Building PC - Few Questions

Hey folks, it's been awhile sine I was really into computers...I couldn't give you an exact date but it was around the time that AMD was launching the FX series...I remember Piledriver and Bulldozer? Can't remember the order in-which they launched but my money is on Bulldozer coming out first.

To make a long story short, I've immersed myself into the world of cars, specifically Volvos, since my time with computers and have forgotten most of what I knew but now I'm back and in the next few days will be ordering parts to build a new desktop. My old desktop was bought from HP and is well past it's useful life. I added some things like an SSD and more RAM but a 460w PSU limited what I could. The computer is now dead but I'll be salvaging 8GB of Corsair Vengenace 1866 mhz RAM. I'd also like to salvage my 120GB  OCZ Vertex 4 but the problem is I don't know how to totally wipe the drive without getting my old PC to turn on and that won't be happening. Anyway let me start answering the list of questions in the sticky

To make things easier around here just include some extra info so we can tailor you better.

  • Budget. How much are you willing to spend? Would like to keep it under $700, but will spend $750
  • Where do you live (what country),  and what currency do you use? 'Murica, therefore USD
  •   -Is there a retailer you prefer? Newegg, but if it's reputable I don't care
  • Do you need or already have peripherals? (this can add to costs) Yes, I have everything I need besides the components itself 
  • What will you be using your future computer for? Gaming? Rendering? Mix of both? Or is this a home media PC? Gaming, a lot of multi-tasking, sometimes I run two or three monitors depending on what I'm doing
  • Do you overclock or want to get into overclocking? I'm not an expert, but I can do basic overclocking
  • Do you plan on going for custom watercooling now, or in the future? Doubt it
  • OS. Do you need a new one? I do not, unless I should really upgrade to Windows 8

If you Game-

  • What kind of settings do you like or what FPS do you want to play at? I like to play on the highest settings I can, anything over 40fps is fine. Higher the better obviously. 
  • What resolution will you be playing at? //or would like to play at. 1080p
  • What kind of games do you like to play? Some MMORPG, driving games (Project CARS) and the war strategy games like Total War
  • What specific game will you be playing (if you only really play one) Depends on my mood

Other Notes:

  • What is your general experience in building computers? Is this your first build or are you seasoned and just looking for advice? First full build but it seems rather self-explanatory. Mainly I'm just looking to get the components right.

 
Okay, so here's what I'm pretty confident I'll be buying, unless someone convinces me otherwise. I'm pretty adamant about going AMD, I don't think there's a need to spend more money on the Intel CPUs unless you're really going all out.
 
CPU: AMD FX-6300 (Considering an 8350 but I missed all the good sales)
 
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3
 
RAM: 8GB of Corsair Vengeance 1866
 
PSU: Rosewill ARC 650 Continuous 650W 80+ Bronze
 
SSD: Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB if I can't salvage my OCZ Vertex 4
 
Case: NZXT Source 210
 
Now my two main questions are whether I can salvage my Vertex 4 and which GPU I should choose.
 
I'd like to completely wipe the SSD because I don't know exactly what caused my old PC to fail and if it's because of something on that drive I don't want to deal with a headache so if there's no easy way to totally wipe it I'll just drop the extra 60 bucks on the Kingston drive. 
 
Now, for the GPU I've gone back and forth on a couple different Radeon options but I can't pinpoint exactly which the best card is. The three I've been considering are as follows: 
 
SAPPHIRE 100364-4GL Radeon R9 270X 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 Video Card (Dual-X Edition)
 
HIS H285QMB2GD Radeon R9 285 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
 
MSI R9 270X GAMING 2G Radeon R9 270X 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
 
Now, I'm not really concerned about the price but don't really want to go much higher than $225 but which of those three cards are my best bet? I would assume it's the HIS card but the clock speed isn't as high and I don't remember enough about how these things work to confidently make a judgment. Feel free to suggest other cards which are better.
 
Thanks in advance,
David
 

DO NOT BUY THE KINGSTON DRIVE.... they SUCK...

Get a Crucial in the same general price range....

Also, don't buy a 270X... either fork up to a 280 or 280X or get the regular 270 and overclock it... cause all AMD did was bin some chips and overclock them for that particular X model

Thanks for the input, what about the 285 vs the 280?

if you're on the verge of a 285 or 280 get the 280X which is an actual big difference in performance...

Alright, thanks for your help!