Deep dive into PC Hardware 2025

As we already covered software as part of the recently launched deep dive series, lets now switch over to the hardware chapter.

Before starting, I want to point out that I’m in no way sponsored ore affiliated with any products or companies named on my blog. The content on Upwithoutwings is independent and represents nothing else than my personal opinion.

Flight Simulation PC Hardware

Regarding your pc hardware, absolutely nothing has changed since FSX. Now, what do I mean with that?MSFS still has the capability, to easily drive any hardware to the limit, no matter how powerful it may be. So, it seems obvious to buy a very powerful pc system. That being said, some things are very important to consider anyhow:

1. Do not throw money at a problem

You can regularly read reports from users on forums, that are simply buying the latest and most expensive hardware but are nevertheless experiencing bad performance. Flight Simulation has never been and will never be plug and play! For sure, many things have been improved since FSX, but especially regarding performance you still need to sit down to tweak and optimize your system, to find the best working settings. But the good news is: Thanks to lots of enthusiasts, testers and YouTube we can access very good knowledge about how to get MSFS’s butt up!

2. Don’t buy the next best hardware offer

Don’t buy any offer without being sure you understand exactly what you are buying. I always prefer to buying single components and mounting them by myself, because ofently one might have components like a power supply or a system case that might be reuseable. As the CPU and GPU are mainly responsible for the performance of your pc system, I’m putting the focus on those components.

General considerations

When you’re planning to set up a new system, don’t save on the wrong edges. If you want a high-performance system, all components should be able to deliver high performance. Meaning concrete:

• PC Case
  Make sure the case offers enough space for current graphics cards and is well ventilated. When you’re later running a high-end graphics card, you will need to get the heat out of your case. Another good thing: The case should offer a mounting position for the power supply at the bottom of the case, so it doesn’t emit any heat into the case.
  
  
• Power supply
  Some graphics cards like the Nvidia RTX 4090 or the AMD 7900 XTX are consuming up to 450 Watts when under heavy load or overclocked. Make sure your power supply delivers sufficient power to drive all components including additional fans. I recommend to manually calculate the power consumption of your components and add an extra of 25%. Igor´s Lab is a good source for hardware tests and power supply recommendations. Besides that, I recommend to pick a modular “Gold” power supply with high quality components. With my 5800X3D and a 7900 XTX, I’m currently going well with a Corsair RM850x.
  
  
• Mainboard/RAM/CPU cooler
  If you aim to overclock your CPU/GPU, I recommend to choose a mainboard of a higher price range with overcocking capabilities. For the mainboard, generally check:
  • PCIe Version
  • RAM max. capacity supported
  • RAM max. clock rate supported
  • RAM vendor compatibility, if you already decided
  • CPU cooler compatibility. Make sure the cooler doesn’t limit usage of RAM banks because of its dimensions.
    
    
• For the RAM, check:
  • Maximum RAM clock rate
  • Compatibility with your mainboard
  • Number of modules – MSFS 2024 optimal hardware requirements are 64 GB RAM! So you might need to use all four RAM banks in the near future.

CPU considerations

MSFS loves high clock rates and L3-Cache. The best CPU pick has a combination of a high clock rate in combination with a large L3 Cache. This will get you much more fps in MSFS. A recommendation here is AMDs very successful X3D CPU series. I’ve personally tested the Ryzen 5-5600 against the Ryzen 5-5800X3D in my system and I had a plus of around 20-25 fps with the X3D CPU, despite the fact that the X3D’s clock rate is 150 MHz lower. But it must be mentioned that the 5800X3D needs a good CPU cooler and should be undervolted. Otherwise, it is going to reduce its boost clock rate under high load. A good practice is, to undervolt it by the factor -25 or -30. The CPU will then run much cooler, it will consume less power and it and won’t reduce its boost clock rate. If you need support regarding undervolting, contact me or write down in the comments.

My journey in CPU hardware

As I mentioned above, I started with a Ryzen 5-5600 CPU. It’s a really good CPU for 1440p-gaming as it’s got a very low power consumption and sufficient performance for lots of games. You can actually buy it in the boxed version for just 112 Euros. But as I said, I wanted to go for 4K and Ultra-Settings. So I decided to look for a used 5800X3D that I finally got for 300 Euros. Not cheap but it just had to be. As impatience is one of my strenghts, I quickly bought a be quiet! Dark Rock 4 CPU-Cooler. Not knowing, that it would be so big, that you two of four RAM banks would be blocked by the cooler. At that time, that wasn’t a problem and I was going fine with it. I undervolted the 5800X3D to -25 and my temperatures (measured with Core Temp) at 100% CPU-load were around 67-69°C – awesome!

Of course, some weeks later I decided to upgrade to 64 GB of RAM. So I needed to free those two blocked RAM banks, meaning that another CPU cooler was needed. I went for the Dark Rock Slim which turned out as a mistake. It’s not capable to keep the core temps below 80°C, even if the CPU was undervolted by -30. Now I recently bought a used Dark Rock 5, which is somewhere in between both other coolers. Now I can use all four RAM banks – and the matter should hopefully be done. I will report the temperatures here.

GPU considerations

The demand on graphics power primarily depends on the screen resolution you aim to play on. I’ve created this simple table to help you decide, which resolution may make sense for your setup.

Decision making

If you have decided at which resolution you want to play, you should take a look at the hardware properties of graphics cards. The importantest properties are the GPU series and the amount of VRAM. The clock rate of the GPU is not that meaningful. Better have a look at the GPU series. Every manufacturer offers several performance series. I tried to sort them in a small table, which shall give a rough overview.

	1080p	1080p up to 1440p	1440p up to 4K	4K	> 4K
AMD Radeon Series	7600 XT 7700 XT	7700 XT 7800 XT 9070	7900 XT 9070 XT	7900 XT 7900 XTX 9070 XT	7900 XTX (maybe)
Nvidia RTX Series	4060 Ti	4070 Super 5070	4070 Ti Super 5070 Ti	4080 Super 4090 5080 5090	4090 5090
Intel Arc Series	B580	–	–	–	–

Rasterizing performance and VRAM

Playing MSFS, the rasterizing performance and the VRAM of a graphics card are important. The rasterizing performance is the pure rendering performance the GPU is capable of (the horsepower in terms of cars). The higher your rasterizing performance is, the less you will need technologies like frame generation or upscaling. VRAM is important, because it’s used as a buffer for the GPU calculated data. VRAM should fit the GPU performance and the resolution you want to play in. If you aim to play in 4K, your card should have at least 16 GB of VRAM. I’m regularly watching a VRAM usage of 15 to 20 GB in my 4K-Setup.

In return, lots of VRAM doesn’t automatically boost your graphics performance. For example a RTX 4060 with 24 GB VRAM would’nt be noticeably faster than with 12 GB, because the GPUs power is simply too weak to make use of the large VRAM. VRAM must be seen as a bottleneck if too small, but it doesn’t help when oversized.

Frame Generation

Simmers love immersion. So sooner or later, you might want to add a screen or two. The impact on the resolution is massive. That is where frame generation kicks in. The technique relies on AI, which creates additional AI-generated frames, created by calculating the deviations between two physically rendered frames. Frame generation can easily double your fps. Nvidias RTX40 and RTX50-series as well as AMDs 7900 series cards come with frame generation, whereas Nvidia currently offers the more powerful and more effective solutions (Multi-Frame-Generation).

Upscaling

Another relevant technique to achieve higher frame rates is upscaling. Nvidia offers deep learning super sampling (DLSS) while AMD calls their product FidelityFX super resolution (FSR). Both techniques generate higher fps by rendering the game at a lower resolution and upscaling it to your desired resolution through the same AI techniques as described above.

The advantage is that you achieve higher fps at still very good or even better quality than natively rendered. The disadvantages can be blurred or washed-out textures, mainly at glass cockpit instruments, especially with moving figures like on the PFD. Here the AI is unable to predict the next frame what currently leads to those effects. Also, landscape textures can look blurred and show artifacts in some situations. In my opinion this is a trade-off, if your graphics card is not powerful enough to run on common anti-aliasing techniques like TAA, for example, which I am using.

My recommendation regarding hardware is to get the most powerful and appropriate hardware you can afford. You will be happy if you have some performance left for future improvements, new add-ons or newer versions of your flight simulation software. Looking at the sick prices of graphic cards, I do understand everyone who hesitates to compete with that. As I said, it’s up to you, on which screen resolution you aim to play. In 1080p or 1440p, also a midrange graphics card is sufficient to play MSFS fluently with add-ons. Especially AMDs recently launched 9070 XT could be a hot tip looking at the price-performance ratio.

Raytracing

Do yourself a favor and don’t consider raytracing when deciding for a new graphics card for MSFS. It’s not important for Flight Simulation and in my opinion, the topic is completely hyped. When two in-game screenshots are compared, I often can’t even tell the difference whether raytracing is on or off.

Overclocking (OC) Models

Same topic here. Manufacturers of custom designs often promote their overclocked cards. It’s important to understand that the underlying hardware (the GPU, the VRAM, etc.) of the graphics card is the same on any custom design. The only things manufacturers are modifying are the clock rate and the cooling design. In rare situations they add a third power connector to the board layout, if the card is expected to consume much more power.

What I want to point out is, that basically, every graphics card can be overclocked easily with third-party tools by yourself. There is no need to buy an overclocked card for a lot of money. If you like to own an overclocked card, just tune it yourself and save the money. Besides that, there are no significant performance increases to expect from overclocking. If you are lucky, you may get 10% more fps. I recommend to go with the cheapest custom designs offered. If you want more power, upgrade to the next bigger card which offers at least 20% more fps in your scenario. If you’re looking for tests, it’s important that the cards are compared in MSFS and not in other games. The results are varying a lot from game to game.

My journey in graphics hardware

I started up with an Nvidia RTX 2070 Super that came with my used AM4 PC system I bought in September 2024. It was okay to play in 1440p at medium settings and DirectX 11. But I wanted to play in Ultra and with DirectX12. So, I sold it and went for an RTX 4070 Super. The difference was awesome. Still in 1440p, with DirectX12 and Ultra Settings turned on, it did quite well at 30 fps.

As I switched to my 55” TV and 4K resolution, I got heavy stutters; the game was not playable anymore. Turning on the performance measuring tool MSI Afterburner, I could see the GPU was permanently running at 100% load, and the VRAM of 12 GB was fully used. The card had obviously reached its limit.

I didn’t want to go with the 4070 Ti Super, as the increase in power seemed too small compared to its price. Also, its 16 GB of VRAM didn’t seem future proof to me. The sick prices for the 4080 and 4090 series were not an option for me, too. So, I decided to look for an AMD Radeon 7900 XTX. It offers lots of rasterizing power and 24 GB of VRAM for 899 Euros. After some weeks, I finally found a used one at a fair price and I bought it. Now I’m playing at natively rendered 4K resolution in TAA anti-aliasing with 38-50 fps without any use of frame generation or upscaling techniques.

To be fair, as I was experiencing heavy tearing problems with my TV, I decided to turn on V-Sync and locked the frames at 30 fps, as I am CPU-Limited in very demanding sceneries like EDDM with FSLTL traffic turned on. While the GPU is running constantly at 70% load and VRAM usage is between 16 and 20 GB, the fps are partially dropping down to 24 when on the ground. My CPU has reached its limit.

So, I can clearly say the card was a good pick and it does still have some reserves to go for additional screens, but for sure it’s not a RTX 4090, of course. For now, my 5800X3D CPU had obviously become the bottleneck. To eliminate this bottleneck, I would need to go for a new mainboard platform like AM5. But on one hand, this is currently not essential and looking at the costs, I’m not willing to spend that money.