5/2     why would my php application chew up 20-30 percent of my CPU when
        run on a real machine, but will consitently take up 60-70 percent
        of CPU when run in a vmware vm ?
        \_ the real CPU has more capacity.
           \_ Yes, did you allocate all of your CPU to the VM? Maybe you only
              gave it one CPU or something like that.
        \_ Overhead from VMWare using cycles. If you don't have vm extensions
           for your CPU that's liable to make things slower too.