Microsoft Flight Simulator

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 reveals a clear and predictable pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 233 FPS, which drops to 188 FPS at 1440p and further to 138 FPS at 4K. This represents a 19% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a 41% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings. The scaling at Low settings suggests that the GPU is not the primary constraint at lower resolutions, as the frame rate remains exceptionally high even at 4K.

Moving to Medium settings, the pattern shifts slightly. At 1080p, the average is 181 FPS, dropping to 146 FPS at 1440p (a 19% decrease) and 108 FPS at 4K (a 40% decrease from 1080p). The min and max FPS values at Medium settings show a range of 154 to 208 at 1080p, 124 to 168 at 1440p, and 92 to 124 at 4K. These ranges indicate that the frame pacing remains relatively consistent across resolutions, with the spread between minimum and maximum FPS staying around 54 frames at 1080p, 44 frames at 1440p, and 32 frames at 4K.

High settings produce a similar relative scaling. The 1080p average of 136 FPS drops to 110 FPS at 1440p (19% lower) and 81 FPS at 4K (40% lower). At Ultra settings, the pattern continues: 130 FPS at 1080p, 105 FPS at 1440p, and 77 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset shows the smallest absolute difference between 1080p and 4K, with only 53 FPS separating the two resolutions.

The data indicates that the CPU is the limiting component at lower resolutions and settings, while the GPU becomes more significant as resolution and quality increase. At 1080p Low, the system can produce 233 FPS, which is far beyond what most displays can show, suggesting the CPU is feeding frames as fast as the GPU can render them. The drop from 233 FPS at 1080p Low to 138 FPS at 4K Low (a 41% reduction) is substantial but still leaves headroom for high refresh rate displays at 4K.

At Ultra settings, the difference between 1080p and 4K narrows to 53 FPS (130 to 77), which is a 41% reduction. This consistency across settings suggests that the CPU workload scales similarly with resolution, while the GPU workload increases more steeply. The RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are likely sufficient to handle the increased texture and geometry demands at 4K Ultra without becoming the primary bottleneck, as evidenced by the still-playable 77 FPS average.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a combo rank of 67 out of 2,996 tested combos in Microsoft Flight Simulator. This places the pairing in the top 2.2% of all configurations tested, which is a strong result but not the absolute top. The percentile ranking suggests that there are 66 other combinations that perform better in this specific game, likely including configurations with higher-end CPUs or more specialized hardware.

The CPU alone holds a percentile of 93 among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 64,640. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are the AMD EPYC 4464P (avg score 64,823, deltaPct -0.3), the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F (avg score 64,438, deltaPct 0.3), the AMD EPYC 7343 (avg score 64,202, deltaPct 0.7), and the AMD EPYC 9124 (avg score 65,104, deltaPct -0.7). These deltas are exceptionally small, indicating that the Core Ultra 7 265 is in a tightly clustered performance tier where no single processor has a decisive advantage.

The GPU's percentile of 88 among all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 60,347, is slightly lower than the CPU's percentile. The nearest rivals for the RTX 4090 in synthetic benchmarks are the Intel Arc Pro A60 (avg score 60,326, deltaPct 0), the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (avg score 60,140, deltaPct 0.3), the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (avg score 61,896, deltaPct -2.5), and the AMD Radeon PRO V710 (avg score 58,657, deltaPct 2.9). These rivals are predominantly professional and workstation-class GPUs, suggesting that the RTX 4090's synthetic benchmark scores are heavily influenced by compute and rendering workloads that these professional cards handle well.

The rank of 67 in-game, combined with the CPU's 93rd percentile and GPU's 88th percentile, indicates that the game is likely more sensitive to CPU performance than GPU performance. The combo ranking being higher than the GPU's percentile suggests that the CPU's strong single-threaded and multi-threaded performance is being leveraged effectively in Microsoft Flight Simulator's simulation-heavy workloads.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process at TSMC. It features a base clock of 2.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 cache per core, 3 MB of L2 cache per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. This configuration provides substantial single-threaded performance for simulation games that rely heavily on a few cores for physics and flight modeling.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Core Ultra 7 265 achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42,216 and a single-core score of 5,960. The single-core score is particularly relevant for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which has historically been sensitive to per-core performance. The Passmark single-thread score of 4,689 and multi-thread score of 49,682 further reinforce that the CPU has both strong single-core and multi-core capabilities.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is known for its complex flight model calculations, weather simulation, and terrain loading, all of which benefit from high single-threaded performance. The 5.30 GHz boost clock is among the highest available, and the 20 cores ensure that background tasks and additional simulation threads do not starve the primary rendering threads. The L3 cache of 30 MB shared across all cores helps with data locality for the large terrain and aircraft datasets the game processes.

The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 233 FPS, which is likely CPU-limited given that the GPU is rendering a relatively simple scene. The fact that the FPS drops to 188 at 1440p Low and 138 at 4K Low, even though Low settings reduce GPU load, suggests that the CPU is still able to feed the GPU with enough frames to maintain high performance. At Ultra settings, the 1080p result of 130 FPS indicates that the CPU is not the bottleneck even with maximum visual quality, as the GPU is handling the heavier rendering load.

The processor's 20 threads, while not offering hyper-threading (20 cores, 20 threads), provide ample parallelism for the game's multi-threaded tasks. The Passmark physics score of 2,923 and the Cinebench R15 multi-core score of 4,255 suggest that the CPU handles physics calculations efficiently, which is directly relevant to flight simulation's aerodynamic modeling.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS values across all four settings presets demonstrate the CPU's capability to drive high frame rates. Low settings produce an average of 233 FPS, Medium produces 181 FPS with a range of 154 to 208, High produces 136 FPS, and Ultra produces 130 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 103 FPS, which is a substantial gap that reflects the increased GPU workload at higher quality settings.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 188 FPS for Low, 146 FPS for Medium (with a range of 124 to 168), 110 FPS for High, and 105 FPS for Ultra. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 83 FPS, slightly less than at 1080p. The Medium preset's minimum FPS of 124 at 1440p is still well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, indicating that this combo can handle even the most demanding presets at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the averages drop to 138 FPS for Low, 108 FPS for Medium (with a range of 92 to 124), 81 FPS for High, and 77 FPS for Ultra. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 61 FPS, which is the smallest gap across resolutions. This suggests that at 4K, the GPU is becoming the limiting factor, as the increased pixel count requires more rendering resources regardless of quality settings.

The Medium preset is the only setting that provides both minimum and maximum FPS values across all resolutions, allowing for a more detailed analysis of frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the range is 154 to 208 FPS, at 1440p Medium it is 124 to 168 FPS, and at 4K Medium it is 92 to 124 FPS. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium of 92 FPS is still well above the threshold for high refresh rate displays, indicating that the combo can maintain smooth performance even at the most demanding resolution.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K at each settings level shows a consistent pattern: Low settings drop by 41%, Medium by 40%, High by 40%, and Ultra by 41%. This uniform scaling indicates that the game's performance is primarily affected by resolution rather than by the specific quality settings, which is characteristic of a game that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is based on the AD102 chip with the Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It features 16,384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, along with 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory running at an effective speed of 21 Gbps across a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is known for its vast streaming environments, high-resolution terrain textures, and detailed aircraft models, all of which place significant demands on GPU memory and bandwidth. The 24 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for the game's maximum settings at 4K, as evidenced by the 77 FPS average at 4K Ultra. The 1.01 TB/s bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and geometry data can be loaded quickly without causing hitches or stutters.

The synthetic benchmarks for the RTX 4090 show a Passmark G3D score of 38,194 and a Passmark GPU compute score of 26,613. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 255,416 and Vulkan score of 271,631 indicate strong compute and rendering performance. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9,223 reflects the GPU's DirectX 12 capabilities, which are important for a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator that supports modern graphics APIs.

The GPU's percentile of 88 among all graphics cards is lower than its reputation might suggest, but this is partly due to the synthetic benchmark suite including professional and workstation cards that excel in compute workloads. The nearest rival in Passmark G3D is the Intel Arc Pro A60 with a deltaPct of 0, meaning the RTX 4090 and Arc Pro A60 score nearly identically on this specific benchmark, despite the RTX 4090 being a consumer flagship.

The measured FPS data shows that the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where the 77 FPS average is the lowest result across all tested configurations. However, even at this most demanding setting, the combo maintains a playable frame rate. The GPU's 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate are more than adequate for the game's rendering requirements, and the pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s ensures that even at 4K, the GPU can output frames at a high rate.

FAQ

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

A: At 1440p with Ultra settings, the combo achieves 105 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold and provides excellent visual quality. At 4K Ultra, the average drops to 77 FPS, which is still playable but may not satisfy users with high refresh rate displays.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings?

A: The performance loss is consistent across all settings, with approximately 40-41% reduction in average FPS from 1080p to 4K. For example, at High settings, FPS drops from 136 at 1080p to 81 at 4K, a 40% decrease.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p Low settings?

A: At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 233 FPS, which suggests the CPU is the primary limiter, as the GPU is rendering a relatively simple scene. The high frame rate indicates the CPU is feeding frames at its maximum rate.

Q: What is the combo's ranking compared to other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 67th out of 2,996 tested combos, placing it in the top 2.2% of all configurations tested in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Q: Does the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM provide enough memory for 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the 24 GB of GDDR6X memory is sufficient for 4K Ultra, as evidenced by the 77 FPS average at this setting. The game does not exceed the available VRAM, and the 1.01 TB/s bandwidth supports smooth texture streaming.

Q: How does the Core Ultra 7 265 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Core Ultra 7 265 has an average benchmark score of 64,640, which is within 0.7% of its nearest rivals. The AMD EPYC 9124 scores 65,104 (deltaPct -0.7), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F scores 64,438 (deltaPct 0.3), indicating very tight competition.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for selecting the optimal settings preset for this combo. At 1080p, all settings presets deliver well above 60 FPS, with even Ultra averaging 130 FPS. This means users with 1080p displays can safely choose Ultra settings for maximum visual quality without sacrificing smoothness. The Medium preset at 1080p provides a minimum FPS of 154, which is excellent for high refresh rate displays.

At 1440p, the Ultra preset averages 105 FPS, which is still well above the 60 FPS threshold and provides the best visual experience. The High preset at 1440p averages 110 FPS, offering a marginal performance improvement over Ultra. For users with 1440p high refresh rate displays (144Hz or higher), the High preset may be preferable, as it provides a 5 FPS advantage over Ultra while maintaining similar visual quality.

At 4K, the Ultra preset averages 77 FPS, which is playable but may not be ideal for users with 120Hz or higher displays. The High preset at 4K averages 81 FPS, a modest 4 FPS improvement over Ultra. The Medium preset at 4K averages 108 FPS with a minimum of 92 FPS, which provides the best balance of visual quality and performance for 4K displays. For users prioritizing frame rate at 4K, the Low preset at 138 FPS is an option, but the visual quality reduction may be significant.

The data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best overall experience across all resolutions, as it provides the most consistent frame pacing (with measured minimum and maximum values) and maintains high averages even at 4K. The Medium preset at 4K delivers 108 FPS average, which is more than sufficient for most displays and represents a reasonable compromise between visual fidelity and performance. For users with 60Hz displays at any resolution, the Ultra preset is recommended, as even the lowest measured average of 77 FPS at 4K Ultra exceeds the 60 FPS threshold by a comfortable margin.