With 2 years master's before for the same total?

Varies from place to place.

In some countries, the PhD program is fixed at 3 years. You either graduate by then, or you're out (in reality, they give some option for you to pay to continue, but almost no one can afford it). I suspect in those places, people have done a 2 year MS.

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a_f an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In the UK I started a (3 year) PhD program without a Masters. It was not untypical.

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lowbloodsugar an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

A US thing again? My friends all did 3 year bachelors, 3 year PhD. Some dragged out the PhD to 4. Those who do a masters do it in one year, and typically don't do a PhD. Some undergrad courses are 4 year and you get a masters at the end. And my UK bachelors was recognized as equivalent to a US masters degree for visa purposes.

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EvgeniyZh 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

Maybe this is CS-specific? Finishing physics PhD from high school in 6 years sounds just not enough time. Even exceptional people I know in my field needed at least 7-8 (3+4 or 3+2+3). 3 years into theoretical physics grad school is around the time people start doing decent research

	▲	lordnacho 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's common, most of the people I know from the UK system did their PhD in 3-4 years. In Europe you just study what it says as well. You happy to do a bachelor's in physics, your classes are all physics. You don't read shakespeare and learn french. You can also do this in high school, so you can from age 16 be studying just physics and math.