Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator: Intel Core Ultra 5 235 + Intel Arc B390

The combination of Intel's Core Ultra 5 235 processor and the integrated Arc B390 graphics solution delivers playable results in Microsoft Flight Simulator only at the lowest settings, with the measured data showing a hard ceiling around 56 FPS at 1080p Low. This pairing ranks in the bottom 11% of tested combos (position 2665 out of 2996), and the benchmark results indicate that the Arc B390's integrated nature — with system-shared memory and no dedicated VRAM — is the primary bottleneck across all resolutions and presets.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data clearly points to the Low preset as the only viable option for consistent gameplay with this hardware combination. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 56 FPS, which is the highest average recorded across any resolution or settings combination in the dataset. Medium at the same resolution drops to 43 FPS (with a minimum of 37 FPS), which remains technically playable but leaves less headroom for complex flight scenarios. High at 1080p falls to 33 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 31 FPS.

For users prioritizing frame rate stability, the Low preset at 1080p is the clear recommendation. The jump from Low to Medium costs 13 FPS (23% reduction), while the jump from Medium to High costs another 10 FPS (23% reduction). The incremental gains in visual fidelity from Medium to High are unlikely to justify the substantial performance penalty given the already modest frame rates.

At 2560x1440, even the Low preset only manages 45 FPS on average. This is a 20% reduction from the 1080p Low result, indicating that resolution scaling has a significant impact on this integrated solution. Medium at 1440p drops to 35 FPS with a minimum of 30 FPS, which sits right at the edge of acceptable playability for a flight simulator where smooth panning matters. High and Ultra at 1440p produce 26 FPS and 25 FPS respectively — both below the threshold for comfortable gameplay.

The 3840x2160 results are uniformly poor across all settings. Low manages 33 FPS, Medium drops to 26 FPS (with a minimum of 22 FPS), and both High and Ultra sit at 19 FPS. None of these figures represent a playable experience for a simulation title that requires smooth visuals for navigation and situational awareness. The data suggests that 4K should be avoided entirely with this combination.

The optimal experience, based strictly on the measured rows, is 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This configuration provides the best balance of average frame rate (56 FPS) and playability. Users who insist on Medium settings should stick to 1080p, where the 43 FPS average with a 37 FPS minimum remains workable, but they should expect occasional dips during demanding scenes.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel's 3 nm process. Its performance profile in Microsoft Flight Simulator is severely constrained by its memory configuration: the GPU uses "System Shared" memory, meaning it draws from the same pool as the CPU rather than having dedicated VRAM. The memory bandwidth is listed as "System Dependent," which explains the dramatic performance drops as resolution increases — higher resolutions require more memory bandwidth, and the shared system memory becomes a bottleneck.

The GPU's clock speeds are notable: a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz. This wide boost range suggests the Arc B390 can scale up significantly under load, but the measured FPS data indicates that thermal or power constraints (80 W TDP) limit sustained performance. The GPU features 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units, with 12 ray tracing cores. Its compute capabilities are rated at 7.680 TFLOPS for FP32 and 15.36 TFLOPS for FP16 (2:1 ratio), with pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s.

The benchmark data shows the Arc B390 scoring 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the benchmark database are all legacy NVIDIA parts: the GeForce GT 520MX (1.3% slower), GeForce 800M (1.5% slower), GeForce GT 625 OEM (2.5% slower), and GeForce GT 710 (2.7% slower). This positioning confirms that the Arc B390 sits at the very bottom of the GPU performance spectrum, which directly explains the FPS limitations observed in Flight Simulator.

The shared memory architecture is particularly problematic for a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator, which streams large amounts of terrain and scenery data. At 1080p Low, the 56 FPS average shows the GPU can handle the basic workload, but the 19 FPS result at 4K High demonstrates how quickly the memory bandwidth ceiling is hit. The fact that 4K Low (33 FPS) outperforms 4K Medium (26 FPS) by 27% suggests that texture memory pressure is the limiting factor rather than raw compute.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture (Arrow Lake-S), built on a 3 nm process at TSMC. It operates at a base clock of 3.40 GHz with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, and carries a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 over a dual-channel bus, providing 102.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

In CPU benchmarks, the Core Ultra 5 235 achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14769 and a single-core score of 2085. Its PassMark multithread score is 37816, with a single-thread score of 4516. The processor sits in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, meaning it outperforms the vast majority of processors in general computing tasks. Its average benchmark score of 46062 places it within 0.2% of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (0.1% faster), Intel Core i9-13900HX (0.1% slower), AMD EPYC 4364P (0.2% faster), and AMD EPYC 7303 (0.2% faster).

For Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is significant because the game engine handles extensive physics and flight model calculations. The 14 cores and 14 threads provide adequate parallel processing capability, and the 5.00 GHz boost clock ensures strong single-thread performance — which is crucial for the main simulation loop. The 24 MB L3 cache helps with the large working sets typical of flight simulation data.

However, the benchmark results reveal that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this combination. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 56 FPS, but as resolution increases to 1440p and 4K, the frame rates drop to 45 FPS and 33 FPS respectively at Low settings. This scaling pattern indicates GPU limitation rather than CPU limitation — if the CPU were the bottleneck, resolution changes would have minimal impact on FPS. The CPU's strong benchmark position (89th percentile) compared to the GPU's weak position (9th percentile) confirms this analysis.

The data suggests that the Core Ultra 5 235 has ample headroom for Microsoft Flight Simulator, and the integrated Arc B390 is what prevents higher settings from being playable. Users could theoretically pair this CPU with a discrete GPU for substantially better results, but the measured data only covers the current integrated configuration.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2665 out of 2996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the bottom 11% of all configurations. This ranking reflects the fundamental mismatch between a strong CPU (89th percentile) and a very weak GPU (9th percentile). The combo's position indicates that the vast majority of other hardware configurations tested deliver better performance in this game.

The rank is consistent with the measured FPS data: the best case scenario (1080p Low at 56 FPS) is modest, and the worst case (4K Ultra at 19 FPS) is nearly unplayable. The fact that this combo ranks below 89% of all tested configurations suggests that most users with discrete graphics solutions, even lower-end ones, achieve better results. The only combos ranked below this one would be those with even weaker integrated graphics or older CPU/GPU pairings.

Contextualizing the rank against the CPU's strong benchmark position is important: the Core Ultra 5 235 outperforms 89% of all CPUs, yet the combo still lands in the bottom 11% of game performance. This disparity highlights how heavily Microsoft Flight Simulator depends on graphics hardware. The game's streaming world and complex rendering demands overwhelm the Arc B390's shared memory architecture, regardless of the capable CPU driving the simulation logic.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this hardware?

A: The best measured result is 1920x1080 with the Low preset, delivering an average of 56 FPS. Medium at 1080p achieves 43 FPS, while High and Ultra produce 33 FPS and 31 FPS respectively.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K resolution in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The data shows 4K results are poor: Low averages 33 FPS, Medium averages 26 FPS, and both High and Ultra average 19 FPS. None of these provide a playable experience.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this configuration?

A: The GPU is the clear bottleneck. The Core Ultra 5 235 ranks in the 89th percentile of CPUs, while the Arc B390 ranks in the 9th percentile of GPUs. FPS drops significantly as resolution increases, which indicates GPU limitation.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: In the benchmark database, the Arc B390 scores 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. It is 1.3% faster than the GeForce GT 520MX, 1.5% faster than the GeForce 800M, 2.5% faster than the GeForce GT 625 OEM, and 2.7% faster than the GeForce GT 710.

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

A: The Core Ultra 5 235 has an average benchmark score of 46062, which is within 0.2% of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, Intel Core i9-13900HX, AMD EPYC 4364P, and AMD EPYC 7303. Its Cinebench R23 scores are 14769 multi-core and 2085 single-core.

Q: What memory configuration does the Arc B390 use?

A: The GPU uses System Shared memory with System Shared type and bus width. The bandwidth is listed as System Dependent, meaning it relies on the system's DDR5 memory rather than dedicated VRAM.

Measured FPS Breakdown

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 33 FPS average
• Medium: 26 FPS average (minimum 22 FPS, maximum 30 FPS)
• High: 19 FPS average
• Ultra: 19 FPS average

The 4K results show a clear ceiling around 33 FPS even at the lowest settings. The progression from Low to Medium drops 7 FPS (21% reduction), while High and Ultra both plateau at 19 FPS. The 14 FPS difference between Low and Ultra represents a 42% performance loss for maximum visual fidelity, which is not a worthwhile trade at this resolution.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 45 FPS average
• Medium: 35 FPS average (minimum 30 FPS, maximum 40 FPS)
• High: 26 FPS average
• Ultra: 25 FPS average

At 1440p, the Low preset remains the only option above 40 FPS. Medium stays above 30 FPS but with a minimum of exactly 30 FPS, leaving no headroom for demanding scenes. High and Ultra are within 1 FPS of each other, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects are largely unattainable due to the same GPU bottleneck.

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 56 FPS average
• Medium: 43 FPS average (minimum 37 FPS, maximum 50 FPS)
• High: 33 FPS average
• Ultra: 31 FPS average

The 1080p results represent the best-case scenario for this combo. Low achieves 56 FPS, which is the only measured configuration above 50 FPS. Medium's minimum of 37 FPS is the highest minimum recorded across all settings and resolutions. The gap between High (33 FPS) and Ultra (31 FPS) is minimal, suggesting diminishing returns at the top end of the settings range.

The overall pattern across all resolutions shows that the Low preset consistently delivers roughly 70% more FPS than Ultra. At 1080p, that's 56 FPS versus 31 FPS; at 1440p, 45 FPS versus 25 FPS; at 4K, 33 FPS versus 19 FPS. Users must decide whether the visual improvements at higher presets justify roughly a 40-45% reduction in frame rate, and the data suggests that for playability, Low is the only defensible choice.