what kind of RAID set up do you have for $40? i have this one from newegg and it works great for 2 ATA133 drives:HighPoint Controller Card RocketRaid133 Retail The RocketRaid133 Host Adapter is a dual channel IDE controller card designed for use with ATA133 hard disk drives.
it was $86 now it $78
oh and sometimes a benchmark is not realtime performance when you use a RAID set up you may get lower scores even thou you are accually performing better with the RAID than with out