I've benchmarked Victor's patch and got the following results: Report on Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.38.8-desktop-9.mga #1 SMP Tue Dec 20 09:45:44 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 Total CPU cores: 4 ### call_simple ### Min: 0.223778 -> 0.209204: 1.07x faster Avg: 0.227634 -> 0.212437: 1.07x faster Significant (t=15.40) Stddev: 0.00291 -> 0.00248: 1.1768x smaller Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/87vkdps ### fastpickle ### Min: 0.484052 -> 0.499832: 1.03x slower Avg: 0.487370 -> 0.507909: 1.04x slower Significant (t=-8.40) Stddev: 0.00261 -> 0.00481: 1.8446x larger Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/7ntcudz ### float ### Min: 0.052819 -> 0.051540: 1.02x faster Avg: 0.054304 -> 0.052922: 1.03x faster Significant (t=3.89) Stddev: 0.00125 -> 0.00126: 1.0101x larger Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/7rqfurw ### formatted_logging ### Min: 0.252709 -> 0.257303: 1.02x slower Avg: 0.254741 -> 0.259967: 1.02x slower Significant (t=-4.90) Stddev: 0.00155 -> 0.00181: 1.1733x larger Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/8xu2zdt ### normal_startup ### Min: 0.450661 -> 0.435943: 1.03x faster Avg: 0.454536 -> 0.438212: 1.04x faster Significant (t=9.41) Stddev: 0.00327 -> 0.00209: 1.5661x smaller Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/8ygw272 ### nqueens ### Min: 0.269426 -> 0.255306: 1.06x faster Avg: 0.270105 -> 0.255844: 1.06x faster Significant (t=28.63) Stddev: 0.00071 -> 0.00086: 1.2219x larger Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/823dwzo ### regex_compile ### Min: 0.390307 -> 0.380736: 1.03x faster Avg: 0.391959 -> 0.382025: 1.03x faster Significant (t=8.93) Stddev: 0.00194 -> 0.00156: 1.2395x smaller Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/72shbzh ### silent_logging ### Min: 0.060115 -> 0.057777: 1.04x faster Avg: 0.060241 -> 0.058019: 1.04x faster Significant (t=13.29) Stddev: 0.00010 -> 0.00036: 3.4695x larger Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/76bfguf ### unpack_sequence ### Min: 0.000043 -> 0.000046: 1.07x slower Avg: 0.000044 -> 0.000047: 1.06x slower Significant (t=-107.47) Stddev: 0.00000 -> 0.00000: 1.1231x larger Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/6us6yys The following not significant results are hidden, use -v to show them: call_method, call_method_slots, call_method_unknown, fastunpickle, iterative_count, json_dump, json_load, nbody, pidigits, regex_effbot, regex_v8, richards, simple_logging, startup_nosite, threaded_count. In short, any difference is in the noise.