Thanks for your insight.

Again - while the video card might not have been the answer, and the hard drive situation needs improvement, simply trying to play a clip on the timeline with some added effects should work a lot smoother. Open CL should work as advertised, or perhaps I was a bit too hopeful. Sony Vegas works well with (supported) GPU's. Youtube videos of it in action were very interesting! I just couldn't justify the cost. But enough of my whining, right? I'll just enjoy my upgrades, and hope Cyberlink comes out with some patches that can harness the power of this GPU. Anyone want to buy a Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 for $65? It is still a great gaming card.

Would my issues have anything to do with the clips/files being avchd files?

I am rendering MP4.ts streams to AVC H.264 format with no performance issues. The performance of the editing process is seemingly independent of the graphics scenario chosen (iGPU, dGPU or Quick Sync via Lucidlogix Virtu).

Guys I think I may have solved my own problem. I read an article on Anandtech years ago about this as well. When I went into the Catalyst Control Center app for my AMD video card, under the power options, it showed my CPU speed as 800 MHZ. This was normal as Cool N Quiet is enabled automatically in the motherboard BIOS (I checked). When I set the CPU speed to full speed in CCC, things started working a lot better. So I'm going to work for a while, and update you all again later.

Okay you all. If you're using an AMD processor, disable cool n quiet in the BIOS on your motherboard. Or if there is an app that manages this, disable it. This was the source of my issues. I didn't have to buy a more powerful video card, or power supply. What I had would have worked fine, had I been a bit more sensitive to making it work properly. Live and learn. Have Mercy!!!!!!!

Happy New Year you all. Thanks for your help.