New "ish" build

[paulmohr]

My intention with this build was to build a "new" computer out of parts I had available to me. With some new parts to help it along. My old PC was a bunch of parts crammed into a fairly small case. Not a mini case, but not quite a mid tower either. I was throwing a fit about working on it because it is so cramped you can't see or get to any of the parts. I was told if I wanted a new case and could keep it around 100 to 150 dollars I could order the parts and do it. I thought to myself "Hey, for a hundred some bucks I can get a case and some other parts. Cases shouldn't cost that much.".  So I ordered a case, Asus m5a97 plus motherboard and a cheap after market air cooler for the cpu. Total cost with shipping was  like 140 US dollars.

 

A day before my new motherboard arrives I discover my cpu (FX-4130) isn't listed as a supported cpu on that board. My choices are, wing it and hope my cpu will work even thought it isn't listed, return the motherboard when I get it and get a different one, or order a new cpu that is supported by that board. Long story short I ended up ordering a new CPU. I got a quad core FX-4350 from AMD. Not a huge improvement, but it runs stock at what I had the 4130 over clocked to.

 

What I finally ended up with was:

 

FX-4350 AMD quad core over clocked to 4.5 gigs

Asus m5a97 plus mother board with no on board graphics

16 gigs of XLR8 PNY DDR3 ram ( 4 sticks of 4 gig dimms)

EVGA GTX 750Ti video card with a longer heat sink and two cooling fans. (some special part number for Best Buy I guess)

250 gig intel SSD for the operating system

40 gig intel SSD for the swap file

1 tb mechanical drive for storage

Blu-ray optical drive and a card reader

In a cheap black mid tower case with blue led fans on the front and side. 5 fans total, two in the front, one on the side, one in the back and another one on the cpu cooler

 

I know its not the best system around, but it works great for what I need it for. I don't really do a lot of gaming, RaceRoom from steam and Second Life. But I run Blender, Gimp, screen capture and edit video for second life.

 

I was curious about the extra 40 gig SSD I have. Is it worth using for the page file, or would it be better to use to cache my mechanical drive, or just remove it completely and not bother with it at all. I just put it in there because I had it basically. And if I were to use it to cache my hard drive how would I go about doing it?