Pictures load slow

I have a folder with all my pictures in it but whenever I open it it's slow at generating the thumbnail image. I need to work on them alot so it's kinda annoying. Sometimes I have to wait a little bit before I can see them then if I scroll down it keeps happening. Then when I open it can take some time to finally load. It's nothing new but is there any way to speed it up. Do I need more cpu power, faster hard drive, more ram, a program?

sempron 2600 1.6GHZ 128 cache 400mhz fsb
Chaintech Nforce3 skt 754 mobo
250GB 16MB cache ATA
512MB pc3200
ATI Radeon 9800

A thumbnail view is going to take some time to generate if you have tons a files, fact of life. Faster cpu would help, more ram, faster HD - yes to all of the above. hint - split them up into diff folders if it really bugs you that much