i have a x2 4400 whcih is a beauty. Pity bryce 5.5 doesnt make full use of it but! Ive had up to 3 images rendering while working on a 4th. no problems there. i like ur idea wildman, ive tried all kinds of thing but i ll give that a try. One of the nice things about a dual core is that i can set one render job to a specifc core and set to "real time" priority in task manager. Before this would kill/freze the pc but not now. And this x2 overclock like a dream wthout any need for huge fans for cooling or nothing.