With my old PC, running Windows XP, booting could take twenty-five minutes.
I would hit the power-up button as I passed, enter the kitchen, heat up a mug of coffee. drink the coffee, then go and sit at the PC and wait...
Chrome is quite fast, but seems not to do much - I am an Opera advocate - very fast and will handle your email and read RSS feeds as well as give you the best internet viewing experience. Running Opera 12.15 and also looking at the newly written Opera Next, version 15 which is in development.
Now I have a new PC... with Windows 8. I get my coffee, sit down and hit a key or the mouse-wheel - twenty seconds later I am on... You seldom boot from cold, but that only takes under a minute.
By the way - anyone else here using Windows 8? I think it's fine, but there has been a lot of whining about it.