Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator is a demanding flight simulation title that stresses both the CPU and GPU heavily, and the combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 produces a dataset that clearly illustrates the balance between these components. Measured results across three resolutions and four quality presets show a system that is capable of smooth gameplay at lower settings but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K with maximum details. The data indicates a configuration where the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, while the CPU provides a robust foundation that prevents the frame rate from collapsing at lower settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combo in Microsoft Flight Simulator?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 92 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: How does the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus compare to its closest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K's average score of 83807.

Q: What is the lowest average frame rate observed in the measured data?

A: The lowest average frame rate is 30 FPS, which occurs at 3840x2160 resolution with the Ultra settings preset.

Q: Does the RTX 2060's benchmark performance put it ahead of or behind the AMD Radeon RX 7600?

A: The RTX 2060 has an average benchmark score of 15290, which is 0.8% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7600's average score of 15171.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested combinations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 2344 out of 2996 tested combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between 1080p Low and 4K Ultra settings?

A: The difference is 62 FPS, with the 1080p Low preset delivering 92 FPS and the 4K Ultra preset delivering 30 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is a Turing-architecture GPU built on a 12 nm process at TSMC, featuring 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units. Its memory subsystem consists of 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s and operating at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective speed. The GPU's base clock is 1365 MHz, with a boost clock of 1680 MHz, and it includes 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores for hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI features. The card's compute capabilities are rated at 6.451 TFLOPS for FP32 and 12.90 TFLOPS for FP16, with pixel and texture rates of 80.64 GPixel/s and 201.6 GTexel/s respectively.

In the context of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the RTX 2060's role is significant, as the game's rendering of terrain, aircraft, and weather effects puts considerable load on the GPU. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU's performance directly dictates the frame rate at higher resolutions. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 30 on Ultra to 55 on Low, indicating that the GPU is the bottleneck, as reducing the visual load yields substantial gains. At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds, with average FPS climbing from 41 on Ultra to 74 on Low. At 1920x1080, the GPU still matters, but the CPU's influence becomes more apparent, as the frame rates are higher overall, with the Low preset reaching 92 FPS.

The RTX 2060's 6 GB of VRAM is a relevant factor for this simulation, as high-resolution textures and complex scenes can consume significant memory. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 30, which suggests that the GPU is not only compute-bound but also potentially memory-limited, given the 6 GB capacity. The GPU's overall benchmark standing places it at the 58th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15290. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 with a delta of 0%, the AMD Radeon 680M with a delta of 0.1%, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM with a delta of 0.6%, and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 with a delta of 0.8%, all of which are within a narrow performance band.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Microsoft Flight Simulator reveals a clear and consistent scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At 1080p, the average frame rates are 92 FPS on Low, 71 FPS on Medium, 54 FPS on High, and 51 FPS on Ultra. Moving to 1440p, these figures drop to 74 FPS on Low, 58 FPS on Medium, 43 FPS on High, and 41 FPS on Ultra. At 4K, the averages fall further to 55 FPS on Low, 42 FPS on Medium, 32 FPS on High, and 30 FPS on Ultra.

The drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial, with the Low preset decreasing from 92 FPS to 55 FPS, a 40% reduction, and the Ultra preset decreasing from 51 FPS to 30 FPS, a 41% reduction. This consistent percentage drop across settings suggests that the scaling is primarily driven by the GPU's pixel-processing capabilities. The RTX 2060 must render four times as many pixels at 4K compared to 1080p, and its 48 ROPs and 6.451 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are insufficient to maintain equivalent frame rates.

This scaling behavior indicates that the limiting component at higher resolutions is the GPU. The RTX 2060's pixel rate of 80.64 GPixel/s and texture rate of 201.6 GTexel/s are overwhelmed by the 4K workload, leading to the observed frame rates. Conversely, at 1080p, the GPU has more headroom, and the CPU's role becomes more prominent. The fact that the Ultra preset at 1080p only achieves 51 FPS, while the Low preset reaches 92 FPS, shows that even at lower resolutions, the GPU is still a significant constraint, but the gap between settings is narrower than at 4K, where the Ultra preset drops to 30 FPS.

The data also shows that the Medium preset at each resolution provides a middle ground, with average FPS of 71 at 1080p, 58 at 1440p, and 42 at 4K. This preset also has recorded min and max FPS values, with 1080p Medium showing a min of 61 and a max of 82, 1440p Medium showing a min of 49 and a max of 66, and 4K Medium showing a min of 36 and a max of 49. These ranges indicate that the frame pacing is relatively stable, but the overall performance level is dictated by the resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for Microsoft Flight Simulator, this specific pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks 2344 out of 2996 total combos. This placement places it in the lower-middle portion of the rankings, indicating that while the CPU is a high-end part, the GPU's performance level drags the overall combo down in this particular game. The rank of 2344 out of 2996 means that roughly 78% of tested combinations perform better in terms of measured frame rates.

The ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU's limitations, as the RTX 2060 sits at the 58th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15290. This is a mid-range score, and when paired with a top-tier CPU like the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus, which has an average benchmark score of 84003 and sits at the 96th percentile among all CPUs, the imbalance is apparent. The combo's performance is effectively capped by the GPU, preventing it from achieving higher ranks in the game-specific list.

The data suggests that for Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is known for its demanding graphics, the GPU is the more critical component for achieving high frame rates. The combo's rank of 2344 reflects the reality that the RTX 2060, while capable, is not sufficient for high-refresh-rate or high-resolution gameplay in this title. The CPU's strong benchmark scores, including a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51731 and a single-core score of 7303, do not translate into higher game performance when the GPU is the limiting factor. This ranking serves as a clear indicator that the user's experience will be constrained by the GPU, and that upgrading the graphics card would yield a more significant improvement than a CPU upgrade.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 2, based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture and manufactured on a 3 nm process at TSMC. It operates with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus with a bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s and includes an integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU unit. The processor's benchmark results show strong performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51731 and a single-core score of 7303, as well as a PassMark multithread score of 60860 and a single-thread score of 4823.

In Microsoft Flight Simulator, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics calculations, and the complex simulation of flight dynamics, weather systems, and AI traffic. The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus, with its 24 cores and high boost clock, is well-suited for these tasks. The data shows that at lower resolutions like 1920x1080, where the GPU has less pixel workload, the CPU can help maintain higher frame rates. For instance, at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 92 FPS, which is the highest average in the dataset. This suggests that the CPU's processing power is sufficient to feed the GPU with data, allowing it to reach its performance limits.

However, the CPU's influence diminishes as resolution increases. At 4K, the frame rates are much lower, with the Ultra preset at 30 FPS and the Low preset at 55 FPS, indicating that the GPU is the bottleneck. The CPU's high single-thread performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R15 single-core score of 736 and PassMark single-thread score of 4823, is beneficial for the game's main thread, but it cannot overcome the GPU's limitations. The CPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K with a delta of 0.2%, the AMD EPYC 4584PX with a delta of 1.1%, the AMD EPYC 9135 with a delta of 1.2%, and the AMD EPYC 7F72 with a delta of -1.3%, all of which are within a close range, but none of these comparisons change the fact that the GPU is the primary constraint in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed picture of how this combo performs across different resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 92 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded in the entire dataset. The Medium preset at 1080p yields an average of 71 FPS, with a minimum of 61 FPS and a maximum of 82 FPS, indicating a stable performance range. The High preset drops to 54 FPS average, and the Ultra preset further reduces to 51 FPS average. These figures show that at 1080p, the combo can handle even the most demanding settings, but with a noticeable performance cost from Low to Ultra.

At 2560x1440, the performance decreases across all settings. The Low preset achieves an average of 74 FPS, which is still playable, while the Medium preset averages 58 FPS with a min of 49 and a max of 66. The High preset averages 43 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 41 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is significant, with the Low preset losing 18 FPS and the Ultra preset losing 10 FPS. This indicates that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor at 1440p, as the increased pixel count requires more processing power.

At 3840x2160, the performance is further constrained. The Low preset averages 55 FPS, which is barely playable for a simulation title, while the Medium preset averages 42 FPS with a min of 36 and a max of 49. The High preset drops to 32 FPS average, and the Ultra preset falls to 30 FPS average. These numbers show that 4K gaming with this combo is only viable at Low settings, and even then, the frame rate is below the 60 FPS threshold that many users consider smooth. The Ultra preset at 4K, with an average of 30 FPS, is at the edge of playability, and the lack of min/max data for most presets suggests that the frame rate may be less stable in demanding scenes.

Overall, the measured FPS breakdown reveals a clear hierarchy: the combo performs best at 1080p, with playable frame rates at all settings, and degrades progressively at 1440p and 4K. The data shows that for a smooth experience, users would need to play at 1080p with Medium or High settings, or at 1440p with Low settings, while 4K is only suitable for Low settings. The RTX 2060's 6 GB of VRAM and its compute capabilities are the primary reasons for this performance ceiling, as the CPU's strong benchmark scores cannot compensate for the GPU's limitations in this graphics-intensive game.