Thanks all for the replies. I tone down my settings a bit, mix of high and medium. Pmdg 737, KORD, 30 to 40 fps at the gate. No traffic. It bounces from main thread to gpu limited, but mostly main thread. Judging from research I think upgrading my 8700k will give a marginal improvement, then I’ll be gpu limited. I don’t want to buy a new gpu now, so I might still get the 13600k, then do the gpu later, even if the cpu wouldn’t be a huge performance boost.
It’s just surprising that a 5yo cpu can hold up so well. I figured updating it would give a significant boost, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.