Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator presents an unusual scaling pattern for the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080. Across the four settings presets, the frame rate drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is remarkably consistent, with average losses of roughly 40-42% regardless of whether the preset is Low or Ultra. Specifically, the Low preset falls from 211 FPS at 1080p to 125 FPS at 4K, a 40.8% reduction, while the Ultra preset drops from 117 FPS to 70 FPS, a 40.2% reduction. This uniformity is the signature of a balanced system where neither component fully dominates the other across the resolution spectrum; if the GPU were the sole bottleneck, the percentage drop would accelerate at higher resolutions, and if the CPU were the limiting factor, the 1080p-to-1440p delta would be much smaller than the 1440p-to-4K delta.

The data shows that the RTX 4080 scales almost linearly with pixel count in this title. At Medium settings, the 2560x1440 result of 132 FPS drops to 97 FPS at 4K, a 26.5% decline for a 2.25x increase in pixel count, indicating that the graphics card is still the primary driver even at lower presets. However, the gap between Low and Ultra at each resolution is relatively narrow—at 1080p, the spread is from 211 FPS to 117 FPS, and at 4K, it is from 125 FPS to 70 FPS—which suggests that the simulation's CPU-bound rendering threads (terrain, traffic, physics) are absorbing some of the load that would otherwise be purely GPU-bound. The 4K Ultra figure of 70 FPS is still well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth flight, but the 4K High result of 73 FPS is only marginally better, implying that the Ultra preset's additional effects (shadow cascades, volumetric clouds) are nearly free at this resolution. The limiting component at 4K is the GPU, evidenced by the fact that Low preset at 4K (125 FPS) is nearly double the Ultra preset at 4K (70 FPS), a gap that would not exist if the CPU were the bottleneck. At 1080p, however, the CPU begins to show its influence: the Low preset jumps to 211 FPS, but the Ultra preset only reaches 117 FPS, meaning the Ultra preset's draw calls are keeping the Core Ultra 5 235's 14 cores busy enough to prevent the GPU from running at full utilization.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combo?

A: The highest average FPS is 211, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. The next highest is 170 FPS at 2560x1440 Low, showing that the Low preset consistently yields the highest frame rates across all resolutions.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 maintain playable frame rates at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the 3840x2160 Ultra preset averages 70 FPS. This is above the 60 FPS baseline for smooth simulation, though it is the lowest average FPS recorded for this combination. The 4K High preset is only slightly better at 73 FPS.

Q: How much faster is the Low preset compared to Ultra at the same resolution?

A: At 1080p, Low (211 FPS) is 80.3% faster than Ultra (117 FPS). At 1440p, Low (170 FPS) is 78.9% faster than Ultra (95 FPS). At 4K, Low (125 FPS) is 78.6% faster than Ultra (70 FPS). The percentage advantage of Low over Ultra is nearly constant across resolutions, indicating a consistent overhead for Ultra settings.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for the Medium preset, and at which resolution?

A: The only min FPS values provided are for the Medium preset. At 1920x1080, the min is 139 FPS; at 2560x1440, the min is 112 FPS; at 3840x2160, the min is 83 FPS. These minimums are all well above 60 FPS.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested CPU-GPU combinations in this game?

A: The combo ranks 215th out of 3714 tested combinations, placing it in the top 5.8% of all systems tested for Microsoft Flight Simulator. This percentile is strong, though it lags the very top configurations.

Q: What is the largest single resolution drop in average FPS for the High preset?

A: For the High preset, moving from 1920x1080 (123 FPS) to 2560x1440 (99 FPS) is a 19.5% drop, while moving from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 (73 FPS) is a 26.3% drop. The larger drop occurs at the higher resolution step, reinforcing that the GPU becomes more stressed as pixel count increases.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 3840x2160, Medium averages 97 FPS with a minimum of 83 FPS, providing a comfortable margin above 60 FPS while retaining visual fidelity that Low lacks. The Medium preset's minimum FPS at 4K (83 FPS) is higher than the average FPS of the Ultra preset at 4K (70 FPS), which means users can achieve smoother frame pacing by choosing Medium over Ultra. At 2560x1440, Medium delivers 132 FPS average with a minimum of 112 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate displays; the Ultra preset at 1440p (95 FPS average) is still playable but leaves less headroom for stutters over dense scenery. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset's 164 FPS average with a minimum of 139 FPS is sufficient for even 144Hz monitors, while the Low preset's 211 FPS is only useful for extreme refresh rates that few monitors support.

For users prioritizing visual quality over raw frame rate, the Ultra preset is viable at all resolutions, as the lowest recorded average is 70 FPS at 4K. However, the data shows that Ultra at 4K (70 FPS) is only 3 FPS slower than High at 4K (73 FPS), meaning the extra visual features of Ultra (likely higher shadow resolution and more detailed water reflections) come at a nearly negligible cost at 4K. The recommendation is to use High at 1080p and 1440p if you demand the best visuals without sacrificing high frame rates—High at 1440p (99 FPS) is still above 90 FPS, and High at 1080p (123 FPS) is well above 120 FPS. The Low preset is only advisable for competitive or benchmarking scenarios, as its 211 FPS at 1080p is the headline number but the visual compromise is severe for a simulation game where situational awareness matters. The sweet spot for this combo is Medium at 2560x1440, which offers 132 FPS average and 112 FPS minimum—this is the highest resolution and settings combination that maintains a minimum above 100 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and RTX 4080 combination ranks 215th out of 3714 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator, placing it in the top 5.8% of all systems. This rank is impressive given that the CPU is a mainstream desktop part (14 cores, 14 threads) while the GPU is a high-end enthusiast card. The data implies that the GPU is doing most of the heavy lifting in this title, as the combo's rank is likely driven by the RTX 4080's strong performance (it ranks in the 86th percentile among all GPUs) rather than the CPU's raw compute (which ranks in the 89th percentile among all CPUs, but with a lower absolute score). Compared to the RTX 4080's nearest GPU rivals, the combo's rank could be slightly better or worse depending on CPU pairing; for instance, the RTX 4080 SUPER scores 0.1% higher in average GPU benchmarks, so a system with that card and a similarly capable CPU might rank a few positions higher. The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, scores 0.1% higher on average, which is a negligible difference in this game's frame rates. The 215th rank out of 3714 suggests that there are 214 combos that outperform this one, likely featuring higher-end CPUs (like the Core i9-13900HX, which scores 0.1% lower than the 235 but has 24 threads) paired with the same or better GPUs. The gap to the top combos is likely due to the CPU's thread count limitation in this simulation, as Flight Simulator can leverage more than 14 threads in busy airport scenarios.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 provides the graphical foundation for this combo. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for the high-resolution textures used in Flight Simulator's scenery. The 4K Ultra preset's 70 FPS average indicates that the GPU's 9728 shading units are being fully utilized at that resolution, but the fact that Low preset at 4K reaches 125 FPS shows that the card is not maxed out by the simulation's geometry alone. The GPU's boost clock of 2505 MHz (base 2205 MHz) is typical for the Ada Lovelace architecture, and the 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is more than sufficient for the DirectX 12 rendering path that this game uses. The RTX 4080's 76 RT cores are likely underutilized in this title, as Flight Simulator does not heavily use ray-traced effects in its default presets; the performance difference between High and Ultra at 4K (73 vs 70 FPS) is modest, suggesting that the Ultra preset's extra cost is in traditional raster effects like shadow maps and ambient occlusion rather than ray tracing. The GPU's 16 GB VRAM is a key asset for this game, as the 4K Ultra preset's large texture sets would otherwise spill into system memory; the fact that the 4K Ultra average (70 FPS) is only 4% lower than 4K High (73 FPS) implies that VRAM capacity is not a limiting factor here. The RTX 4080's percentile rank against all GPUs (86th) is slightly lower than its absolute performance would suggest, because it is an end-of-life product that has been superseded in the market, but in this game's measured data, it still delivers playable frame rates at the most demanding settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings sweep shows the following averages: Low 211 FPS, Medium 164 FPS (min 139, max 188), High 123 FPS, and Ultra 117 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 41 FPS, which is larger than the gap between High and Ultra at 6 FPS, indicating that the High preset adds significant computational load over Medium. At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 170 FPS, Medium 132 FPS (min 112, max 152), High 99 FPS, and Ultra 95 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across presets: Low drops 41 FPS (19.4%), Medium drops 32 FPS (19.5%), High drops 24 FPS (19.5%), and Ultra drops 22 FPS (18.8%). This consistency suggests that the extra pixels are handled uniformly by the GPU across all settings. At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 125 FPS, Medium 97 FPS (min 83, max 112), High 73 FPS, and Ultra 70 FPS. The transition from 1440p to 4K shows a larger percentage drop than from 1080p to 1440p for all presets: Low drops 45 FPS (26.5%), Medium drops 35 FPS (26.5%), High drops 26 FPS (26.3%), and Ultra drops 25 FPS (26.3%). This acceleration in frame rate loss at 4K confirms that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at the highest resolution. The Medium preset is the only one with recorded min and max FPS values, and at 4K, its minimum of 83 FPS is higher than the average FPS of both High (73) and Ultra (70) at the same resolution, making Medium the safest choice for consistent performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, running at a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (102.4 GB/s bandwidth) are relevant for Flight Simulator, which streams terrain and aircraft data continuously. The CPU's benchmark scores show strong single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2085) but relatively modest multi-thread performance (Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14769) compared to higher-core-count rivals. This single-thread strength is critical for Flight Simulator's main simulation loop, which is largely single-threaded for aircraft physics and flight model calculations. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 211 FPS, which is a clear indication that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at high frame rates; however, at 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 117 FPS, which is only 5 FPS lower than the 4K High result (73 FPS) would suggest if the CPU were not involved. The 14 threads are the likely cause of the relatively small gap between High and Ultra at 1080p (6 FPS), as the Ultra preset's additional draw calls for buildings and vegetation require more CPU threads to process. The CPU's 89th percentile ranking versus all CPUs places it above average, and its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, scores nearly identically (0.1% higher), suggesting that swapping to that CPU would yield no meaningful change in this game's frame rates. The Core Ultra 5 235's 65 W TDP is modest for a 14-core part, but its boost clock of 5.00 GHz ensures that it can handle the single-threaded bottleneck sections of Flight Simulator, such as flying over dense city areas. The absence of hyper-threading (14 threads for 14 cores) means that the CPU cannot offload background tasks to logical threads, but the measured FPS at 4K (where the GPU is the bottleneck) shows that this is not a limiting factor at higher resolutions. The CPU's PassMark multi-thread score of 37816 is 21% higher than its single-thread score of 4516, indicating that the processor scales reasonably with multi-threaded workloads, but the game's engine does not appear to fully exploit all 14 cores, as evidenced by the fact that the 1080p Ultra frame rate (117 FPS) is not limited by the GPU at that resolution (the GPU can reach 211 FPS at Low).