Which is more efficient Cstr(value) or value.ToString()

Question

I am wondering which is more efficient, using CStr() or object.toString(). The reason I ask this is because I though all that CStr() done was to invoke the .ToString() metho

Answer 1

I tried to time the following two subroutines (forgive my variable naming):

 For i As Integer = 1 To 1000
        For j As Integer = 1 To 65536
            eee = aaa.ToString()
            eee = bbb.ToString()
            eee = ccc.ToString()
            eee = ffffd.ToString()
            eee = Nothing
        Next
 Next

and

    For i As Integer = 1 To 1000
        For j As Integer = 1 To 65536
            eee = CStr(aaa)
            eee = CStr(bbb)
            eee = CStr(ccc)
            eee = CStr(ffffd)
            eee = Nothing
        Next
    Next

where

    Dim aaa As Integer = 1233
    Dim bbb As Single = 445.234234234
    Dim ccc As Double = 234234.234457634
    Dim ffffd As Decimal = 1231.3466734523424
    Dim eee As String = Nothing

the ToString() loop takes 62 seconds and the CStr() loop takes 64 seconds. It is really not a huge impact in my opinion, if you are only dealing with numbers. I disabled any compiler optimization during the timing process.