"Keep in mind that a 3900/3950X isn't the same performance as the 3600. They have double the cores, higher clocks, more cache.

So whilst a 3600 may struggle with maintaing 60fps in SOME instances, the same doesn't hold true for the higher tier parts.

And we cannot forget that Spiderman is only one implementation of Ray Tracing, there is always an exception to the norm... Having a lack of scaling between a 3600 and 3900 and even the 5800X3D just shows how GPU bound and not CPU bound that game is."

In the case for games, 3900x/3950x performs largely similarly to 3600x/3800x. But with certain other applications such as virtual machines and such, yes more cores are more beneficial. Majority  of the games today and most likely the rest of the generation won't scale past 6-8 cores. So for a gaming build, the main requirement is having at least 6 core or 8 cores followed by high ST. In the CPU gaming benchmark that I have provided along with many others that you can search yourself, it does show poor scaling as you go to higher tier cores as far as games are concerned vs stronger ST.

Also don't forget that while the higher core count 3000 series CPUs do have more cache compared to 3600, there is a huge caveat. Ryzen 3000 has 4 cores per CCX before needing to go through the Infinity Fabric for intercore communication which has a latency penalty. Each CCX has 16mb of L3 cache vs 5800X3D has 8 cores per CCX and those 8 cores have access to 96mb of L3 cache. So no infinity fabric penalty for intercore communication + 96mb of cache for all 8 cores with 5800X3D.

And while I agree that Spiderman is only one implementation. There are other games that DF discovered that showed a similar behaviour such as hitman raytracing with 10900k. I have posted other DF videos that showcase this behaviour in the past when it comes to Ray Tracing but I am not going to go through DF's videos and post them all. It's up to you to do your own research or go back through this thread and look at the times I have mentioned this in the past.

"Keep in mind that going from 61fps on the 3600XT to 73.5fps on the Ryzen 5800X3D really isn't making your case.
Is it worth buying a new motherboard for an extra 12fps? Or would you be better spending that money on a better higher-tier Ray Tracing capable GPU which will give you a larger return on your investment in regards to framerates in pretty much all games?"

% wise, it is a pretty big difference and 73.5fps ensures this CPU stays above 60fps more so than it drops below as 3600 being at 61fps will drop below 60fps far more frequently. 5800X3D ensures that there is more wiggle room than 3000 series who is already averaging 61fps. But this is as you say, just "one game." There are other games where the lead for 5800X3D is pretty crazy:

https://www.techspot.com/review/2502-upgrade-ryzen-3600-to-5800x3d/

"When CPU limited, the 5800X3D offers Ryzen 5 3600 owners massive performance gains. Using the Radeon 6950 XT at 1080p we see on average 48% greater 1% lows, with average frame rates boosted by 46%. Even at 1440p, the 5800X3D provided up to 35% greater performance on average."

Also considering he can get a 4080 with the options I am suggesting, skimping out on $120 for X570 won't net him a higher tier GPU. Not to mention since he has a 2700x, most likely he has X470 which is PCI-E Gen 3. So going to X570 for $120 has benefits other than just new CPU. It has PCI-E Gen 4 for GPU and SSD which will help in the long run. But to be fair, if he does have a 400 series board, he can do an in place upgrade since AMD has allowed 5000 compatibility for even 300 series boards.

True everything is so streamlined now. From the way we consume our media to the way devs make games and play them. The way publishers are trying to chase the dragon of the GaaS model from looking at how successful they are; from your GTAO's, Fortnite's, Apex Legends etc just rubs me the wrong way. I think nearly every large publisher apart from Nintendo are guilty of this. And though the current model is working for them I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't try to jump on the bandwagon in the upcoming years.

Yeah there just seems to be less buzz for games in general and interest in new stuff. I feel a lot stems from publishers not willing to take risks and aren't so hot on innovating new games and just simply just borrow stuff from the past. Like in the movie industry. Re-releasing/rehashing or remaking old games and selling them as new. Yeah the risk of releasing new IP's is higher than releasing an established IP, but when it reaches a saturation point of those games and releases.. there's a stagnation. We've seen this in AC, GoW (both), Halo etc etc where is just felt stale after a while and felt like playing the same games, with new skins.

Rockstar were once one of my all time favorite devs but now they're not even worth mentioning since their last worthy game that peaked my interest came out nearly 10 years ago. I still have yet to play through RDR 2 but I can't get into it, despite loving the first one lol.

Another publisher that fell off for me is Naughty Dog. Again another one of my top devs for games in the 7th gen.. but these days the games are taking longer and longer to release and they are working on a standalone TLOU MP live game and a pointless remake. Meh.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Naughty_Dog_video_games

EA/Bioware went from top tier WRPG devs to Andromeda to making a TPS Destiny clone Anthem and nothing since.

Like honestly if you told me that most games and series peak would have come nearly a decade ago I wouldn't have have bothered buying new consoles and just stuck to PC gaming. Now that they are mostly coming all to PC.. there's even less interest in gaming for me in general.

Im going to play devils advocate here i have GTA5 but haven't played it since i finished the story years ago, but doesn't big R keep adding content like expansions?
i cant imagine they have a few thousand people staffed doing jackshit aside from adding a cosmetic every 2 weeks

The types of content they add are mostly like cosmetics, cars, guns, gamemodes and such to GTA V Online. I think they did add like one or two "Online Story" expansions as well.

The thing is that GTA IV also had two or so story DLCs while they were making other games. So I am not really impressed tbh.

i should take a look if they are hiring

Yea and it's only going to get worse with big successes like Genshin Impact and now Tower of Fantasy. And with Sonys investor meeting showing they are gonna spend big money on GaaS, it's gonna continue to be very urghh.

Least on the brightside, GaaS won't automatically mean the games will be a success. Like how the Avengers flopped when SE tried and they made GotG which was incredible. Hopefully this will happen with other companies as well and most importantly, they learn from it. Cause there's only so much room for GaaS even if the market is pretty big.

Sorry to disappoint you, but that's what has happened with GTA V. PS4/X1 saw no new GTA game.

Yeah, its frustrating to see as I have no interest in them and these types of projects take away resources that could go towards games I want to play. Like CD and Avengers was a perfect example and Bioware - and yeah GotG was awesome. Take them from making games they enjoy making and doing to something they have no clue about and people have little interest for; unless it somehow manages to be a hit with Twitch and streamers.

Its a bit like a company shunting existing customers trying to appeal to a new audience. Most of the time it isn't going to work and in some cases backfire in the long term, and may damage the image of the dev.

I'd say its already getting there to saturation point with Fornite, Warzone, Apex, GTAO, Genshin etc taking up their respective genres etc. Others just seem to bang and fizzle fast. Hopefully the bubble will burst and most projects fail and all major publishers rethink going this route and go back to focusing on making new good content.

Unfortunately.. looking at how much people spend on MTX's on the mobile and freemium model I don't hold much hope. Just look at Diablo Immortal... Urrggh.

This is why it's mostly indies I look forward to these days, as AAA have been releasing far and few games I really love, and they are just putting too much focus on live service types, load them with MT's, and poorly written stories. 

I'm still looking forward to buying Cult of the Lamb than I am any AAA game this year (in fact I don't think there is any AAA game I've bought this yr or looking forward to at all). #

AAA just feels like it's gone massively down hill in the past decade. 

The only devs I can semi rely on to actually release a fully fledged complete game are indies, but they still have to use early access, and AAA studios are abusing early access and releasing incomplete games to milk more from you down the line, it's practically predatory at this point. 

Another thing that doesn't help is EG bringing exclusivity bs to an open platform, which has made me in turn care less and less about games coming out these days, and it has also made me move away from publishers over time.

List of pubs/studios I don't bother with anymore:

R*

T2

2k

Ubisoft

Square Enix

EG (goes without saying)

Deep Silver (getting very close to ignoring them entirely)

Gearbox

Konami

Saber Interactive (not a publisher, but a studio I've sworn off after the multiple EGS deals)

A load of indie devs that have made 2-3 deals a pop with EG

Most of that list is a mix of studios/pubs making deal after deal with EG, and others simply not making games I want anymore or making them live service garbage.

That's pretty much the new go-to model today. Why work your ass off to appeal to an existing/loyal audience, when you can cater to a brand new one that both doesn't care about what you've made previously or what little quality you have now, or even what rep you had before.

I've noticed that some new or existing indie devs that take up EGS bribes simply do not care about trying to get a proper foot in the door, or trying to appeal to their existing audience (like on Steam/GoG for example), and instead opt for quick money "fuck you, got mine" mentality, and it's just straight up damaging to the industry to see that sort of shit going on and on. 

Like we're seeing a slight resurgence for the RTS genre, and EA still doesn't give two shits about making a brand new C&C game. Like what is it going to take for them to realise that the RTS userbase still hasn't died off, and still wants more games?. 

I miss when games were made to entertain and just because devs were interested in making fun games, instead of today where it is purely about career pushing for bigger profits (even indie devs are falling head first into that giant pit).