Did the performance hit from the meltdown/spectre patches every get fixed in subsequent updates?

My apologies if this is an odd fit for the sub, I'm having trouble finding a sub where the auto-mod doesn't take it down despite being a simple question. But I guess one outcome from this question is that I decide to build a new PC. Anyway.

I'm someone who enjoys PC gaming but has been away a while due to a career change taking up my time. I built a machine late 2017 with an 8700k and 1080ti. I also use a 144 hz 1440p monitor, making CPU performance a consideration for me.

Because I literally use this machine for nothing other than playing games and occasional video trans-coding I decided not to update it anymore when the news about the patches first hit. (I update all my machines I use for work, banking, or even amazon shopping, I promise).

I'm noticing that GeForce Experience isn't finding my newer games and hence I'm not getting performance patches, which I assume (hope?) comes down to me needing to update windows for the software to work correctly with newer titles.

Hence my question. I really don't feel like upgrading in the current market to get hardware mitigated chips, so I'm wondering how much gaming performance I'm going to lose by simply updating windows. I recall talk at the time that maybe subsequent patches would give some of that performance back, did that ever happen?

I know mine is an edge case where I have a dedicated fun machine that I could make the choice not to update without consequences, but I'm hoping someone might have some insight because I still view this thing as my hotrod and I love it's performance even to this day. Thanks!