played around a little more, this time with DAZ. The images are not as high rez because I still have to play around with the details.
Samzis I'm not a blender guy so I can't talk to the specifics, but when certain aspects of a Daz model are ported to other programs, certain things need to be corrected: obviously, the shading network should be checked and updated to be comparable with your chosen render engine, but some other things can go missing as well. Bump maps, subsurface maps, displacement maps, etc. Basically all of the little bits and pieces that give depth to the model.
Honestly, and this is coming from a guy that really enjoys pulling Daz models into other programs, if you just want to decrease render time for solo model work, you should stick to Daz. Sure, iray can be shit, but if you're not familiar with your chosen secondary program, you'll spend a ton more time getting proficient with it than you would messing with iray settings. Now, if you want to do other things that Daz isn't good at (crowds, dynamics, simulations, animation... I'm sure I've forgotten other stuff), then by all means jump into things like Blender or Maya. There are some great free tutorials (not specifically for Daz stuff, but material conversion and dynamics are useful regardless).