3d Rendering and Animation

Ok so I built a gaming pc a while ago and now i have found a new use for it. My specs:

fx-8350

8gb's of ram (will be getting a second 8gb kit very soon)

Gtx 770 4gb

240gb ssd and 300gb hdd (hdd was donated I will be adding a 2tb soon)

What i need is a good rendering and animation software for my specs. I will be importing 3d models from Google sketch-up and doing mainly lighting changes and rendering. The models will be medium length and will have moving elements. I need a way to show how light effects an object. The lighting will be changing from night to day in the models. So you can see the stuff i will be rendering and more understand what it is, here's the site for the company i will be rendering for: http://powerwallsystems.net/what-we-do.html 

The reason my system is not yet optimized is that it was built for gaming and is now being partially reused was that I am actually a family friend of the owner of this company and when the computer was built, it was purely for gaming. Its a small company and they're looking to expand so they need to update there products on there web site to look more professional. Right now the whole company is being run off a core duo laptop (facepalm) so software was rather limited before, but we have the capabilities to get more professional software now with the ability to run it on my computer.     

max, lightwave or cinema4d (not including maya as its price range sort of puts it in a league of its own).

All of these will do what you need them to, they all have hdri capable renderer's and will easily simulate realworld day/night lighting on your models.

I myself use cinema4d.

I have never really noticed any of that 'cripple amd' stuff with my 8350 when rendering in the latest cinema4d so I am assuming that mess was cleared up with the newer releases.

Along with what flazza said might want to check out modo to see if it fits the bill.