Microsoft Flight Simulator

FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The CPU’s average benchmark score is 46,062. This places it 0.1% above the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (46,030) and 0.2% above both the AMD EPYC 4364P (45,970) and the AMD EPYC 7303 (45,960). It sits 0.1% below the Intel Core i9-13900HX (46,098).

Q: What is the GPU's performance percentile, and which competitors is it closest to?

A: The RTX 5050 sits in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 21,035. Its nearest rival is the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (21,153), which is 0.6% faster; the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile (21,379) is 1.6% faster, and the AMD Radeon HD 8970M (21,237) is 1% faster. The AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (20,713) is 1.6% slower.

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves at 1080p, and at which settings?

A: The highest measured average at 1920x1080 is 106 FPS on Low settings. For comparison, Medium yields 82 FPS, High yields 62 FPS, and Ultra yields 59 FPS.

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

A: The combo ranks 1814th out of 2996 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the overall distribution, indicating that while it is playable, many other setups deliver higher frame rates.

Q: Does the GPU have enough VRAM for high-resolution flight simulation?

A: The RTX 5050 comes with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 320.0 GB/s of bandwidth. At 4K with Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 35, which suggests the 8 GB frame buffer is a limiting factor for the highest visual fidelity at that resolution.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the CPU and GPU?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 has a launch MSRP of $257. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 has a launch MSRP of 249 USD.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data for Microsoft Flight Simulator shows a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate for this combo. At 1920x1080, the jump from Low to Medium costs 24 FPS (from 106 to 82), but the jump from Medium to High costs another 20 FPS (down to 62). The High preset at 1080p delivers 62 FPS, which is still smooth for a flight simulator, but the Ultra preset drops to 59 FPS, a marginal gain in visuals for a significant loss in headroom.

The most balanced experience appears to be the Medium preset. At 1080p, it produces 82 FPS with a minimum of 70 FPS and a maximum of 95 FPS, providing a stable range that avoids the dips seen at higher settings. At 2560x1440, Medium yields 66 FPS (min 57, max 76), which remains playable, while High drops to 50 FPS and Ultra to 48 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p offers the best compromise between resolution and fluidity.

For users with 4K displays, the situation is more constrained. At 3840x2160, Medium delivers 49 FPS (min 42, max 56), which is borderline for a sim where smooth panning matters. High drops to 37 FPS, and Ultra to 35 FPS, both of which are likely too choppy for a satisfying experience. Low at 4K produces 63 FPS, but the visual degradation is substantial.

The data suggests that Medium is the optimal preset for this hardware. It provides the highest frame rate that still maintains a playable minimum (above 40 FPS at 1440p and above 70 FPS at 1080p). The High preset is only recommended for 1080p where the 62 FPS average is acceptable, but the 20 FPS penalty over Medium is hard to justify given the modest visual uplift in this title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is the primary driver of frame rate differences across settings within each resolution. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus delivers 320.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a modest figure for a modern card. The GPU’s base clock is 2317 MHz, boosting to 2572 MHz, and it offers 2560 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The FP32 compute is 13.17 TFLOPS, and the pixel rate is 82.30 GPixel/s.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the GPU’s role is evident in the scaling from Low to Ultra. At 1080p, the average FPS drops from 106 on Low to 59 on Ultra, a 44% reduction. This scaling indicates that the GPU is the bottleneck at higher settings, as the CPU’s compute headroom (detailed later) cannot compensate for the increased shading and texture work. The 8 GB VRAM is a particular concern at 4K, where Ultra settings push the average down to 35 FPS, suggesting the frame buffer is saturated, forcing the card to rely on slower memory swaps.

The GPU’s 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs places it as a mid-range part. Its nearest rival, the RX Vega M GL, is 0.6% faster on average, but in this specific game, the RTX 5050’s architecture (Blackwell 2.0) may handle the DirectX 12 workload differently. The 20 RT cores and 80 tensor cores are present but are not directly leveraged by the measured FPS rows, which do not specify ray tracing or DLSS settings. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2502 and the Passmark G3D score of 17326 provide context for its raw compute, but the game’s results are what matter here.

At 1440p, the GPU’s limitations become more pronounced. The Medium preset runs at 66 FPS, but High drops to 50 FPS, a 24% decrease. This pattern repeats at 4K, where High is 37 FPS and Ultra is 35 FPS, showing that the card has a hard ceiling around 50 FPS for medium-to-high settings at higher resolutions. The GPU is the limiting component in most scenarios, as evidenced by the consistent FPS drops when settings are increased.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). The Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data, providing a frame time window for each resolution.

At 1920x1080, the full range is:

• Low: 106 FPS average
• Medium: 82 FPS average (min 70, max 95)
• High: 62 FPS average
• Ultra: 59 FPS average

The gap between High and Ultra is only 3 FPS, which is negligible, suggesting that the Ultra preset adds little over High at this resolution. The step from Medium to High is a substantial 20 FPS loss, indicating that the High preset introduces a significant rendering cost.

At 2560x1440, the results are:

• Low: 85 FPS average
• Medium: 66 FPS average (min 57, max 76)
• High: 50 FPS average
• Ultra: 48 FPS average

The pattern mirrors 1080p but with a lower ceiling. The Medium-to-High drop is 16 FPS, and High-to-Ultra is only 2 FPS. This confirms that the Ultra preset offers minimal benefit over High across all resolutions, making High the practical maximum for visibility, while Medium provides the best playable experience.

At 3840x2160, the results are:

• Low: 63 FPS average
• Medium: 49 FPS average (min 42, max 56)
• High: 37 FPS average
• Ultra: 35 FPS average

The 4K data shows the GPU struggling. The Medium preset’s minimum of 42 FPS is below the 60 FPS target, and High drops to 37 FPS, which is likely too low for smooth panning in a flight sim. The gap between Low and Medium is 14 FPS, and between Medium and High is 12 FPS, showing a linear degradation as settings increase.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset offers the best balance, with the 1080p result being the only one that consistently hits above 70 FPS minimum. The High and Ultra presets are only viable at 1080p, where they still manage to stay above 59 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 1814th out of 2996 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places it in the 60.5th percentile of all combos (calculated as 1814/2996), meaning roughly 60% of tested systems perform better in this game. This is a mid-to-low ranking, consistent with the RTX 5050’s 66th percentile among GPUs and the CPU’s 89th percentile among CPUs.

The rank suggests that while the CPU is strong (89th percentile), the GPU is holding the combo back. The CPU’s high percentile (89) versus the GPU’s lower percentile (66) indicates a mismatch: the processor has more headroom than the graphics card can utilize in this title. This is typical for flight simulators, which often favor single-threaded CPU performance, but here the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher settings.

Compared to the GPU’s nearest rivals, the RTX 5050 is within 1.6% of the RX 5600 XT and 1% of the HD 8970M, meaning this combo would perform similarly to systems pairing those GPUs with a comparable CPU. The rank of 1814 implies that many combos with lower-tier GPUs but higher-tier CPUs (like the i9-13900HX, which is 0.1% faster than the Ultra 5 235) could achieve better results in this game, further emphasizing the GPU bottleneck.

For users considering this combo, the rank indicates that it is a competent 1080p machine but not a high-refresh or high-resolution powerhouse. The 59 FPS Ultra result at 1080p is the ceiling, and the 35 FPS 4K result is the floor, so expectations should be set accordingly.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 has 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. It has 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache per core, along with 192 KB of L1 cache per core. The CPU’s architecture is Arrow Lake-S on a 3 nm process, with dual-channel DDR5 memory support providing 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 14,769 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,085 in single-core. This single-core score is critical for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which relies heavily on a single main thread for simulation logic. The 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms that this processor is well above average for this workload.

However, the game’s measured FPS shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in most scenarios. At 1080p, the FPS drops from 106 on Low to 59 on Ultra, a 44% reduction, which is entirely attributable to GPU load. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a smaller FPS delta between settings, as the CPU’s work would remain constant. The fact that the FPS scales significantly with settings indicates the GPU is saturated.

The CPU’s 14 threads (with no hyperthreading) are sufficient for this game’s multi-threaded tasks, such as terrain loading and AI traffic, but the single-thread performance (2,085 in R23 single-core) is what drives the base simulation. The Passmark single-thread score of 4,516 supports this, placing it in the top percentile for that metric. The CPU’s boost clock of 5.0 GHz is also beneficial for maintaining high single-thread performance over long sessions, which is common in flight sims.

Compared to its nearest rival, the i9-13900HX, the Ultra 5 235 is only 0.1% slower on average, meaning the CPU choice is unlikely to be the deciding factor in this game. The CPU’s role is to provide enough headroom so that the GPU becomes the bottleneck, which it does. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the CPU can push 106 FPS, but the GPU cannot maintain that at higher settings, confirming the CPU is not the constraint.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component clearly. At Medium settings, the average FPS is 82 at 1080p, 66 at 1440p, and 49 at 4K. This represents a 19.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 25.8% drop from 1440p to 4K. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 40.2% (from 82 to 49).

At Low settings, the scaling is: 106 at 1080p, 85 at 1440p, and 63 at 4K. This is a 19.8% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 25.9% drop from 1440p to 4K, with a total of 40.6% from 1080p to 4K. The consistency of these percentages (around 40% total drop) indicates that the GPU is the primary limiter, as the CPU’s workload does not scale with resolution.

At High settings, the scaling is: 62 at 1080p, 50 at 1440p, and 37 at 4K. This is a 19.4% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 26% drop from 1440p to 4K, totaling 40.3% from 1080p to 4K. The identical pattern across all settings confirms that the resolution scaling is independent of the preset, which is a hallmark of a GPU-bound scenario.

The consistent ~40% FPS loss from 1080p to 4K suggests that the GPU’s pixel throughput is the bottleneck. The RTX 5050’s 82.30 GPixel/s pixel rate and 320.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are insufficient to maintain higher frame rates at 4K, especially when the 8 GB VRAM is saturated. The CPU’s performance does not degrade with resolution, so the FPS drop is entirely attributable to the GPU’s rendering limits.

This scaling behavior indicates that users seeking higher resolutions would need a more powerful GPU, as the CPU has ample headroom. The 40% drop is consistent with a GPU that is limited by its memory bandwidth and pixel fill rate, rather than a CPU that is struggling to feed the graphics card. For 1440p, the combo is viable, but 4K is only playable at Low settings (63 FPS), and even then, the visual compromise is severe.