Gtx 1070 or 1060?

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A78LMUSB3/HelpDesk_CPU/

If you need a CPU upgrade, you can easily replace the FX-6300 with an FX-8300/8320/8350/8370, all of which would move you up from a 4th-tier CPU to a 2nd-tier CPU (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html). They'd also be a lot cheaper than a Skylake upgrade -- FX-8300 runs about $105 USD, FX-8370 tops out around $180 USD, & you'd pay at least $180 just for the i5-6500, plus another $120-150 for a decent mATX board & DDR4 RAM.

GPU-wise, your 970 should be more than fine for 1080p play. If you're really wanting to replace it, though, a GTX 1060 isn't going to be worth it; you'd only go up from 6th- to 5th-tier (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html). The GTX 1070 would at least move you up to a 3rd-tier, but unless you have a monitor with a high refresh rate (100+ Hz, preferably 120+ Hz), the extra graphics power it'll bring your system will be wasted. However, if you wanted to save up a bit & get the GTX 1070 and a 1440p monitor, then that would be a good upgrade.

I agree. You need to upgrade your CPU and motherboard. Your CPU will be bottle-necking the 970, let alone a 1070.

Stick with the 970 if you are going to wait for Zen.

Don't use the tier lists as reference spygoo, the AM3+ platform is heavily outdated, and any additional money invested would be prolonging the inevitable.
The 8350 would still perform much worse than say an i5 in terms of FPS as a result of poor optimization and IPC.

Upgrading the CPU to an 8 core version of what he has is rarely going to net any benefits. I'd recommend sitting tight on the CPU until you can upgrade to an i5 or better. The CPU may bottleneck you in some games, but it won't in others.

The question is whether to upgrade the GPU now, or CPU. Both have their advantages. I guess the question is if your GPU is being bottlenecked now? (Check GPU usage in games to see if it's over 90% usage all the time). If you are bottlenecked, then upgrade the CPU first. If not, upgrade the GPU, but go to at least a 1070, otherwise it won't be significant enough to warrant the cost. Same goes for the CPU. Only upgrade it if you go to at least an Intel i5 6600k or better.

Just because something is "outdated" doesn't mean it can't perform.

Gears of War 4 (http://www.techspot.com/review/1263-gears-of-war-4-benchmarks/page4.html): Ivy Bridge i7 keeps up with Skylake i7 (despite being over4 years old), & Sandy Bridge i5 keeps up with Haswell i5 (despite being hearly 6 years old)...not to mention the 4-year-old FX-8350 keeping pace with the i5s.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (http://www.techspot.com/review/1235-deus-ex-mankind-divided-benchmarks/page5.html): Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge i5s not only keep up with their Haswell & Skylake successors, they keep up with the Haswell & Skylake i7s. And even the FX-6350 still manages to bring ~86% of a Skylake i7's performance, which is really good considering it's over 3 years old now.

Overwatch (http://www.techspot.com/review/1180-overwatch-benchmarks/page5.html): Sandy Bridge i7s easily kept up with their Skylake great-grandchildren, & Sandy Bridge i5s kept pace with their Haswell grandkids. And even though the FX chips were well below the i5s in performance, the review still pointed out that with that particular GPU you'd only see the difference with a 120/144Hz monitor.

DOOM (http://www.techspot.com/review/1173-doom-benchmarks/page5.html): Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge i5s again kept up not only with the Skylake i5s but with the i7s as well. Yes, the 4- and 6-core (as well as the lower-power 8-core) FX chips dropped off severely, but their performance was still more than sufficient for a 60+ FPS experience...& the FX-8370 still had ~86% of the Ivy Bridge/Haswell/Skylake i7 chips.

Dark Souls III (http://www.techspot.com/review/1162-dark-souls-3-benchmarks/page5.html): Identical performance for Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell & Skylake Core i5s & i7s, with their average FPS matched by the FX-8350. The FX-6350 was right behind them (~93% of the performance), & even the FX-4320 wasn't too shabby (~85% performance).

Tom Clancy's The Division (http://www.techspot.com/review/1148-tom-clancys-the-division-benchmarks/page5.html): Across the board, pretty much every CPU they used turned in high performance, with even the lowest 2 (Haswell i3 & FX-4320) getting over 90% of the performance of the Skylake i7. Again, moving from Sandy Bridge to Haswell, or Ivy Bridge to Skylake, gave the leaders only an extra 1 or 2 FPS (or about a maximum of 3% improvement).

Rise of the Tomb Raider (http://www.techspot.com/review/1128-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-benchmarks/page5.html): Although the gap is somewhat noticeable between the Haswell & Skylake chips, the gap is still narrow enough that the Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge chips are still at almost 90% of that performance. And the FX chips were right there in performance with the Haswell chips for average FPS.

Those were all games released this calendar year. Yes, they generally show Intel chips having "better" performance than AMD's FX chips...but when you not only have brand-new chips that (for the most part) can only outperform your competitor's chips by a 5-10% margin, but also your own chips that are just as old generally have even less of a gap (or in many cases no gap at all), you start to wonder what the justification is for the price.

And the tier lists show that. It's why Tom's Hardware still shows Ivy Bridge & Haswell i7 chips (& some Ivy Bridge i5 chips) as being equal with the new Skylake chips, & why the Sandy Bridge i7 chips & Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge i5s are right behind them in performance (which also happens to be where the full-power octa-core chips are as well): not because they're concerned with how "old" a particular chip is, but because they look at the performance.

Now, if @r2j2612 (OP) was asking for suggestions on a brand-new build, then no, I wouldn't recommend an FX-based build...just like I wouldn't recommend a brand-new Haswell, Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge build. Although the performance is still good, there are no upgrade paths for any of those platforms: Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge use the discontinued LGA 1155 sockets, & their Haswell replacements' LGA 1150 sockets are also now discontinued (Skylake & Kaby Lake are using LGA 1151), just like the AM3+ socket ended with the FX chips (Zen being planned for the new AM4 socket). Nor can Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell or AM3+ boards take advantage of the new DDR4 RAM. But that's the point: he isn't necessarily looking for a new build. Replacing his current CPU extends the life of his current system, for a much lower price than any conversion to Intel could possibly match (unless he's willing maybe to settle for a Skylake Pentium, or is willing to settle for one of the DDR3 Skylake boards).

Basically, it comes down to cost: he can pay up to $180 USD to improve his system with a new CPU, or pay double that to switch to Intel & only get maybe another 10% in gaming performance. Even with a new GTX 1070 & monitor, it's still $560 for a replacement CPU & the GPU vs. ~$740-750 for the GPU & the Intel switch, where he'd pay over 30% more just for maybe a 10% improvement. The question for him is whether the slight improvement is worth the cost, & whether he can even afford it.

+r2j2612 What is your upgrade budget? Upgrading from a GTX 970 to a GTX 1060 6GB is a lateral move. I've heard that the performance approximation of a GTX 1060 6 GB is an overclocked GTX 970 or stock 980. Therefore upgrading to a GTX 1060 6 GB shouldn't be a consideration for you.

Question: What refresh is your 1080p display? Overwatch and BF1 aren't demanding titles, so you should be able to achieve 1080p @ 60+ FPS easily. If your display is only 60 Hz, then an increase in FPS won't even be viewable to you.

Regardless, you need to upgrade to an Intel platform. Even an i3-6100 greatly outperforms a FX 6300 in single threaded performance. If I were in your position I would:

* buy Z270 motherboard (coming out in approximately January)
* buy i3-7350K or higher (Kaby Lake i3 with overclocking abilities coming out in approximately January). With the current Skylake generation, I like the i3-6100, i5-6500 and i7-6700K.
* buy 16-32 GB of DDR4 RAM
* buy SSD if you don't currently own one; I'd get the Samsung 960 EVO
* buy new Windows license, if necessary after motherboard swap from KingGuin ( https://www.kinguin.net/catalogsearch/result/index/?q=windows+7 )

* sell the FX 6300, motherboard and RAM on Ebay.

*** WCCF Tech - Intel Readies Unlocked Core i3-7350K Kaby Lake Processor ***
http://wccftech.com/intel-kaby-lake-core-i3-7350k-cpu/