Validating creates quite a bit of load on the CPU, so it will most likely be bottlenecked by the CPU. A fast connection should easily be able to download the entire blockchain within 30 minutes, as long as the client is well connected with a working uPnP setup. We'll have to wait and see I guess
Does anyone know how I can check whether this Pull is included in 0.6RC1? I would like to give this a shot, but I'm not capable of compiling Bitcoin myself. Thanks
It was only merged today. 0.6.0rc1 is 1.5 month old. 0.6.0rc4 is 6 days old. It will be included in 0.6.0rc5.
You shouldn't run outdated release candidates by the way - there's a reason a newer rc was created: the old one had (too many) bugs.
Ah, ok, thanks for the tip! Looking forward to RC5 then