Opinions needed: Best bang for the buck

[D13S3L]

Hi everyone. I currently have the following system in place:

Q6600 Quad 2.4 (running stock for now)
EVGA 680i SLI mobo
4gb gSkill 5-5-5-15
BFG 8800gt OC
620w AeroCool Zerodba PSU
320gb 7200rpm 16mb cache segate HD
64bit vista ultimate
CoolerMaster cosmos case

This setup runs great and I get very good scores on the benchmark programs. It is used mainly for
1) gaming (COD4/Crysis/Company of Heroes)
2) video editing
3) development

Here's the deal: I want to upgrade it to eek out a bit more performance. I want to spend less than $300 (much less if possible) and i want to keep all my current parts.

What do you guys recommend in that price range that will give me the most bang for my buck?

I was considering:
- Another 320 HD for RAID0 (about 80$)
- Another 8800gt for SLI (about 280$)
- Other????


What do you guys recommend?

TIA!

 

[BladeVenom]

Get a good CPU cooler and overclock your CPU.

RAID 0 offers minuscule performance benefits with twice the chance for data loss. I don't think its worth it.

A Western Digital 750 GB HD would offer some performance benefits and lots more storage if you need it. I think for 1 Terabyte drives the Seagate had the top performance. Of course I would only do that if you think you could use the extra storage.

 

[Skott]

Personally I wouldnt bother to RAID unless you want to have backup redundency protection. Mirroring for example will allow you to store files mirrored to both drives in case one drive goes down you can still run on the other until you can fix or replace the bad drive and you wont lose data/files. RAID doesnt offer much performance boost speed wise in gaming so dont get it with that in mind.

A better video card will always give better performance than a bigger faster hard drive. You dont mention what resolution your monitor uses. The normal rule of thumb is if you are gaming at 1920 or higher resolutions then you will see more performance increase by running two cards than resolutions at 1600 or less. Two 8800GTs will out perform a single 8800 Ultra though from what I hear so if you are running high rezes then a second 8800GT might be worth it. Moreso than RAID as far as gaming goes. But my advice is you are running a monitor of 22" or less just keep the single 8800GT and wait for a true next gen GTX/Ultra killer card when they come out next year.

 

[jkresh]

BladeVenom is correct, for price/performance a good cooler and bringing that quad up to qx6850 or higher speeds will be the best option. Raid is not realy useful for the tasks you listed (unless the video is raw or hd, in which case it might be) and sli will only be a big difference in some games at high resolution.