Just simply going to post my specs:

AMD FX 8320 @4.2ghz

ASRock Extreme 3 990FX motherboard

16GB DDR3 1866 Gskil Ripjaws RAM

Zotac GTX 760 4GB VRAM

Toshiba 128GB SSD

Windows 7 x64 Ultimate

Now I'm wanting to upgrade my GPU, so my concern is that this CPU is seriously gonna bottleneck the GTX 980, can anyone confirm this? I don't really feel like blowing 550$ if I'm not really going to see it in all its glory because of the CPU, and if thats the case, then would going with the GTX 970 be better for this CPU instead? When it comes to bottlenecks, just simply how much performance will I loose/not see because of a cpu bottleneck? any help would be appreciated guys so thanks in advance!

Under DX12 that question will hopefully go away. As far as how limited you will be under DX11 and 9, I would say it's entirely likely that you will see some limitations however the gain over the 760 is still significant. The 980 I just picked up has replaced the SLI 680 setup I was running, the 980 clocks to 1.5ghz boost which offers more or less the same raw performance in most titles as the previous setup without having to worry about stuttering or SLI scaling problems. That being said the 970 is an excellent value with the aggressive pricing they've set on it.

What resolution do you play at? If you're solely at 1080, the 970 makes a lot more sense given the rest of your setup.

That's still a fine cpu and won't be bottlenecking anything.

I don't know a lot about AMD, mind you, but a quick google search suggests your CPU is fine.

Just a guess, though. I do see it is a few years old too but it's 8 cores, 8mb cache, 4.2ghz... doesn't seem that much worse than a decent i5.

So... I mean I'm no expert on this type of CPU, but I don't see a bottleneck with that CPU. There may be something I don't know, though.

If you have an FX 8320 already, upgrading your graphics card is going to give you way better fps than upgrading your cpu. Plus, newer games are taking better advantage of multiple cores it seems.

The CPU isn't a bottleneck now, but probably will be within the next 2 years or so. It's roughly equivalent to Core i5 3570k Ivy Bridge which came out not too long ago. So I don't think it is really a problem.

I think you are good to go with a new card, however I question why you are going for the 980 when recent reports have shown that the 970 can be overclocked to 980 speeds pretty easily. What resolution are you running? How many monitors? If you are just trying to push a single 1080p display or something like that, I think the 980 is kind of overkill. Personally, I'd got with a 970, overclock the shit out of it, and then put that $200 you saved towards a new card in a year or two (that will be faster than the 980 and 970 anyway). Unless you are trying to push big resolutions or multiple monitors, I can't see why someone would want to spend $500 on a 980 when you can buy a 970 and overclock it for $350.

@stonyman65: Or he could buy a 980 now and it will be good for the next 5 to 10 years. Overclocking will just mean the card will burn out faster. Pointless to deal with for most people.

Just a counterpoint. Saving money is a nice thing, but if you're doing it just to upgrade in 2 years it's only a small upside. OP may be spending more now, but it will last longer in my experience.

Not that I would buy at that price point- I don't have that kind of money to spend. If I did, though, I'd go for the higher price point as opposed to an overclock solution only because either way you'd be spending around that much anyway. Your solution only does that over an extended period of time.

Overclocking isn't for everybody.

By definition, yes. I had the same CPU and gained 10fps on average in a lot of games by upgrading to an i7-4770K. It is significant, IMO.

Well first of all, wow! thank you everybody for all the replies, really appreciate it! I actually cannot believe I never mentioned what resolution I game at! what an idiot lol.... Okay, as of right this very second I'm only gaming at 1080 on a single monitor. However though, I had planed on getting either a bigger monitor, or getting at least a second screen, desk doesn't really have any room for 3 screens lol... I will most likely still game at 1080 though and yep, I'm quite aware of how damn awesome the 970 can actually be, I just came into some money for what seems the first time in my life where I can ACTUALLY physically afford the highest end card on the market which would be the first time I've ever had one. Don't need to go through the history of various machines I've owned but basically never owned anything past the gtx 60 something named cards like the 260/460/560 and the more recent 760. So Would love to own a 980 if I wasn't going to get a bottleneck, I personally love my cpu but of course intel's are better and less likely for bottlenecks when you reach this kind of level of GPUs heh... But I think everyone pretty much answered my question really.11" cards are my max for my case so I might end up getting that Zotac 970 anyway coz its only like 7-8" long, tiny thing lol but we'll see now you all think I shouldn't really get a bottleneck with the 980.... that gigabyte 980 and 970 is ridiculous in size haha

thank you everyone!

depends, 10 fps at 100, or 10 fps at 10.

@devildoll: haha I thought the same thing yesterday, but I didn't say anything because... people always say I'm being rude or whatever.

@devildoll: It has been more than a year, but I remember being impressed by how much better minimum frames were; I am sure average and max were increased too but minimum got the biggest boost.

@cornbredx: 5-10 years for a video card? Good luck with that one! He'll get 2, maybe 3 years max before that card starts to show its age and have trouble running then-current games. I've been down that road before with my old 8800GTS that I had from early 2008 until early 2012 (when I built the current machine I'm using now). I'll tell ya man, by 2010-2011 that card was painful to play on. The only way I was able to get the minimal performance I did (struggling to hold 30fps, typically) was because I was running on an old-ass 1024x768 monitor at the time. I would have KILLED for a better card back then.

Minimum's will always be the biggest boost when removing a CPU bottleneck offering a much smoother experience, otherwise it wouldn't be a bottleneck :P