you can get decent sata cards but they are not much use unless used on pci-e 16x slots
as people have a 16x speed gfx card using the extra pci-e slots are not usually the same speed - most likely 2x tops
thus your wasting your time
i havent yet used a raid controller card but i used this
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... 49&subcat=
with a crucial ssd c300 and boy did that fly getting 355 mb/s
currently using ocz vertex fe2 on an ich10r and that hits around 280mb/s both read & write