I goofed around with a Dell T7500 dual Westemere X5667's@3.5GHz and it definitely still had gas in the tank for gaming, when paired with a 2060 super.
I am typing this from a i7 4820K@4.56GHz 1.375v on an Asus P9X79 LE - 4x4GB XPG 1600 in quad channel, and a 2070 Super. It is also showing it has gas left in the tank. This board takes up to a 12/24 CPU, so I have not decided if I am going to upgrade it or sell it. Yesterday's expensive HEDT and workstation kit makes for great budget gaming in 2020.
More to the point of the thread: I had a 4770K@4.5GHz and my experience was not always good gaming on it. Don't get me wrong, it was great for most of my library, but AC: Odyssey was when I knew it was getting on in age. I would probably have kept it longer if I paired it with a free/g-sync compatible monitor. But it was doing HTPC duty, with a 1080p TV. The problem, and I have mentioned this before, was when you get deep in the game. Something you never see benchmarked. I would be fighting 5 mercenaries and the citizens in Athens, and it would start having frame pacing issues that were very frustrating. In its defense, a Ryzen 2600 did not completely smooth the game out at all times either. It wasn't until I played it with a Ryzen 3600 that it stayed smoothed.
And forget about it for high refresh gamers.
Also, test these games with discord running, and streaming or recording. Or with multi monitor setups with other things going besides the game. And let's not forget CPU intensive games like BFV 64 player. So many things gamers are doing now, beat up 4c/8t CPUs. Which makes the comment about only uninformed gamers caring about more cores, absolute nonsense. Look, I played on console for years, because it let me play with my son as he grew up. It is crazy what you can get used too. That does not mean it is a good experience for someone used to better.