The OP says he has a 7970 and it is fine for him playing at 1080p. I would tend to concur having had a high overlcocked 680 which is probably a tad faster.
Though in my experience there were games at 1080p that I had to take down the settings a bit to keep the frame rate around my preferred 60fps. I didn't think I was missing out on much until I got the 970 and put these settings up. I'm not a gamer per se but in in Far Cry 4 I was surprised how much more atmospheric the game was with the higher settings.
The OP has a 120Hz monitor so he can (and probably will want to) play at a higher frame rate in all the games he has. This is why I think his 7970 might be on the edge a little at keeping those higher than 60fps on high settings or those settings that do add a noticeable difference to his gaming experience.
The OP is also wondering whether an upgrade will make a noticeable difference to his gaming, though by his own admission it is not terrible now, just the odd hiccup. I am suggesting that upgrading to a 970/390 (which go for ~£200 on the MM with ~£80 for his 7970) might be worthwhile to him to iron out the hiccups in his gaming seeing that he does have an upgrade itch. It is hard to generalise these things but he has to decide, I'm just giving my direct relative experience, not surmising as some seem to be.
As regard to the CPU/Motherboard which he is really enquiring about I suspect the same answer might hold true for them as a few years ago. Though as mentioned by a few, a X5650/70 is a fairly inexpensive CPU drop in for his motherboard/memory set that will extend the serviceability of these components even longer. Games are going to get more multi-threaded not less.
X5670
And a 6700k running approx the same clocks;
Though in my experience there were games at 1080p that I had to take down the settings a bit to keep the frame rate around my preferred 60fps. I didn't think I was missing out on much until I got the 970 and put these settings up. I'm not a gamer per se but in in Far Cry 4 I was surprised how much more atmospheric the game was with the higher settings.
The OP has a 120Hz monitor so he can (and probably will want to) play at a higher frame rate in all the games he has. This is why I think his 7970 might be on the edge a little at keeping those higher than 60fps on high settings or those settings that do add a noticeable difference to his gaming experience.
The OP is also wondering whether an upgrade will make a noticeable difference to his gaming, though by his own admission it is not terrible now, just the odd hiccup. I am suggesting that upgrading to a 970/390 (which go for ~£200 on the MM with ~£80 for his 7970) might be worthwhile to him to iron out the hiccups in his gaming seeing that he does have an upgrade itch. It is hard to generalise these things but he has to decide, I'm just giving my direct relative experience, not surmising as some seem to be.
As regard to the CPU/Motherboard which he is really enquiring about I suspect the same answer might hold true for them as a few years ago. Though as mentioned by a few, a X5650/70 is a fairly inexpensive CPU drop in for his motherboard/memory set that will extend the serviceability of these components even longer. Games are going to get more multi-threaded not less.
X5670
And a 6700k running approx the same clocks;
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