@3D-Mobster - I didn't time the renders as the "Render to Background" doesn't display its time making comparison difficult. Progressive mode appeared to add around 10%-20% so for quick renders not much of an overhead but for one taking several hours it becomes more significant

@jura - thanks for the info, will check those two programs.

@ghostship - I can see why now although I think its still useful for initial lighting tests if not the full render.

Looking at the 4.3GHz vs 800MHz comparison, the 800MHz "Render to Background" run had a blip when the screen updated but otherwise looks fine - this has got me thinking maybe an old PC + new GPU when used as a render node will work just as well as a new PC. Curious if anyone is doing this. Also curious if anyone is using queue manager+gpu+linux combination.