Well, you're comparing Apples and Oranges here...
EIAS is for sure one hell of a fast render engine (and i know what i'm talking about here...) but for phong/scanline rendering only, not for GI renders.
When you're doing GI renders with EIAS, speed is decent, even good, but doesn't come close to what it is with latest beta of LightWave.
We're talking of a render engine that is able to compete with Vray or modo in term of ratio speed/quality on GI renders.
Cheers,
Laurent aka Tartiflette