I've recently upgraded my Core 2 Duo system to a sandy bridge chip and the difference it's made to rendering is amazing. Rendering at high resolution with lots of detail and objects, now takes an hour or two instead of having to wait until the next day.
However one thing that I've really started to notice now I've upgraded is how slow the populator is. When working with lots of populations and making multiple changes I find it's the populator I'm sitting around waiting for rather than the actual test renders, which complete at lightning speed now.
Would it be possible to optimise the populator somehow, for instance is it multi-threaded?
Just an observation I've noticed since I upgraded, that's all.