Speeding up H.264 encoding

Hello,
I'm looking for your current thoughts on speeding up H.264 encoding. I'm currently using FCE HD 3. Last night I made a 560x315, hour-and-twenty-minute web video for a client--it took over 14 hours to encode. Not the end of the world--usually I do 10-minute videos, but still...
I'm running a new G4 ibook (slow, I know) but am considering a MacBook Pro.
1) Any system settings or RAM issues that might speed things up?
2) Any thoughts on the open source x264 (just downloaded and will test this weekend)?
3) It is really possible to distrubte the work amongst multiple computers (I'm using an Airport network with two other (older) Macs. Worth it?
Also, I've read that H.264 encoding is slower on the MacBook Pro as compared to the G5, apparently due to non-optimized code in Quicktime. Any experiences with this or rumors of when/if the software will be made to run faster? Is there a real hardware solution out there?
Thanks!
--Darin

Thanks for the replies. I went to the Apple store and purchased one, since there's no restocking fee. But playing with it last night, it definitely won't do what I want it to do. So, it's going back.
But, your note on upping processor performance has noticeably helped when I'm scrubbing video on my MB. It's more responsive now. Also, the encoding time improved. I had a sample 720p clip I am have testing against. After upping the processor (choosing "performance" over the default "normal") improved the encoding time from 65 to 48 minutes. That's a nice little boost. Thanks.

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