Well, when you're working on it or gaming, it's utilizing the graphics card, but when you get to rendering pretty pictures for architecture, movies, etc, it's more about RAM and processing power. You technically don't even need the app open and can render from the command line to save even more kibbles of RAM and CPU cycles. In a professional setting, they would use render farms comprised of many networked computers to harness the power of many computers at once...and that will still take forever, so it's not you! One frame of Finding Nemo took 4 days and that's 1/24 of a second!
When I started, I thought I wanted to work on the engineering side of computer graphics, like solving science problems of rendering more realistically or improve medical imaging. After learning the math behind edge detection of window boundaries and bezier curves to write rendering engine algos, I concluded this stuff is magnificently hella boring of the greatest magnitude! Maybe I really don't need to learn to reinvent the wheel. Then I thought perhaps I'll have more fun doing the front end stuff making pretty pictures instead. I learned Maya 3D and motion graphics stuff. Good lord, if it doesn't take infinity and beyond for each stage (modeling, texturing, rigging, lighting, rendering, compositing)! Turns out, I don't have the patience for that either. Also helpful in that decision was a professor telling us he spent a year of his life making CGI snow for the movie Cliffhanger and how much it sucked. You don't get to pick your projects, so when you do, make it worth your while! So hats off to you, my good sir! I could never do what you do. I like reading the review of your happy customers and I am amazed you can keep delivering. If I tried it, people would only come back to say, "This isn't what I asked for..." Exactly. The Shenanigan Elves are more interested in making you regret asking in the first place! Keep up the good work!