>I was always under the impression that C# was more of a "low level" language in that it talked directly to the BIOS/hardware without having to rely on the VB run-time files (in other words, a secondary set of compilations) making it a much faster language during execution. Is this different now in VB.Net?

I couldnt say for sure,
C# is a lot closer in kin with C++ then VB is.
Though I think all .NET languages have to operate through the CLR, giving them all equal distance from the hardware.

I'm sure there would be some technical docs on the MS site about it.

I would expect C# to operate cleaner and faster, but one can never be sure.
VS .NET has been released to MSDN though, so im sure we will start to get a better picture in the near future.