Like the title says, im looking at disk hubs, have been planing on just getting the XT hubs because of the price tag, but I was wondering if I take a step up what would you guys recomend? And dont say chris king, they definately arnt in the budget.

I like DT/HUGI

Hope is probably the most reasonable, Hadley is there too. My two personal choices.

WTB makes a very good hub. Maelstrom just got a Hadley and I've heard nothing but praises from them. Hugi/Oynx makes a very smooth hub, that's affordable. I'm running a set of Profile Racing hubs, but close to CK prices. I don't know too much about Ringle Hubs, but they seem comparable to the others listed.

L8R

looking at jenson the price difference between the hope and the hugi/onex is minimal, only real difference I see is the hope xc disk hubs have sealed barrings.

How big a difference will hubs like this make compared to just a set of XT hubs?

For a budget WTB, Woodman, Ritchey, Sram are good. If you want nice without the CK price then Atomlab, and Bombshell are good as well as the above mentioned hubs.
Specifically the Dt Siwss Onyx is a great budget hubset, the Hugi 240 is sweet without the CK price.

You get triple the engagement points (if not more, Chris king is almost 7x the engagement points and true precision is 10x the engagment points) which is the most obvious advantage. I am not sure about weight but some of the more expensive ones are lighter (hadley isn't as it is for dh). They also tend to be more durable under the bigger strains of dh and freeriding.

XT's are easy to get, cheap to replace and fairly durable.

Heard really good things about Hadley Racing hubs as well. Just not so sure about the price.

Atom Labs.

Nashbar has XT disc hubs on sale this week. Just FYI.

I run the XT disc hubs. The front has been smooth as silk, but I've had to replace the internals of the rear after less than 6 months of riding them, which disappointed me greatly. Only a 40 dollar repair, but I just didn't think it was money I should have needed to spend.

I'm a big fan of Ringle hubs...not the lightest ones out there but I've had nothing but good luck with my 2 sets of 'em and all the other guys at our shop run 'em as well. Easy servicability, great ability to seal out mud and gunk.