Seconded that AotS is equal parts game and equal parts experiment/showcase in CPU and GPU load balancing.

The short answer is: it depends on the game, but usually it caps out pretty quickly and you start hitting diminishing returns. And here we're talking only in the "lower" 1080p range, otherwise you're capped by the GPU anyway.

The current sweet-spot as far as gaming in concerned seems to be 6 cores with HT/SMT. If you have the money for an 8 core with HT/SMT, it's probably a bit more future proof.

That being said, I have yet to run into a situation where my i7-7700 quad-core grandad of a CPU "sweats" enough to dip anything below 60 fps @ 1080p (excluding GPU bound scenarios), so it depends on what you're going for too.

well there you have it then, the 600 euro's i reserved for the comin 11900k will be set in my savings piggy , i do need to buy a new m.2 ( my old one goes to someone else's build ) and a new SSD ( so i still can buy something ) but new cpu investments should at least wait until intel hits 3 nm ( wait>?!?! What>??? )

oh and wait for the 4070 of course! ( pref super or ti ... strix .... )