I tried a 256 bucket, I forget the time but it was slower than 128. It actually finished faster, but then it just sat there for awhile chewing its cud before it showed the render. ;-) That is with 2GB, I suspect Macs might make better use of their RAM, if the cross-over point is higher. Incidently, from what I read at Toms' Hardware and other places, SATA drives aren't actually currently faster than old type ATA drives, they just have a faster potential. (The cables are neater, though.) However, I'd guess that SCSI 160 drives ARE actually faster, I always plan on putting SCSI drives in my NEXT compter, but I never actually do, because of the price difference. Drive speeds are possably not that important in this test, but they are in real-world use, my Poser 5 loads in about 13 seconds, for instance (I've got a near-stock runtime, most of my stuff lives in Poser 4, that probably has a lot to do with it). With the big files we mostly use, you gotta have a fast drive(s)!