Microsoft Flight Simulator

# Microsoft Flight Simulator — Intel Core Ultra 7 155H + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080

This combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H mobile processor and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 delivers a playable but demanding experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator, with measured frame rates ranging from 54 FPS at 4K Ultra to 162 FPS at 1080p Low. The data shows a system that is heavily influenced by both CPU and GPU characteristics depending on the resolution and settings selected, with the RTX 5080 clearly serving as the primary performance driver at higher resolutions while the mobile CPU's capabilities become more apparent at lower settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and consistent scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 95 FPS at 1920x1080 to 76 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 56 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 41% reduction from 1080p to 4K at High settings, indicating that the rendering load scales significantly with pixel count.

The scaling behavior at Ultra settings follows a similar trajectory but with lower absolute values: 90 FPS at 1080p, 73 FPS at 1440p, and 54 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is approximately 19%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is about 26%. This suggests that the performance penalty for moving to 4K is slightly steeper at Ultra settings than at High, which is consistent with the increased pixel shader and memory bandwidth demands of the highest preset.

At Low settings, the scaling is more pronounced in percentage terms: 162 FPS at 1080p, 131 FPS at 1440p, and 96 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p reduction is 19%, but the 1440p to 4K reduction is 27%. The fact that even at Low settings the 4K frame rate sits at 96 FPS suggests that the GPU is still handling the resolution increase effectively, though the CPU becomes more relevant at lower settings where the GPU is less saturated.

The Medium preset shows the most complete data with min and max FPS values recorded. At 1080p Medium, the average is 126 FPS with a range of 107 to 145 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 102 FPS with a range of 86 to 117 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average is 75 FPS with a range of 64 to 86 FPS. The consistency of these ranges suggests that frame pacing remains stable across resolutions, with the minimum frame rates staying within roughly 85% of the average in each case.

The overall pattern indicates that the limiting component shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the high frame rates across all settings — even 162 FPS at Low — suggest that the CPU may be approaching its limit in certain scenarios, particularly in CPU-intensive flight simulation workloads. At 4K, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck, as evidenced by the 54 FPS result at Ultra, which is likely constrained by the RTX 5080's raw rendering throughput rather than any CPU limitation.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks 738th out of 2996 tested combinations in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the combo in approximately the 75th percentile of all tested configurations, meaning that roughly three-quarters of tested combos deliver better performance in this specific game. Given the high-end nature of the RTX 5080 GPU, this ranking highlights the significant impact of the mobile CPU on overall gaming performance.

The RTX 5080 itself ranks in the 87th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 56083. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 8060S with a score of 55757 (0.6% ahead), the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB at 55698 (0.7% ahead), and the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X at 54828 (2.3% ahead). The AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE sits slightly ahead of the RTX 5080 at 57367, representing a 2.2% performance gap. These tight margins indicate that the RTX 5080 is well-positioned among its peers in synthetic benchmarks.

The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H ranks in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32697. Its nearest rivals show remarkably small deltas: the Intel Core i5-14600T scores 32707 (0% delta), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 scores 32662 (0.1% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F scores 32750 (-0.2% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H scores 32812 (-0.4% delta). This clustering suggests that the Core Ultra 7 155H is competitively positioned within its performance class, though the 738th rank in this game suggests that Microsoft Flight Simulator's specific workload does not favor this combination as strongly as synthetic benchmarks might indicate.

The disparity between the GPU's strong percentile standing and the combo's mid-pack ranking suggests that the CPU is holding back overall performance in this game. Flight simulators are known for their reliance on single-threaded performance and complex scenery processing, which may not align perfectly with the Core Ultra 7 155H's architecture.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node from TSMC. The GPU features 10752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 raster operation units, along with 84 ray tracing cores and 336 tensor cores. The chip, designated GB203, contains 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 120.6 million per square millimeter.

The memory subsystem consists of 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 1875 MHz, translating to 30 Gbps effective. This substantial memory bandwidth is critical for Microsoft Flight Simulator's large texture datasets and streaming scenery, and the 16 GB capacity ensures that even at 4K Ultra settings, the game has ample VRAM headroom.

The GPU's clock speeds are set at a base of 2295 MHz with a boost of 2617 MHz. The pixel rate is 293.1 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 879.3 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is rated at 56.28 TFLOPS, with FP16 matching at 56.28 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio). These specifications place the RTX 5080 in a strong position for handling the graphical demands of modern flight simulation.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5080 achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8637, a Geekbench OpenCL score of 235901, and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 255450. The Passmark G3D score is 36565, with a GPU compute score of 21789. The Passmark DirectX scores show 208 for DirectX 10, 324 for DirectX 11, 151 for DirectX 12, and 389 for DirectX 9. These varied results indicate strong overall performance across different API workloads.

The measured FPS data in Microsoft Flight Simulator shows the GPU handling the resolution scaling effectively. At 4K Ultra, the 54 FPS average suggests the GPU is working near its limits, while at 1080p Low, the 162 FPS result indicates that the GPU is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is likely sufficient for all tested settings, as no min FPS anomalies suggest memory pressure.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates span from 90 FPS at Ultra to 162 FPS at Low. The High preset delivers 95 FPS, while Medium produces 126 FPS with a measured range of 107 to 145 FPS. This progression shows a 72 FPS difference between the lowest and highest settings, representing a significant performance envelope that allows users to prioritize visual fidelity or frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates range from 73 FPS at Ultra to 131 FPS at Low. High settings produce 76 FPS, while Medium yields 102 FPS with a range of 86 to 117 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each setting shows a consistent reduction: 21% at Low, 19% at Medium, 20% at High, and 19% at Ultra. This uniformity indicates that the GPU is scaling predictably with pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the average frame rates drop to 54 FPS at Ultra, 56 FPS at High, 75 FPS at Medium, and 96 FPS at Low. The Medium setting shows a range of 64 to 86 FPS, representing the widest absolute spread among all tested configurations. The 4K results show a 42 FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings, which is smaller in absolute terms than at lower resolutions but proportionally similar.

The most notable observation is that the High and Ultra settings at 4K produce nearly identical average frame rates (56 vs. 54 FPS), suggesting that the performance ceiling is being reached regardless of the specific preset details. This could indicate that certain game systems, such as terrain streaming or CPU-driven scenery processing, are limiting performance at 4K even when the GPU has additional headroom.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the 126 FPS average with a range of 107 to 145 FPS provides smooth gameplay with headroom for demanding scenes. At 1440p Medium, the 102 FPS average with a range of 86 to 117 FPS remains highly playable, while at 4K Medium, the 75 FPS average with a range of 64 to 86 FPS stays above the 60 FPS threshold for most of the tested duration.

For users prioritizing visual quality at 4K, the High preset at 56 FPS average is marginally better than Ultra at 54 FPS, making High the more sensible choice for maximum fidelity without the additional performance cost of Ultra. The near-identical results suggest that the Ultra preset's extra graphical features do not provide meaningful visual improvements in this configuration, while the 2 FPS difference is within measurement tolerance.

At 1080p, the High preset at 95 FPS offers a good balance between visual quality and frame rate, though users with high refresh rate displays might prefer Medium at 126 FPS for a smoother experience. The Low preset at 162 FPS is suitable for competitive or maximum frame rate scenarios but sacrifices significant visual quality.

For 1440p users, the Medium preset at 102 FPS is the recommended choice, providing a comfortable margin above 60 FPS while maintaining reasonable visual fidelity. The High preset at 76 FPS is acceptable for users who prioritize image quality over frame rate stability, but the Medium preset's additional 26 FPS headroom makes it more resilient to demanding scenery areas.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H features 16 cores and 22 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz. The processor is built on Intel's 7 nm process node using the Meteor Lake architecture, with a TDP of 28W. The cache hierarchy includes 112 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache.

The CPU's memory support includes DDR5 with a dual-channel memory bus and a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. The processor uses the Intel BGA 2049 socket and supports PCIe Gen 5 with 8 lanes for the CPU. The integrated graphics are Arc Xe-LPG 128EU, which are not relevant for this discrete GPU configuration.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Core Ultra 7 155H achieves a Cinebench R15 multi-core score of 2450 and single-core score of 255. The Cinebench R20 scores are 8754 multi-core and 1235 single-core, while Cinebench R23 shows 15028 multi-core and 1743 single-core. Passmark results include a multi-thread score of 24873, single-thread score of 3468, physics score of 1727, and floating point math score of 63703.

The CPU's 83rd percentile ranking among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 32697, places it slightly above the median of its nearest rivals. The delta percentages against competitors are minimal, ranging from -0.4% to 0.1%, indicating that the Core Ultra 7 155H performs essentially on par with its closest alternatives.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role becomes evident when examining the frame rate differences between settings at the same resolution. At 1080p, the difference between Low (162 FPS) and Ultra (90 FPS) is 72 FPS, which suggests that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at lower settings. However, the relatively modest FPS at High and Ultra settings, combined with the combo's 738th rank, suggests that the CPU's single-threaded performance — as indicated by the 1743 Cinebench R23 single-core score — may be a limiting factor in this game's CPU-heavy scenarios.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combination in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: Based on the measured data, 1440p Medium provides the best balance with 102 FPS average and a range of 86 to 117 FPS. At 4K, the Medium preset at 75 FPS is also playable, while 1080p High at 95 FPS offers good visual quality for users who prefer higher frame rates.

Q: How does the RTX 5080 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 5080 scores 56083 on average, ranking in the 87th percentile. It is 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon 8060S, 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, and 2.3% behind the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE is 2.2% ahead with a score of 57367.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at 4K?

A: The data suggests the CPU is less limiting at 4K, as the frame rates at High (56 FPS) and Ultra (54 FPS) are very close, indicating GPU-bound performance. At 1080p Low (162 FPS), the CPU becomes more relevant, but the system still achieves high frame rates.

Q: What is the frame rate range at 4K Medium settings?

A: The 4K Medium preset shows an average of 75 FPS with a minimum of 64 FPS and a maximum of 86 FPS. This range indicates stable performance with some variation during demanding scenes.

Q: How does the Core Ultra 7 155H rank among CPUs?

A: The processor ranks in the 83rd percentile with an average benchmark score of 32697. Its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i5-14600T and AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360, are within 0.1% of its score, indicating very close performance parity.

Q: Is the 16 GB VRAM sufficient for this game at 4K?

A: The measured FPS data at 4K Ultra (54 FPS average) and 4K High (56 FPS average) shows no anomalies that would indicate VRAM limitations. The 16 GB GDDR7 memory with 960.0 GB/s bandwidth appears adequate for the tested settings.