Microsoft Flight Simulator

The data presented here examines the performance of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT specifically within Microsoft Flight Simulator. This combination produces a distinct performance profile that shifts depending on resolution and graphical presets. The analysis below breaks down the measured frame rates, contextualizes the component roles, and compares the results against other tested hardware combinations.

FAQ

Q: What is the overall rank of this CPU and GPU combination in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The combo ranks 600th out of 1795 tested combinations, placing it in the upper third of all tested systems for this specific title.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in general benchmark scores?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K has an average benchmark score of 79102, which is 0.2% behind the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF and the Intel Core i9-14900KF, and 0.9% behind the Intel Core i9-14900K.

Q: What is the performance difference between the GPU and its closest competitor?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT has an average benchmark score of 49982, which is 0.5% ahead of the Intel Arc A550M and 2.6% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER.

Q: What is the best average FPS achieved with this combo at 1080p?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 152.8 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At Ultra settings for the same resolution, the average drops to 85.7 FPS.

Q: How does the frame rate scale when moving from 1440p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 73.4 at 2560x1440 to 54.2 at 3840x2160, representing a significant performance cost for the higher resolution.

Q: Does the CPU have a high core count for this simulation workload?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K features 20 cores and 20 threads, with a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, positioning it as a high-core-count processor capable of handling the extensive simulation calculations in this game.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is the primary graphics processor in this configuration, built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a Navi 21 chip. It operates with a game clock of 2015 MHz and a boost clock of 2250 MHz, providing the rendering power necessary for the detailed environments of Microsoft Flight Simulator. The GPU is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a total bandwidth of 512.0 GB/s. This memory capacity and bandwidth are substantial for handling high-resolution textures and large draw distances common in flight simulation.

The data indicates that the GPU becomes a significant limiting factor as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 152.8 FPS, but this drops to 88.3 FPS at 4K with Low settings. This suggests that while the GPU can push high frame rates at lower resolutions, the increased pixel count at 4K places a heavy load on the 4608 shading units. The GPU's pixel rate of 288.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 648.0 GTexel/s are fully utilized when rendering the detailed terrain and aircraft models at higher resolutions and quality presets. The performance gap between Low and Ultra settings at 4K is particularly telling: the average FPS falls from 88.3 to 50.0, showing how the GPU's compute resources are taxed by the more complex shaders and effects.

How This Combo Ranks

In the specific context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, this combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT achieves a rank of 600 out of 1795 tested combos. This places it in the 66th percentile of all tested systems, meaning it outperforms roughly two-thirds of the configurations tested for this game. The ranking reflects a balance between the CPU's strong single-threaded performance and the GPU's high memory bandwidth.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 79102 places it in the 97th percentile of all CPUs, indicating that it is a top-tier processor. However, the GPU's percentile rank is lower at 87th, which suggests that in this pairing, the GPU may be the component that holds back the overall combo ranking. The deltaPct values for the CPU show that it is within 0.9% of much more powerful processors like the Intel Core i9-14900K, meaning the CPU is not likely the primary bottleneck. The combo's rank of 600 indicates that while this system is capable, there are faster configurations available, likely those with higher-end GPUs that can better match the CPU's capabilities at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates provide a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers an average of 152.8 FPS on Low settings, which drops to 120.8 FPS on Medium, 89.3 FPS on High, and 85.7 FPS on Ultra. This shows a steep decline from Low to Medium, but a more moderate drop from High to Ultra, indicating that the Ultra preset introduces additional effects that are less demanding than the jump from Low to Medium.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS figures are 121.0 on Low, 94.6 on Medium, 73.4 on High, and 69.8 on Ultra. The relative scaling is similar to 1080p, but the absolute numbers are lower across the board. The transition from High to Ultra at this resolution only costs 3.6 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional features have diminishing returns at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 88.3 on Low, 71.7 on Medium, 54.2 on High, and 50.0 on Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium is 16.6 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 4.2 FPS. This pattern indicates that the GPU is becoming increasingly strained at 4K, with the difference between quality presets compressing as the resolution demands more from the hardware. The 4K High result of 54.2 FPS and Ultra result of 50.0 FPS suggest that this configuration is playable but approaches the limits of smooth performance at the highest settings.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior reveals how the system's workload shifts between the CPU and GPU. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at Low settings results in a frame rate drop from 152.8 to 121.0 FPS, a 20.8% decrease. At Ultra settings, the same resolution change yields a drop from 85.7 to 69.8 FPS, an 18.5% decrease. This indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the frame rate scales almost proportionally with the pixel count increase.

The scaling from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 is even more pronounced. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 73.4 to 54.2, a 26.2% decrease. At Low settings, the drop is from 121.0 to 88.3, a 27.0% decrease. This consistent percentage drop across settings suggests that the GPU's rendering capabilities are the dominant constraint at these resolutions. The CPU, with its 20 cores and high boost clock, is able to feed the GPU adequately at 1080p, but as resolution increases, the GPU's 512.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 20.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute become the bottlenecks. The data shows that at 4K, the system is firmly GPU-limited, as the frame rates do not vary as much between Low and Ultra as they do at 1080p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K plays a crucial role in this configuration, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU is not fully saturated. With 20 cores and 20 threads, the processor is well-equipped to handle the complex simulation logic, physics calculations, and AI traffic that Microsoft Flight Simulator demands. Its base clock of 3.90 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz provide strong single-threaded performance, which is essential for the game's main rendering thread.

The CPU's benchmark scores reinforce its capability: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 50009 and a single-core score of 7060. These scores place the processor in the 97th percentile of all CPUs, indicating that it is among the fastest available. In the context of this game, the CPU's 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache help with the large datasets used for terrain and weather simulation. The CPU's performance relative to its rivals is nearly identical, with the Core Ultra 7 265K scoring 0.2% lower than the Core i9-14900KF, which means any performance differences in this game are negligible.

At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 152.8 FPS, which suggests that the CPU is capable of driving very high frame rates when the GPU is not the bottleneck. However, as resolution increases, the CPU's role diminishes, and the GPU becomes the limiting factor. The data shows that the CPU is not a constraining component in this pairing, as even at 4K Ultra, the system still manages 50.0 FPS, a result that is more indicative of GPU limitations than CPU processing power.