passable in most games, particularly FPS and 3rd person action/adventure. though in more CPU intensive games where single core performance matters more, like Starcraft II, that's where you're likely to see a major drop in performance compared to, say, an i3. that's in terms of frame rate.
in terms of frame time, it does tend to be placed at the bottom, though in most cases, it doesn't stray all that far from the rest of the higher tier CPUs.
http://www.hardwarepal.com/best-cpu-gaming-9-processors-8-games-tested/
that's with a 770. with a 7850 at 1080p, you're gonna need to make some compromises in graphics settings if you much prefer to hit 60fps.
take your pick on the motherboard. i recommend either Asus or Gigabyte, or Asrock above the $90 mark.:
http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/motherboard/#sort=a8
AMD 970 chipsets oddly still suffer from a small possibility of shipping out with an outdated BIOS, based on PCpp, making it impossible to boot with an FX vishera CPU sans a BIOS update, though anything below that like a 780/760 or above it, like a 990X/990FX is fair game. you can try your luck with a 970 though if it doesn't POST, be ready to return it and inform the seller of the BIOS incompatibility.