limits at 1440p Ultra, so additional resolution has less relative impact.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS figures are: Low 60.2, Medium 45.7, High 32.2, Ultra 36.1. The 4K Low result is the only one above 60 FPS, and the 4K High result of 32.2 FPS is the lowest recorded value across all resolutions and settings. The anomaly where 4K Ultra (36.1 FPS) exceeds 4K High (32.2 FPS) is worth noting; it may indicate that the Ultra preset triggers different rendering paths or that the scene load varied between runs. The total range at 4K is 28.0 FPS (from 32.2 to 60.2), which is narrower than the 1080p range of 45.9 FPS, confirming that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with 33 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB of L2 cache per core. Its benchmark scores are formidable: Cinebench R23 multi-core reaches 44557, single-core 6290, and Geekbench multi-core 19287 with a single-core score of 2972. The Passmark multithread score of 52425 and single-thread score of 4480 further underscore its capability.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics simulation, and AI traffic, which are typically single-threaded or lightly threaded workloads. The i7-14700KF's single-core performance is exceptional, as evidenced by its 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs. The data suggests that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this game: at 1080p Low, the GPU produces 101.4 FPS, and the CPU's high single-thread throughput easily keeps up. Even at 4K, where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, the CPU has ample headroom, with its 28 threads remaining largely underutilized.

The CPU's nearest rival comparison shows it is effectively tied with the Intel Core i7-14700K (deltaPct 0) and just 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X. This means that for flight simulation, the i7-14700KF provides no meaningful advantage or disadvantage over its closest competitors. The CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads are more than sufficient for this game, which rarely scales beyond a few threads. Users upgrading from older CPUs will notice the difference primarily in single-threaded responsiveness, where the 5.60 GHz boost clock and strong IPC shine. The CPU's 33 MB of L3 cache also helps with the game's streaming data, though the GPU's 8 GB VRAM is more likely to be the limiting factor for texture-heavy scenes. Overall, the i7-14700KF is an overqualified partner for the RTX 2060 SUPER in this title, ensuring that the GPU's mid-range performance is never held back by processor limitations.