From Canada the speed seems ok once it starts. If you want more speed you might trim out about half of the stats and javascript, IMHO. Have you checked server load? Seems to be a lot happening on the first page.

Central USA here.

it-hq said it loaded in 1.2 seconds, but my watch told me I didn't see the first page for over 3 secs.

brashquido said it loaded in .8 seconds but I didn't see the first page for over 5 seconds.

Just my observations, nothing more.

Thankyou everyone for their input! It really does help paint a picture of real world performance when people are able to respond in the way you all have.

OldSwede, I found your reply particularly helpful, the comparision you made between my site and this site really puts a spotlight on where I think most of my real world performance issues are coming form, that being lack of bandwidth. I was actually a bit suprised to see that my site was very comparable in speed when coming to sending the first byte (1225 milliseconds for my site, 1278 milliseconds for this site), but there were no suprises when it came to the total time from first byte to last byte (2672 milliseconds for my site, 290 milliseconds for this site).

From the stats (although not conclusive) you gave me this is how my site stacks up against this site.

Time until first byte is sent:
104.3%

Total site loading time from first byte send to last byte send:
10.8%

Bytes per second:
8.4%

Total bytes sent:
108%

In summary my site is roughly the same size, and responds in roughly the same timeframe, but when it comes to transfer speed and total transfer time the XOOPS site is faster by a factor of about 10:1 which is most likely going to come down to bandwidth, and/or pure sever grunt. By the way OldSwede, what tool did you use to get those stats?