Opinions wanted - Best video card upgrade for FX 6300.

So, it's that time of the year for me. Yup...Christmas shopping time!

Last year, I built my son a "budget" gaming PC. It has the aforementioned FX 6300, 16GB or RAM (recently upgraded my wife's and son's computer from 8 to 16 GB after I spotted a great deal on memory), and he's currently using an AMD 7870 GHz edition video card. And I'm pretty sure I remember buying him a 750 watt Thermaltake psu, with a Thermaltake Commander Series VN40006W2N (white) case. This kid loves gaming on his PC, and will try to run everything at max settings (regardless of framerate...lol). I'm looking at spending roughly $300-350 (US) and was thinking Nvidia 970. Is that too much gpu for his current cpu? I was thinking of possibly updating his cpu to an FX 8350, but if the 6300 will allow the 970 to do its thing without being much of a bottleneck, I might just go with the video card upgrade alone. If the the 6300 is too much of a bottleneck, then I'm going to update the cpu and probably shop down a little on the gpu (i.e. look for a deal on a Nvidia 770, 780 series gpu). The most I'd like to spend on his PC would be about $450 (should I go the cpu/gpu combo).

What do you guys think?

I'd recommend you to get i5 instead of FX series if you're into upgrading anything, but a 970 would be good - I can recommend on STRIX by Asus.

As you can see 8 frames difference at most between 8320 and 6300

EDIT: BTW how about this combo? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6ZCm7P or this one: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dHttNG

A 970 would definitely increase his performance in games. If you are concerned about the CPU bottlenecking, you can do what I did with my 6300. I threw a watercooling unit on there and did some overclocking. Watercooling units are really rather affordable so you get increased processor performance with a better GPU.

the cpu is fine, don't upgrade to i5 as you'll have to swap motherboards. unless you don't mind getting another motherboard.

your cpu will be fine with a 970.

it might be worth waiting for amd to release Zen, hopefully its am3 so you won't have to swap motherboards.

GTX 970 will be a hell of upgrade.

It will give him 102% performance increase.

But as most people stated the CPU will hold this GPU back on some games.

You wanted to spend around $450.

You can wait a couple of weeks when GTX960 will be out. It will be a great magnitude of upgrade for $200-$250.

I would spend the rest of $200-$250 to buy an entry core i5 (like core i5 4440) and a cheap mobo.

Having a core i5 4440, new mobo and GTX960 should cost you around $450. Not to mention if you are near microcenter, the deals you can take advantage of are many.

Depends on the game, while the i5 is stronger per core as games use more threading the FX series actually does really well. GPU is still the biggest factor in most modern games outside of your MMO's/Real Time Strategy. I love Skyrim and Diablo, but they aren't indicative of future CPU performance.

Now Granted these are Sandy Bridges(They snuck and Ivy or two in there), but all the same it shows the scaling of more modern games that use multiple cores.

I personally would stick with the AM3 for now, get an 8 core (or just keep the 6300 and overclock)and upgrade the GPU. It's really not going to hold much back at the moment. I5's aren't that expensive, but an all new CPU/MB setup worth your time will eat into half of that budget and again the GPU is the biggest factor because the 7870 is still a solid card and requires at least $250 or so of GPU to find worthy upgrades.

It sounds like he has the PSU, so go all out on the GPU. You never want to cheap on motherboards when swapping. I'd say wait, you're more than in good shape.

970 would be good but you can find R9 290s for under $300 brand spanking new right now. Either one would be a huge performance boost.

6300 will not bottleneck my friend got 970 lately with his 6300 , and he is running most of the games without any problems , even shadow of mordor , and crysis , and civ.