Performance (pystone) of python 2.4 lower then python 2.3 ???

[Peter Hansen]

Lucas Hofman wrote:
> lucas at oslwb03 test]$ /usr/local/bin/python2.4 pystone.py
> Pystone(1.1) time for 50000 passes = 1.31
> This machine benchmarks at 38167.9 pystones/second
> 
> A 7% speed DECREASE??? According to the documentation it should be a 5% increase?
> 
> The machine is a 3.0 GHz Xeon box.
> 
> Both python 2.3 and 2.4 where configure without any options.

For comparison, I do get a decent speedup.  Machine is an
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (1.82GHz) running Win XP Pro SP2.

Python 2.3.4: 36393 pystones.
Python 2.4:   39400 pystones.

...about an 8% speedup.