Windows 7 64 bit
Intel i7 920
12GB of RAM

Ran as-is using C8 Pro 64 bit - 10 minutes, 20 seconds
This seemed very slow

Ran again as-is using C7 Pro (32 bit) - 4 minutes, 48 seconds

I am very surprised at the bog down when C8 was rendering the transparencies.

Guess I will load the 32 bit version of C8 Pro and see if there's any improvement.

Thanks for posting the benchmark file.