Been out of the computer world for a few years and am way behind on what's what these days. Looking to do a few upgrades but not sure which yet.
Current build is below. I know real world would be best to get a new Mobo and GPU. I was thinking of just upgrading to a newer GPU for now and maybe a new MB and cpu next year. I had my eyes set on the 980 hydrocopper since I am set up for water cooling but then had the thought that there maybe a better setup for the same money? Looking to spend around $800, would prefer to keep the cards on water so that would be an added expense but I could get blocks after Christmas if need be. Would a couple of 970s be a better investment? Or would a mobo and processor be a better upgrade right now? Machine used to be a full time folder when not playing games. Would like to get back into folding and gaming now that I have decent internet again. Open for suggestions or ideas guys. Thanks
ASUS P6T Deluxe v2 x58 chip motherboard
i7 920 running at 3780
EVGA GTX285
6gigs ram
Antec signature 650w
 

I would look into mobo/cpu first.
I think the 980 would bottleneck with that setup and you wouldn't get full potential. 

+1 for a new GPU. My 970 destroys every game ive played at 1080p. You will see a massive spike in performance over a GTX 285.

Would a 980 really bottleneck an i7 920 running at 3780? It's old but still a pretty capable CPU. Especially at 3780.

Just food for thought. 
 
Friend last year was always bouncing ideas off of me and I had no idea he was running a i7-980X system.  Once I found out about told him to just upgrade his crappy GTX 590 for a GTX 780.  Anyways he went ahead and upgraded to a i7-4770K on a MSI M Power board with two GTX 780s and have been happy with it since.  The thing however that stood out to me about his comment besides the graphics update and how smooth it was that day to day stuff was even faster and was actually noticeable.  I know his 980X was underwater so it was probably sitting above the 3.3Ghz mark, like his 4770k is under sitting around 4.3Ghz everyday clock. 
 
So yeah look into your MOBO and CPU down the line.  But as for immediate band-aid a GPU upgrade will help
 IE BF3 GTX 285 at 1920x1080 = 24fps
        GTX 650Ti  at 1920x1080 = 40fps
And the 650Ti is a pretty junky POS card. 

Every review website says it can do 4K but you know was tech and software goes on it'll probably grind to a halt in two or so years.
 
Yes the GTX 970 FTW with the ACX 2.0 is just a air cooled GPU so no special thing is needed.
 
As for your PSU question if you have to keep it EVGA, their 750~850 PSU offering is more than enough for your build.

I've got a 920 at 4.2ghz, and a pair of 980's in SLI at 1440p.  Although the cards certainly are bottlenecked to some extent due to the processor and chipset, they still are a massive improvement over my 580's.  The sort of bottleneck we're talking about here is simply that the cards could run a bit faster and with higher performance if the CPU was a bit faster and the chipset allowed for higher performance.  However, they aren't bottlenecked in a way that the performance is more like a pair of 580's than 980's.
 
In other words, I wouldn't worry about the processor being the reason you shouldn't upgrade.  I would worry a little about having only 6GB of memory, and maybe think of upgrading to 12GB.  Beyond that, a motherboard upgrade should be on your to-do list, but you'll notice bigger gains at first with a new card.
 
 

Ok just when I think I figure things out cyber Monday makes things difficult. The x97 classified looks like a good buy along with a 4970 or 4790 i7, don't remember the exact number but it's the 4.0 processor with 4.4 boost clock. Then upgrade to some more ram and rock on. Along with a single 970. Tried playing BF4 last night and that was an epic fail. Looks like ddr3 has dropped quiet a bit in price now also so that's another plus.

ChaseH
Ok just when I think I figure things out cyber Monday makes things difficult. The x97 classified looks like a good buy along with a 4970 or 4790 i7, don't remember the exact number but it's the 4.0 processor with 4.4 boost clock. Then upgrade to some more ram and rock on. Along with a single 970. Tried playing BF4 last night and that was an epic fail. Looks like ddr3 has dropped quiet a bit in price now also so that's another plus.

Might want to do research on EVGA MOBO's before jumping in and buying one.  I know during the Z77 and X79 era they where major crap in the BIOS.  I know Z87 started out pretty shaky also...  I haven't paid attention to Z97 but do some digging to see if owners are happy with long term ownership before jumping into one man...