Is it worth upgrading from a 7600 to a 9800X3D for gaming?

If you're planning to get a 5080, your 7600 might end up bottlenecking it. I'm not entirely convinced that you need to go straight for the 9800X3D, though; a 7800X3D could be a solid choice as well without going overboard on your budget.

I just made the jump from a 13700K/7900XTX to a 9800X3D/7900XTX, and I noticed over a 15% performance boost in 4K FPS across games, especially in scenarios where my monitor wasn’t maxing out. If you're looking to enhance your gaming experience, you'll likely see a noticeable improvement with the 9800X3D, but it ultimately depends on whether you think the upgrade is justified for your needs.

At 4K, the real-world difference might not be massive, but I suspect the 1% lows would improve a bit with the 9800X3D. It’s got more cores and threads, along with faster base and boost clocks, which could benefit your productivity tasks. If you can swing it financially, I think it's a worthwhile upgrade based on your use case.

Upgrading to the 9800X3D won’t change the game drastically at 4K, but it should give you slightly higher FPS and better 1% lows. It's really a personal call on whether those gains feel worth it to you.