You don't say what OS you are running or whether you have 32 or 64 bit system.

Just be aware that on a 32 bit system more then 4 Gigs of ram isn't going to do you any good.  

I don't think that a SSD is going to make enough of an improvement to be worth the cost it's not disk speed that's slowing down the process.

Your specs aren't a lot different then mine, I'm running and i7 2.93 Ghx 64 bit and 8 Gigs of ram, but I'm seeing render times in minutes not hours.  1920 by 1200, four lights, IDL on, one figure some props, cloth panes, trans maps fog plane etc, about 4 minutes and 30 seconds at full Firefly Final Render settings.

In preview mode with every thing set to max I can render 1 frame per second at 1600 by 900.  This is what I do for animation; I don't have the patience to wait longer.

I just can't see how 14 hours is possible unless something is really off someplace.

I don't know what to suggest if you had a old computer I'd get it, but not with something new enough to run an i7 processor.  My computer is 2 years old.

Mike 

If you shoot a mime, do you need a silencer?