imag, if yer referring to daz|studio as the alternative to poser 8, then, while waiting for poser 8, try out daz|studio.  it's available at no cost IIRC.

the detail about 50% faster - as these 3d rendering apps become more professional, there's no certainty that they will be faster when all the maximum-quality IL/GI settings are invoked, but the next version is usually faster (on the same machine) with everyday default settings used by most.  there must be several threads here on how to speed up poser by not using max settings when they're not needed.  one tip is that a 2048 shadow map may not be much better than a 256 map, if the associated lite is adjusted correctly, but the render may proceed faster with the latter setting.