Recently I've put together some parts for my first build. I've been getting some advice from a friend who builds PCs a bit but after a little research I've come to take his advice with a grain of salt, only because he suggested I buy an apevia PSU that after buying I did some research on. Turns out it is notorious for "going out with a bang" and is way below 80 bronze standard. That is the reason I'm looking for more input.
Here is a current list of parts for the build:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
RAM: Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
HDD (does this one even matter?): 1tb Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm blah blah
NEW PSU: SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
GPU: HIS IceQ H787Q2G2M Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5
Here's the case, I already have it because it was on sale recently: Raidmax Agusta Full Tower
I haven't decided on a mother board, so I was hoping for some suggestions. As a note i would prefer 3 slot spacing(I think that's right) in the pci 2.0s. The IceQ on the card is very large and at some point I'm hoping to crossfire.
I'm mainly going to be gaming, but I do use adobe Illustrator and photoshop regularly (I've been using them on a 4 year old MacBook Pro and worked great for me)
Price range might be a bit odd, but I'm hoping for a 450 dollar mark EXCLUDING the case, PSU, mouse, monitor, and Graphics card. Theres a little room to negotiate there, but not likely much. As for the PSU and Graphics card, I'm open for suggestions as well. Hopefully in the 200 - 250 range for the card and under 100 for the PSU hopefully.
Hope i didn't ramble too much and I hope this is enough info for some further help on my build!