Insanely slow render time for simple animation

Hello all,

Hopefully a silly AE question here. I have a simple 12 second logo build (770x436 - don't ask) with audio stinger, a bit 'o text, flat vector logo overtop a light pass with a fractal noise/glow effect on a solid black background, no 3D or imported video whatsoever and AE is taking 42 minutes to render it (QT Photo JPEG @ 80%) then 57, the last attempt claimed it was going to take 2hr42! On render, it says it's only using 8-12% RAM...?! Even the comp window is slow to display it when I click on a frame and forget about scrubbing or a RAM preview...

Compounding my dilemma is the fact I can't tell if it's software or hardware related.

I'm running a MacPro 5,1 2.8Gh Quad (2011) with 12 GB ram and had just upgraded my video card to an nVidia GTX680 (Mac Edition - 2Gb) with a 120Gb SSD as scratch... The system report says everything is 'OK'.

What is the best way to trouble shoot this? Could I have baked some RAM, defective card, or could this just be normal render time?

Can anyone recommend any sort of diagnostic app or optimal settings in AE (currently 9Gb dedicated 3 for background - 2 Gb per processor, 3 CPUs operating)

This lag is a persistent annoyance (not just this project) so I'd greatly appreciate any insight!

Chris