I have been running an i9-9900k with my EVGA RTX 3090 for about two years now. I am looking at getting a 4090 but wondering if the i9-9900k is going to be a bottleneck.
I do know someone that has an i5-10600k, which is somewhat similar in performance to the i9-9900k, and they just got a 4090. They saw no real improvement and noted that the GPU was usually sitting around 50% utilized. This is running on an ultra wide 3840x1600. Two main games are AMRA 3 maxed out on settings and Ready or Not also maxed out.  IMO that signifies the CPU is the bottleneck but then I dont want to upgrade my MB, RAM and CPU if that is not the case.  If I did upgrade it would be to the Ryzen 9 7950X with an ASUS ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming MB.
 
Thoughts?

RickJamesBish
I have been running an i9-9900k with my EVGA RTX 3090 for about two years now. I am looking at getting a 4090 but wondering if the i9-9900k is going to be a bottleneck.
I do know someone that has an i5-10600k, which is somewhat similar in performance to the i9-9900k, and they just got a 4090. They saw no real improvement and noted that the GPU was usually sitting around 50% utilized. This is running on an ultra wide 3840x1600. Two main games are AMRA 3 maxed out on settings and Ready or Not also maxed out.  IMO that signifies the CPU is the bottleneck but then I dont want to upgrade my MB, RAM and CPU if that is not the case.  If I did upgrade it would be to the Ryzen 9 7950X with an ASUS ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming MB.
 
Thoughts?

Even current top CPUs are not enough for the RTX 4090, they need to catch up. So you changing your 3090 out for a 4090 will just enlarge that gap, in that sense the 9900k is really dated.

Hoggle
It really depends on the monitor you have also as to what "Maxed Out" really means.  Often times the CPU is not the issue but it's what the monitor itself can do in games. If the monitor you use only supports 144hz for example then even if a new CPU would let the 4090 go beyond 144fps it's a moot point as those frames are never displayed to you.

 
 My display is 3840x1600 144hz. When I say maxed out I mean settings turned up as far as allowed. for example ARMA is view distances maxed out and the highest settings I can get on each setting.
Ready or Not is the same thing with Ultra or highest setting on each item.  I don't think the resolution and refresh rate are the issue since the framerate never was 144. The other game is Ready or Not, which I also have maxed out. It shows 144 fps in menus and also in some cases during play although very seldom but most of the time it is 75-90. So I think there is room for new hardware to work.
At least I hope it is because.......
  
 I went ahead and took the plunge like I normally do. I have a ROG Stix 4090 OC, Z790 ROG Hero motherboard, Intel i7-13700k and appropriate ram, cooler, etc on the way. I either will or will not see a difference in the games I play. I sold one of my older systems to absorb about 1/3 of the total cost and I still have the components in this current system that I can sell to cover more. I will be out of pocket some but that is to be expected. I will post what my results are once the system is completed. Everything arrives today except the CPU cooling and Ram, which comes tomorrow.
 
 Thanks for the input and sorry for the delay in responding. I removed EDGE from my PC and for some odd reason EVGA site was giving me a token not present or something like that when I tried to log in. I ended up having to reset Chrome to get logged in.