Back to work. Too soon, too soon.

Hardware: choosing computer hardware is an absurd process. All I am doing is comparing two CPUs, and then adding up the cost of motherboards, RAM and a graphics card to rebuild this machine.

I really want faster rendering in 3ds max as well as the rest. So if anyone has any suggestions for similar money, let me know
According to Tom’s Hardware reviews, the Intel wins

I’m getting more enthusiastic- the more I read up on this. The Cinebench tests are the closest to 3ds max rendering times (and other 3D software). Anyway, I an downloading test software to see how much faster rendering can be. It looks like 10 times faster is a reasonable figure; just imagine, all those hour & half that could be done in 9 minutes! That really would encourage me to do more 3D animation.