Which GPU to upgrade to??

Which games does he play, what monitor does he have (resolution and refresh rate), and what is his current CPU?

Power supply is a EVGA 750 w gold.
CPU is AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Monitor is a Dell s2721dgf

His favorite game is Elden Ring

Go to pcpartpicker.com to check compatibility of potential new components with what is in his current system.

I don't know much about GPUs, but the NVIDEA 4070 and the newer 4090 cards get very good reviews.

Is your son going to build a new PC in the near future where he could move the graphics card to the new build? If not, as others have said the CPU probably needs to be upgraded before he'd get the full benefits of a new graphics card. If he is going to incrementally upgrade this build, then go ahead and get the best graphics card you can now but also plan on a new CPU (probably the Ryzen 5800X3D). At that point, the system will be essentially maxed out and the next upgrades will require a new CPU, motherboard and RAM.

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So if I’m understanding correctly it would be best to upgrade the cpu now (Christmas)and the graphics card down the road a bit (his birthday).

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You can upgrade the graphics card now but it might not be the upgrade they are hoping for. After that, the CPU needs to be upgraded and there are two paths for that:

1) The existing CPU is an AM4 socket type. This is a legacy platform. The fastest CPU (5700X3D or 5800X3D) you can get for this platform is not as fast as CPUs you can get on the newer platform (AM5). Just upgrading the CPU on the AM4 platform might be good enough and will allow you to get more performance from a new graphics card. This is the cheapest path but once the CPU is upgraded, that is the end of the road. There is no more upgrade options available.

2) Instead of upgrading the CPU to a new AM4 CPU, you can buy a new AM5 CPU, AM5 motherboard and new ram. This will be much more expensive of an upgrade but provide more long term upgrade options. A new AM5 CPU can make another graphics card upgrade in a few years feasible/useful.

If long term planning is not a priority and budget is a big factor, I'd recommend planning on a new graphics card and a new 5700X3D or 5800X3D CPU at some point. Doesn't matter which one gets upgraded first but the CPU upgrade would be cheaper and probably provide a more noticeable immediate improvement. If budget isn't much of a concern and you will be throwing new parts in it every couple of years, I'd go with option #2 above.

EDIT: make sure to research the existing motherboard before doing a CPU upgrade. You may need to do a bios update to get support for a new CPU or there is a small chance it will not support a faster CPU.

It is quite annoying when you choose to upgrade your PC less often than a yearly basis, you have to upgrade multiple parts for them to be compatible.