Very fast 3D distance check?

Is there a way to do a quick and dirty 3D distance check where the results are rough, but it is very very fast? I need to do depth sorting. I use STL sort like this:

bool sortfunc(CBox* a, CBox* b)
{
    return a->Get3dDistance(Player.center,a->center) <
      b->Get3dDistance(Player.center,b->center);
}

float CBox::Get3dDistance( Vec3 c1, Vec3 c2 )
{
    //(Dx*Dx+Dy*Dy+Dz*Dz)^.5 
    float dx = c2.x - c1.x;
    float dy = c2.y - c1.y;
    float dz = c2.z - c1.z;

return sqrt((float)(dx * dx + dy * dy + dz * dz));
}

Is there possibly a way to do it without a square root or possibly without multiplication?