The current implementation of the SNB based correlated-k method consumes a significant portion of the total cpu time on the on-line inversion of the cumulative distribution function. An approach was developed to pre-calculate the absorption coefficients of real gases from the inversion procedure. This approach results in significant improvement in the efficiency of the SNB based correlated-k method with slight loss in accuracy. This approach was evaluated against other implementation approaches of the SNB based correlated-k method in several non-isothermal and/or inhomogeneous problems. ; peer reviewed: ; NRC Pub: Yes ; system details: machine converted author identifier PE to PID, February 2012