If, by chance, you still have your old machine you could use that to render apophysis and other things while you use your new machine to .. er, ... play minesweeper or whatever
Once I rendered an apophysis flame using Ultra-Fractal .. my harddrive light flickered for 72 hours while it rendered .. I couldn't do much of anything with it without massive delays in response time
I made the mistake of letting go if my old computer when Igot a new one.. I have discovered you can never have too many computers.. Thay are always good for something..