I paid $35 with free shiping. I saw less lag in some games but not all. BFBC 2 saw the best improvement in ping. I wanted a good standalone card and I saw this a a daily deal on Newegg around Xmas last year and bought it. I will say that it would be a bad thing to buy at full price.
I like to see how fast I can get with my computer and I don't think I will ever stop.
The trick to this line of thinking is to understand the hardware enough to know why RAID and gaming have nothing to do with each other. That's the point you are missing. No one is going to fault you for wanting the fastest computer possible...but if you have no understanding of how the components relate to the various software uses, you will just be wasting your time...and money.
I understand that a Raid Card will not give me more FPS. With a raid card you can make up for MB manufacturers not providing more then 4 Sata III ports. It would help people like me with all of the HD I have because I have a dual boot with Mac OS X Lion and Windows 7 (On different HD's). With a solid Raid Card I could use more of the on board ports for the Mac since making it see the raid card would most likely not be possible.
I just want some thing that does not feel like it cost 0.50 cents to make and not something that costs $400.00. Like this from Asus. However it does not have raid.
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Accessories/U3S6/
It sounds like you just need a PCI-E SATA card, and not a RAID card. This goes back to what I was referring to. Given what you've just said, that has nothing to do with gaming. A good system builder understands the needs and uses of the computer and it's user...and then chooses hardware to best accomplish that goal. If you want a gaming system, put your money towards gaming hardware, such as the CPU, memory, and GPU. If you just want extra SATA ports, you can add in a card, or buy a motherboard with more ports already onboard.
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