Obviously depending on which faction you choose (Alliance or Horde) and what race you start off as, the game can be completely different.  Imagine if no matter who you started as, you could always get from level 1-80 in under a week!
I suppose you could pay a WoW power leveling service over a hundred dollars to outsource it to China where they will power level your mage from 1-80 in a week, or you could do it yourself.  I have been playing WoW since the beginning, and I remember how long it used to take me to get a mage from level 1-60.  Then, when The Burning Crusade came out, I remember how long it took to power level a mage from 1-70.  Once the Wrath of the Lich King came out, I knew I wanted to find a faster way to get  to the level cap without using a supposedly cheap WoW power leveling service.

Then I discoverd the secret.  It isn’t putting in the most hours grinding, and it certainly isn’t a sketchy online WoW power leveling service.  It is mage leveling in a way that always works.  It can be done by a frost mage or by a fire mage.  It can be done by either faction and any race.  The mage build you choose and the mage talents you pick don’t alter the effectiveness either.  That is the beauty of it right there: it doesn’t matter what you pick to play!

The key is to do mage quests and avoid grinding.  You only kill the mobs needed for quests, because let’s face it, quests make you ding a lot faster!