[nirofo]

Hi Stephen

Just one last thought, have you checked your bios settings lately, some motherboards are notorious for losing bios settings but will still run adequately for most operations. An operation like raw file rendering is hard work for the system when everything is ok, it would certainly slow your computer if bios settings were way off. I certainly think that if all else fails, before you go lashing large dosh on a new system, (the one you have is perfectly adequate), I would try re-booting your operating system and software. Make sure you have downloaded all the latest drivers for your hardware and backed up your files etc before you do.

Incidentally, the latest Intel CPU's draw more power run much hotter than the AMD CPU's, they require bigger heatsinks and fans and are just as noisy, they also require higher wattage power supplies to feed this extra power rquirement. To top that they are a lot more expensive and no longer the best CPU's on the block! AMD now rules! (for the time being that is?)

nirofo.