my 2cts

 - according to the manual, and to various findings in recent threats, and so on: combining animation and IDL will spoil the fun as single core rendering is recommended for that to avoid flickering.

 - the major speed gain in the rendering process (P2012 vs 2014) is in the advanced / complex areas, with reflections and especially: when dealing with SSS and IDL. But from my point above, you'll either not using IDL and will hardly notice the speed difference, or you're using IDL and should better not do animation.

 - only the SSS, IDL and main render phases are multi-threaded. They benefit from more cores/threads and the 990X upgrade. Other parts of rendering, as well as about everything else in Poser (like Cloth and Hair sims) are single threaded. They benefit from overclocking.

 - network rendering is relevant for animation only, and it requires the frame by frame approach anyway. This way is supported by Luxrender (Reality) and Octane as well.

So, given your purpose, for I would go for a combi of CPU upgrade, overclocking and advanced cooling, while staying away from IDL.

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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