It’s even difficult to find CPU benchmarks that don’t overemphasize 1080p and eSports scenarios.

My upgrade from 5600x3D to 9850x3D felt kind of dumb at the time, but I decided to do it because Micro Center’s bundle deals are so far below market pricing.

I was shocked at how much better it is. Benchmarks and FPS don’t really show things like micro stutters and little performance wrinkles like that. I’m not even sure 1% low FPS counts capture it.

A great example game for this is Oblivion Remastered. Upgrading my CPU alone with the same GPU took away the environment loading slowdown almost entirely.

The benchmark will tell you that I didn’t gain any FPS during gameplay but every time I open a door into the new environment my CPU is positively impacting the experience.

I would have said the exact same thing you are saying until I actually experienced upgrading to the best on the market. For the record, this is the first time in my life I’ve actually owned the best CPU on the market for gaming.

My old advice would have been to buy one of those sweet spot cheaper mid-range gaming CPUs, but my newer advice is really if you’ve already spent all that you’re willing to spend on a GPU (I have a 9070XT, my only upgrade paths are insanely expensive), buy the highest gaming CPU on the list for gaming benchmarks (e.g., I wouldn’t go crazy with a 9950X3D2 since it doesn’t have any gaming improvements above the 9850X3D).

And the thing about CPUs is they’re not insanely expensive like GPUs. We are talking a price delta of $200 between this beast of a CPU and something way more middling.