Back Run bench2() first.

Source Test Once Encoding text data with base64 and utf8_encode
base64 x 3.36 faster	0.0526	utf8_encode	0.1769

Source Test Once Encoding binary data with base64 and utf8_encode
base64 x 5.25 faster	0.1229	utf8_encode	0.6458

Source Test Once Encoding binary data with base64 and rawurlencode
base64 x 5.00 faster	0.1221	rawurlencode	0.6105

Source Test Once Comparing checksums with crc32 and md5
crc32 x 8.00 faster	0.0008	md5	0.0064

Source Test Once Reading a binary file
fopen-fread-fclose x 1.09 faster	0.3891	file_get_contents	0.4253

Source Test Once Testing parse_ini_file vs assoc arrays (see http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=154126)
parse_ini_file x 1.11 faster	0.3976	assoc	0.4427

Testing PHP 5.0.0RC1 Completed on WINNT. Benchmark done on: 19-Mar-2004 10:59:35

(c) 2003-2004 John Lim PHP Benchmark Suite (PHP BS 1.01). Sponsored by Natsoft and Ormes.