my 2C: use Taskmanager to find out if RAM is limiting you. 12Gb is quite a lot already.

You might want the max CPU-power for your motherboard (or change that too). My supplier (who delivers performace edge systems to the media industry) currently offers i7-3930K for workstations and dual Xeon E5-2640 for industrials. Start overclocking first. Xeons are like workhorses with a race horse engine, preferred for long lasting heavy duty jobs.

When, in due time, you want to use LuxRender or another GPU-deploying renderer you will profit best from high end professional video cards, like nVidea Quadro. They are to normal cards like Xeons are to normal CPU's.

But before throwing money; why do you need to improve render times? I tend to render in the background queue, or overnight, or during lunch and dinner breaks, to squeeze the max out of my current setup.

all the best

 

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Usually I'm wrong. But to be effective and efficient, I don't need to be correct or accurate.

visit www.aRtBeeWeb.nl (works) or Missing Manuals (tutorials & reviews) - both need an update though