I haven't tried splitting frames. I suspect that it would be quicker, though of course a little more labor intensive. If you did it a lot you could probably script the copy and the tweaking of the CAR file. You could certainly combine aspects of both to get the most of your hardware.

And when you're ready to set up your render farm, contact me and I'll give you a great deal on site licenses for DCG plug-ins! ;)

Regards,
Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
3D plug-ins for Carrara
http://digitalcarversguild.com

Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
Carrara and LightWave plug-ins