testing the render branch of blender 2.5

I used my test scene from the previous post on blender render25 branch (32 bit) [27656]
on blender 2.49b I got this as before:
Time: 1h 6m 21s = 3981 seconds











On blender render25 branch:
Time:13m 28s = 748s











blender render was 5.3 times faster than blender 2.49b and it was 1.6 times faster than blender 2.5 alpha 2.

Comparison of image:
The Hair was by far the slowest part of the render here. also do take note of the colouration of the fur and cone. Unlike in the normal blender 2.5 alpha (see previous post) the monkey is an almost perfect replica of that in blender 2.49b.
see difference map: of blender 2.49b and blender render25










And see map of: blender 2.5 alpha 2 and blender render25













system and render settings:
the cone in ray-traced transparency, the sphere is a ray-traced mirror, the hair is using zbuff to fade the ends, the monkey is repeated by a array modifier, and has SSS. the background is a NURBS surface. there are 4 colored lights. (rendered on mac book pro 0sx 10.6, 2.53 core 2 duo, 4GB 1067 NHz DD3 ram, )