Bjorn3D has published a very detailed and comprehensive review of the XFX REVO64 SPU, NC3000 Gamer's Edition. Revo64 is a new family of ATA and Serial-ATA storage accelerator PCI adapter cards based upon the Revolution storage processor from Netcell Corporation. The Revo64 storage accelerator card features a revolutionary new 64-bit RAID engine, offering for the first time a mainstream storage processing solution with the simultaneous benefits of both RAID 0-class performance and RAID 5-class data protection.

The XFX REVO64 SPU, NC3000 Gamer's Edition is a quality product and by no means a slouch when it comes moving data in its supported RAID arrays. The PCI bus on which it rest was designed for ATA 100 traffic and with the ever increasing speeds of today's equipment it is certainly no longer ideal. The REVO64 in some areas actually surpasses the onboard ICH5-R controller that it was tested against. It is my understanding that Netcell is currently working on a PCI-Express version of this chipset that will be available in the not to distant future. I will eagerly look forward to reviewing that product when it is released as it should not have the shortcomings that the PCI bus models currently have in random access and burst speed performance.

The REVO64 I reviewed is the NC3000 (3 port) version and it retails in the $125 - $150 price range, it's big brother the NC5000 (5 port version) retails for about $100 more. Some retailers are also currently offering a $30 rebate on this product. I find this pricing to be in line with other RAID controllers of this type. An area to strongly consider when considering this card for purchase is its RAID 3 capability. With RAID 3 you get virtually the same capabilities as RAID 1 but the security of RAID 5.

Pros:
+ Ease of setup
+ Very small CPU utilization
+ Driverless installation
+ Long highly flexible SATA cables
+ Excellent for longer data transfers
+ RAID 3 functionality
+ RAID 3 is a nice alternative for those wanting to improve performance while maintaining a high margin of safety

Cons:
- Priced slightly out of budget buyers' range
- Performance is less than stellar in RAID 0
- Inherent limitations associated with the PCI bus