Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator is a demanding flight simulation title that stresses both the CPU and GPU heavily. The measured data for the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 provides a clear picture of how this combination handles the game across different resolutions and quality presets. This analysis will break down the performance metrics, focusing on what the numbers indicate about the system's behavior and how it compares to other tested configurations.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data across all resolutions shows a consistent hierarchy between the four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 233 FPS, Medium drops to 181 FPS, High achieves 136 FPS, and Ultra falls to 130 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra is notably small, with only a 6 FPS difference at this resolution. This pattern repeats at 2560x1440, where High produces 110 FPS and Ultra produces 105 FPS, again a minimal 5 FPS separation. At 3840x2160, High averages 81 FPS while Ultra averages 77 FPS, showing a similar 4 FPS gap.

The data suggests that the Ultra preset offers marginal gains over High in visual fidelity for a relatively small performance cost. However, the more significant jump occurs between Medium and High, which costs roughly 40-45 FPS at 1080p and 36-38 FPS at 1440p. For users prioritizing frame rate, the Medium preset provides a substantial boost over High while still maintaining playable performance. The Low preset delivers the highest frame rates, reaching 233 FPS at 1080p and 188 FPS at 1440p, but this comes at a considerable visual quality reduction.

The most balanced experience appears to be the High preset. At 1080p, it maintains 136 FPS, which is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay. At 1440p, High still delivers 110 FPS, and at 4K it holds 81 FPS. The Ultra preset, while offering the maximum visual quality, only marginally improves on High in terms of frame rate reduction, suggesting that High provides the best performance-to-quality ratio in this dataset. The Medium preset is a viable alternative for those seeking higher frame rates, particularly at 4K where it achieves 108 FPS compared to High's 81 FPS, but the visual downgrade may be significant.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is a flagship graphics card from the GeForce 40-series, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process. Its specifications include 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. The GPU operates with a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz. This configuration places the RTX 4090 in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, indicating its high-end positioning.

In this game, the GPU's role becomes increasingly evident as resolution scales. At 1080p, the frame rates are exceptionally high, with the Low preset reaching 233 FPS and Ultra hitting 130 FPS. These numbers suggest the GPU is not the primary limiting factor at this resolution, as the CPU is likely constraining performance. At 1440p, frame rates remain high, with Low at 188 FPS and Ultra at 105 FPS. The GPU begins to take a more significant role here, but the still-high frame rates indicate headroom remains.

At 4K resolution, the GPU's workload increases substantially. The RTX 4090 maintains an average of 138 FPS on Low, 108 FPS on Medium, 81 FPS on High, and 77 FPS on Ultra. The 24 GB VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for this game's textures and assets at any resolution, eliminating any memory-related bottlenecks. The high memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s ensures that the GPU can feed data to its 16,384 shading units efficiently, which is crucial for the complex scenery rendering in a flight simulator. The pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s are also important metrics, as they dictate how quickly the GPU can fill pixels and apply textures, directly impacting the visual detail in the game's environments.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals how the system's performance scales with resolution. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 233 at 1080p to 188 at 1440p and further to 138 at 4K. This represents a 40.8% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a 26.6% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The diminishing percentage drops suggest that at lower resolutions, the CPU is the limiting factor, and as resolution increases, the GPU becomes more heavily utilized.

For the Medium preset, the frame rates are 181 FPS at 1080p, 146 FPS at 1440p, and 108 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 19.3% and 26.0% respectively, showing a more consistent scaling pattern. The High preset shows 136 FPS at 1080p, 110 FPS at 1440p, and 81 FPS at 4K, with drops of 19.1% and 26.4%. The Ultra preset follows a similar trend: 130 FPS at 1080p, 105 FPS at 1440p, and 77 FPS at 4K, representing a 19.2% and 26.7% reduction.

The consistent 19% drop from 1080p to 1440p across Medium, High, and Ultra settings indicates a balanced scaling where both CPU and GPU contribute to performance. However, the Low preset's larger 40.8% drop from 1080p to 1440p suggests that at lower settings, the CPU becomes a more significant bottleneck. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the dominant factor, as the RTX 4090's capabilities are fully taxed. The fact that frame rates remain above 77 FPS even at Ultra settings at 4K demonstrates that this GPU is highly capable, but the data shows the system is transitioned from a CPU-bound state at 1080p Low to a GPU-bound state at 4K Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination ranks 67th out of 2996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the system in the top 2.2% of all configurations tested, indicating excellent overall performance. The high ranking is primarily driven by the RTX 4090's exceptional graphics capabilities, which are among the best available. The CPU, while not the top performer, provides sufficient processing power to avoid severe bottlenecks in most scenarios.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 85 places it above 85% of all CPUs, but its nearest rivals show interesting comparisons. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600F has an average score of 36945, which is essentially identical to the Core Ultra 5 225's 36938, with a deltaPct of 0. The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D is slightly ahead at 37018, with a deltaPct of -0.2, meaning the Core Ultra 5 225 is 0.2% behind. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 and Intel Core i9-12900T are also close, with deltaPct values of -0.4 and -0.5 respectively. This indicates that the CPU performs similarly to these mid-range rivals, with differences in the sub-1% range.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 88 places it above 88% of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Arc Pro A60 with an average score of 60326, which is nearly identical to the RTX 4090's 60347, with a deltaPct of 0. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 is 0.3% behind, while the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M is 2.5% ahead. These comparisons are based on average benchmark scores, which may not fully reflect gaming performance, but they provide context for the RTX 4090's position. The combo's rank of 67 suggests that while the GPU is extremely powerful, the CPU's mid-range performance may slightly limit the system's overall potential in this CPU-intensive flight simulator.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The CPU features 20 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR5 memory. Its benchmark scores include a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 25891 and a singlecore score of 3655, indicating solid multi-threaded and single-threaded performance.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is critical, as the game's simulation logic and world rendering heavily depend on processor performance. At 1080p with the Low preset, the system achieves 233 FPS, which suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to maintain very high frame rates. However, the large drop to 188 FPS at 1440p Low indicates that the CPU becomes a limiting factor when the GPU has less work to do. This is further evidenced by the fact that at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is only 103 FPS (233 vs 130), while at 4K, the difference narrows to 61 FPS (138 vs 77).

The CPU's 10 cores and 10 threads are sufficient for this game, as it does not appear to scale beyond this thread count in the tested scenarios. The boost clock of 4.90 GHz is beneficial for single-threaded performance, which is often critical in flight simulators for AI and physics calculations. The 20 MB L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, which is important for the game's large streaming world. The CPU's performance in the combined benchmark (avgBenchmarkScore of 36938) places it near the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F and Ryzen 5 5500X3D, suggesting it offers comparable processing power to these established mid-range options.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across all tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 233 FPS, Medium averages 181 FPS with a minimum of 154 and maximum of 208, High averages 136 FPS, and Ultra averages 130 FPS. The Medium preset's frame time variance is notable, with a 54 FPS range between minimum and maximum, indicating some scene-to-scene variability.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 188 FPS, Medium averages 146 FPS with a range of 124 to 168, High averages 110 FPS, and Ultra averages 105 FPS. The Medium preset shows a 44 FPS range at this resolution, again highlighting variability in complex scenes. At 3840x2160, Low averages 138 FPS, Medium averages 108 FPS with a range of 92 to 124, High averages 81 FPS, and Ultra averages 77 FPS. The Medium preset's range at 4K is 32 FPS, which is the smallest variance across all resolutions for this setting.

The data reveals that the Medium preset consistently provides the most detailed FPS information, as it is the only setting with min and max values recorded. This suggests that the Medium preset may offer a more stable experience in terms of frame pacing, despite the lower average compared to Low. The High and Ultra presets show no variance data, but their averages are closer to each other than to Medium, indicating that Ultra does not impose a significantly higher cost than High. The progression from Low to Ultra at each resolution shows a clear stepwise decrease in performance, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium at 1080p (52 FPS) and the smallest between High and Ultra at all resolutions (6, 5, and 4 FPS respectively).

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved with this CPU-GPU combo?

A: The highest average FPS is 233, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High in terms of performance?

A: At all resolutions, the Ultra preset delivers only slightly lower frame rates than High. At 1080p, Ultra is 6 FPS lower (130 vs 136), at 1440p it is 5 FPS lower (105 vs 110), and at 4K it is 4 FPS lower (77 vs 81).

Q: What is the combo's ranking among all tested configurations in this game?

A: The combo ranks 67th out of 2996 tested combinations, placing it in the top 2.2% of all configurations.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU become the limiting factor at 4K resolution?

A: At 4K, the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor. The frame rate drops from 138 FPS on Low to 77 FPS on Ultra, indicating the RTX 4090 is heavily taxed at this resolution.

Q: What is the frame rate range for the Medium preset at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 has an average of 146 FPS, with a minimum of 124 FPS and a maximum of 168 FPS, showing a 44 FPS range.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its nearest rival?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 has an average benchmark score of 36938, which is essentially identical to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F's 36945, with a deltaPct of 0. It is 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D.