Thanks! The 5 years estimate is on the hopeful side. I have been told my current course-load is insane by a few of my professors but it does not seem that bad yet (I am doing my bachelors in 3 years (currently on year 2), and hopefully overlapping with grad school on the last year (A honor student option here at Georgia State!)) I might be changing schools for my masters/PhD so there is a potential wrench to be thrown in gears there, a PhD might actually be harder work then I arrogantly expect it to be and take more then 4 more years. Either way, it looks like fun. On the flip-side it does have a cost, one I asked this question to help evaluate.
If you've not taken the GRE subject test for CS, then unless your program doesn't require it for entrance, it's going to be difficult or impossible to get into any of the top-tier schools (I don't know if that's your intent or not).
Unless your expectation of grad school is 16 hour days work every day for 4 years, then it will be harder than you expect it to be :P In all seriousness, work will ebb and flow. Some weeks/months you will be inspired and working whenever you're not sleeping or eating. Some weeks/months/years, you'll be uninspired, spending a few hours checking email, news sites, then sit down and play video games or watch TV.
Really though, those days intermix, and the sum total of the work that I did for my degree (aside from coursework for the masters degree) could have been completed in 6-9 months. The rest of that time was spent (in order of most to least time) relaxing, trying to figure out what to work on, campus politics, working on things that didn't make it into any paper (but which expanded my knowledge in other directions), and waiting on other people.
