Those builds I listed are overkill for what you do. You could probably get a GTX 1070 Ti, and be fine.
Right now the 1080Ti is the best you can get...it'll play anything.



/e Here is the plain GTX 1070 vs. a 7970.

https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1722?vs=1731


...and a 1080 Ti vs. a 7970

https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1722?vs=1856

This post was edited by Ghot on May 15 2018 05:45pm

I was in almost the same position as you, but had a FX 6300.

I bought a sandy bridge mobo on ebay for $35. An i7 2600 for around $100, and a new GPU. Was a huge and noticeable upgrade. Performance was night and day. Not only in apps, but in games as well. Now, you can even get the i7 2600k for around $100, and the i7 2600 for less than $80!

That would definitely fall under your budget

This post was edited by JohnMiller92 on May 15 2018 05:52pm

If there's nothing wrong with your case/psu/hard drives/etc, why scrap them? Only things that are out of date tech are the CPU and the GPU. You'd be doing a heart and lung transplant into a fully functioning body.

ebay currently has great deals sold by newegg for new cpu's like ryzens and 8400/8600 etc. and mobos. Check them out