Faster processor or more memory

WTFH

I'm not going to offer much technical help, just photographic help:
1. If you improve your workflow, you won't need to open multiple photos in photoshop at once
2. Photoshop is not the best program for 90% of photo editing
3. Using a preview/rating system will speed the whole process up. For that, I'd suggest either using the software that came with the camera, or something like Windows Live Photo Gallery / iPhoto.

e.g. I was at a bike race at the weekend and had to take some shots for a charity. I took about 60 photos, downloaded them all then went through and culled about 20 of them straight away due to focus, blur or having no story.
The next 20 or so were culled fairly quickly where there was 2 or more which were similar. In that case you pick the best one and get rid of the others. If you can't decide between two, then hold on to both.
Finally, you open the remainder in your photo editing software and work on them one at a time. Work on each one, then decide which are keepers.
In the end I put 5 of them forward for publication.

For sports/action, a ratio of 1:10 is about normal, for staged shots, anywhere between 1:5 and 1:2


...my current workflow is using Aperture for 95% of edits and Photoshop for 5%.
I occassionally edit on a Windows machine, in which case I import the files thought the camera software (Canon DPP) and do the initial review and most of the editing there, then put it in to Photoshop for final tweaks if absolutely necessary.