Microsoft Flight Simulator

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus combined with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 produces a class-tested but not elite set of frame rates in Microsoft Flight Simulator. The CPU is a top-tier chip sitting in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU occupies the 59th percentile of all GPUs — the pairing is heavily lopsided toward the processor. Across the twelve measured settings the combo delivers playable framerates at every common resolution only on the Low or Medium presets, while High and Ultra routinely drop to the low-to-mid 30s at 4K. Among the 3,714 tested CPU+GPU combos for this game, this build ranks 2,166th — meaning 2,165 other machine configurations delivered higher in-game frame rates. The data leaves a clear verdict: the processor can hardly be blamed; the frame-rate ceiling belongs almost entirely to the eight-gigabyte Radeon grafted onto it.

Settings Recommendations

The Medium preset is the strongest experience across the board in these measurements. At 1920×1080 it produces an average of 86 frames per second with a recorded minimum of 73 and a maximum of 99 — the only preset at that resolution that shows a tolerable worst-case figure. The High preset, by contrast, only reaches 65 average FPS at 1080p, the Ultra 62, and even the Low setting jumps to 111. Yet the recommendation is Medium, because High and Ultra are descending: the sim's High presets at 1080p ends up 21 frames below the Medium's 86, and the Ultra is 24 below.

At 2560×1440 the same ordering. Medium delivers 69 avg (min 59, max 80), High 52, Ultra 50, Low 89. At 3840×2160 Medium reaches 51 (min 44, max 59), High 39, Ultra 37. Medium also happens to be the only preset where the data set contains minima and maxima — a single, reliable frame envelope that suggests stuttering stays moderate.

The practical takeaway: run Medium on 1080p and 1440p screens without thinking about it; at 4K, Medium at 51 FPS is borderline, and the 66 FPS offered by Low may be preferable for those who need the headroom over an action-heavy cockpit. In every single scenario the Ultra and High presets are measurably worse than Medium in the measured rows — the conclusion is unavoidable that this particular simulator's High/Ultra paths carry a reproduction cost that this GPU cannot pay at any tested resolution.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 9060 is built on the RDNA 4 architecture with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 288.0 GB/second of bandwidth. The boost clock peaks at 2990 MHz with a game clock of 2400 MHz, and the card carries 1,792 shading units and 64 raster operators. Those are respectable specs on paper, but the perovskite performance data tells limited headfall. The Geekbench OpenCL score is 88,183, the Geekbench Vulkan test it reports 39,476, and in PassMark G3D the tested output settles at 17,631, putting the cult. Along its most direct rival list, the RX 9060 lands about 0.7% worse than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (which scores 16,129 avg), and lands slightly behind the R9 370X and RX 7700 with deltaPct of +1.0% each — meaning it edges those two out in average benchmark terms.

The impact is evident in the game itself. Distribution climbs as resolution rises: at 1080p for the Low preset the GPU can move 111 frames; at 1440p it's 89; at 4K it's 66. That scaling tracks the memory bandwidth and pixel rate. The 8 GB frame buffer is a tight fit for a simulator that streams world textures, and clearly the 128-bit G6B interface of 288 GB/sec puts an upper bound on how fast frame data can fed. At 4K Ultra, the minimum recorded? — the overall lowest measured point in the data is 37 average FPS, and even the Ultra preset at 1440p peaks at only 50. That trend shows a GPU that is "capable" only at the lower fidelity levels, and you can treat the 59th GPU percentile as verified: it is roughly an eighth-tier GPU in a time when RainbowBattle; money is on quality.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core / 24-thread Arrow Lake refresh processor with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost of 5.80 GHz. It controls 36 MB of L3 cache and its raw multi-thread output is enormous — a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51,731 sits among the best desktop processors available, and the single-core 7,303 is in line with high-end silicon. The chip's percentile placement is 96th — P — ahead of 96% of all CPUs measured on this benchmark database. In its nearest-rival comparison, the Ultra 9 285K is within 0.2% (the 290K is that much ahead on average), the two EPYC processors (4584PX and 9135) trail by 1.1% and 1.2% respectively, and only the EPYC 7F72 edges out the Intel by 1.3%.

In this game, though, the processor is idle. The measured numbers — a 39 to 37 FPS pattern at 4K across High/Ultra — do not rise or fall with the CPU's enormous single-thread might: the sim's render loops are being throttled by the GPU. For an important measure, the otherwise identical of the 1440p Medium movie (69 FPS) and the 4K Medium (51 FPS) and 1080p medium (86 FPS) shows that the chip still has plenty of performance left over; the limiting element is never the CPU on that side. That CPU's core count and cache do help with scenery (outside hints from the stash may point that way), but the FPS table own the variable is clearly resolution and preset, never core count.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The data contains a table of 12 measured rows spanning four presets and three resolutions. Here's the exact breakdown:

3840×2160 (4K)

• Low: 66 average
• Medium: 51 average (min 44, max 59)
• High: 39 average
• Ultra: 37 average

At 4K, the gap between Low and Medium is 15 frames, between Medium and High is 12 frames. The Ultra setting serves practically nothing beyond the High — only a 2-frame difference separates them. The medium axis is the only one that completes the trio of avg/min/max, so the 44 fps minimum should be considered the floor for a "playable" 4K session.

2560×1440 (1440p)

• Low: 89 fps
• Medium: 69 fps (min 59, max 80)
• High: 52 fps
• Ultra: 50 fps

At 1440p, the same pattern repeats: Low gives near-90, Medium drops to 69, and High/Ultra sit under 53. The user who wants a full-resolution cockpit without sacrificing 60 FPS should choose Medium — 69 avg with a 59-minimum. The High setting drops 17 frames below Medium which is an enormous difference for a single quality step.

1920×1080 (1080p)

• Low: 111 fps
• Medium: 86 fps (min 73, max 99)
• High: 25 fps — wait, no, the data says 65 fps for High; let that be clear: 65 fps
• Ultra: 62 fps

At 1080p, the average counts are pretty healthy. Medium clips along at 86 average — this is the best spot for smooth margins. The drop to High is significant (65 avg) and that modest 1-frame lift above that 62 Ultra arrives at a large visual cost. The lowest recorded number among all Medium rows is 73, which is a solid baseline.

The overall spread shows that the game's High and Ultra framings double the incoming cost without any scaling benefit for frame in these tests, so the strong recommendation is to avoid High and Ultra on this combo; the GPU will not deliver them at any of the tested screen sizes.

FAQ

Q: What is the fastest preset I can expect?

A: The Low preset gives the highest measured averages — 111 at 1080p, util, 89 at 2560×1440, 89 and 66 at 4K. However, the best overall experience suggests Medium, which hits 86/69/51 FPS across each resolution with a redacted minimum.

Q: Does the 4K experience run smoothly?

A: With Medium, the average is 51 FPS with min 44 and max 59 — playable but close to the edge. Low gives 66 avg, while 4K Ultra recorded 37 FPS and High just 39. To remain above 50 FPS, Medium and Low are the only reliable choices; Ultra cannot.

Q: How does this 8 GB VRAM affect the game?

A: The Radeon RX 9060 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit interface — the data shows that's the bottleneck in high presets. On Ultra at 1080p the measured FPS is 62, but on Medium it is 86, meaning the impact of resolution/quality is delivered; the GPU simply cannot sustain High/Ultra at any resolution the data has.

Q: How does the CPU compare to the Ultra 9 285K?

A: The science says the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is beaten by the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K: the deltas paint a story that the refresh CPU averages 0.2% higher in general benchmarks. The 24 thread chip is top-of-the-line and is elsewise equal.

Q: If I want 110+ FPS, what should I do?

A: You must drop to the Low preset at 1920×1080, which measured 111 FPS. Even at 1440p Low, the combination gets 89, and at 4K at Low we get 66.

Q: Why Ultra isn't giving me more FPS than Medium?

A: That matches the raw data: at every resolution, Ultra measured below Medium — 44/50/37 vs 51/69/86. For this game and this GPU, the Ultra preset is made of settings that hit the GPU harder but return almost nobody, whereas the simpler Medium already is tuned right under the hardware's Johnsthrone.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank in the database is 2,166th out of 3,714 — i.e., 2,165 CPU+GPU pairs beat it and 1,548 fall behind. That places this rez in the approximate 41st percentile of all tested in-game performance group. It's a solid, robust stack, but not about this one. The CPU's 96th percentile tells you the chip is near the very top of performance, while the GPU's 59th percentile and its standing against the RTX 3063 Ti — where it is 0.7% slower — explain the total 2,166 placement. In other words, the GPU is the wall that hammers the ceiling; any swap of the RX 9060 for a faster card would leap the ranked up. As-is across the 3,714 combos for Microsoft Flight Simulator, the Ultra 9 290K + RX 9060 lands in the mid-list, a comfortable mid-pack no one would call royalty.

That ranking also places the Intel/AMD pairing in the you're in the lower-middle of all arguably similar: so if the success case is 4K Ultra, this build is not for that; if the goal is 1080p Low-to-Medium at 86–111 FPS, it's exactly positioned to succeed. The consolidation that the entire advantage comes from the unmatched processor for the base, and the measured data table stands by itself.