If you are after high quality renders, I can't stress enough how easy it is to get good results with KeyShot 4. If just for viewport shading, yeah, what Quack said.
See I actually don't mind occasionally exporting out to keyshot. I usually do it when I want to take a break anyway, and seeing my WIP nice and shiny helps my motivation. Obviously this isn't the ideal thing to do if time is a constraint.
That^ Elaborating a bit on his last line, View port renders: They are great for WIP Shots. You don't have to export anything, Set up a new render in TB, etc. You can just set up a few scene lights within max as if you were going to run a render, then turn on "realistic" viewport mode and it will render the spotlights,…