TBH, I don't think I've ever encountered a situation where I needed a non-RAID SATA card. The motherboard in my desktop PC ( http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4383 ) has 8 SATA ports on it, and it wasn't a special or high-end model. 5 ports are in use.
When I buy cards, I...