Are you saying good hardware will cut the launch time? (well, obviously)....I mean, I always thought the bottleneck was slow internet speed to download said blockchain...
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Bitcoin.org client v0.7.x
Estimate for first-time use, syncing the blockchain. (Estimates obtained via wild-assed guess)
Poor hardware using bootstrap.dat: 2 days 6 hours
Poor hardware with fast internet: 2 days 8 hours
Poor hardware with slow internet: 2 days 12 hours
Fast hardware using bootstrap.dat: 1 day 1 hour
Fast hardware with fast internet: 1 day 2 hours
Fast hardware with slow internet: 1 day 3 hours
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Bitcoin.org client v0.8 (Not yet released, or even near release-candidate)
Estimate for first-time use, syncing the blockchain. (Estimates obtained via wild-assed guess)
Poor hardware using bootstrap.dat: 3 hours
Poor hardware with fast internet: 4 hours (?(
Poor hardware with slow internet: 5 hours (?)
Fast hardware using bootstrap.dat: 1 hour
Fast hardware with fast internet: 3 hours (?)
Fast hardware with slow internet: 4 hours (?)
(With "poor hardware" I'm referring to slower, modern systems. I'm not referring to your P4 or an atom-based netbook.)