@hborre Yes, the lower the dynamic range the cleaner the render. The cleanest will be if you use a jpg instead of an HDRI. This is if you are using a dome for lighting. If you use the background as your HDRI then it renders cleaner AND you get the highlights from lamps and the sun in the image. I still haven't figured how to sort out the way the background image is all flipped around when using that. using the background for lighting is also SUPER fast. Have a look at the lighting results. That huge highlight on the figure is from the background. There are no lights used in this render.

W10, Ryzen 5 1600x, 16Gb,RTX2060Super+GTX980, PP11, 11.3.740