Just finished reading Kiwi's thread on "How do you transfer your images to pc"

I have two Sandisk 8gb cards, 1 @ 30mbs 1 2 60mbs.

Currently from DSLR via USB2 cable to Late model Intel 5 processed PC Win 7 via Bridge, I've tried DPP and it seems to be a tad slower. Last night it took nearly 2 1/2 hrs to pull 264 images (RAW Only) I am only transfering to start with, no renaming or fiddling, just extracting files off card to HD.

Is there a quicker way in DPP or an option in Bridge that can help?

Is a card reader going to likely help me?

Any help would be great.

Cheers