I would guess that the cast would be faster too because there is no overhead in pushing and poping values onto the program stack. A cast should put the necessary conversion code inline with your program. Look at the compiled IL code with ILDASM and it will tell your exactly what is happening.

>>>Anybody know off-hand which is faster (or does it really matter <g>)? I would think that the cast would be faster, or better, but I don't really know.