Best upgrade? Hdd or memory

[bcdudley]

I am looking for a quick answer for which would be the best upgrade. I currently have the following setup:
Intel E8400 OC's 3.6 GHz stable
Asus P5ne-SLI MB
4GB Patriot 4-4-4-12 800MHz LLk
2x 150GB RAID0 drives (Sata150 only)
Win7 / Ubuntu 10.04

The upgrades I am looking at would be either adding another 4Gb or ram for a total of 8Gb. The sets would not be identical as the one I have currently is discontinued.
The second option would be to upgrade to 2x 500Gb RAID0 drives that are Sata300

Space is not a concern. There will be no data stored on the drives since it is Raid0. I keep all of my data on a server with Raid1 with a backup. I am looking for strictly a performance upgrade.

Thank you.

 

[simon12]

What do you use the PC for primarily? Generally I don't think either will make a huge difference compared to the cost.

 

[bcdudley]

It is primarily a gaming system. I do use it quite a bit for work, to remote in to the office. I have a credit for $100 at Fry's, so I was going to use it for one of those two options.

I know not to put much faith into the Windows 7 system scores, but it rates my hard drives as the lowest denominator in the system at a 5.7. Everything else is in the upper 6's to upper 7's. I can look at my computer at work that is running a single sata 300 drive and see that it gets a 5.9, so wouldn't two drives sata300 drives be better, or should I pop for a raptor or something like that?

 

[simon12]

Win 7 rates my raid 0 (sata 3 board sata 2 drives) at 4.9, put the money into a graphics card if your main use is gaming, the RAM won't make a difference and at best the raid will slightly help load times.

 

[bcdudley]

Already got a nice Graphics card. It is a Nvidia 460. It runs everything out now on the highest settings. Starcraft 2 runs at Ultra across the board.

A quick speedtest shows the following results:
Avg write speed is 72.2MB/s
AVG read speed is 47.1Mb/s

For reference, my drive on a stock office machine at work is:
AVG write speed is 46.8MB/s
AVG read speed is 50.5MB/s

 

[bcdudley]

I wound up going with a 64Gb solid state drive. That looks like the only thing that will get the performance I am looking for. Thanks for all your help and suggestions.

 

[bcdudley]

Best answer selected by bcdudley.