Re: convert taking system resources, long time

Latest on the slowness of convert.  My VPS server was bulging so I had 
it upgraded to the next level:

The VPS upgrade is complete.  Now we have:
        CPU 1.98GHZ / RAM: 1344MB
as opposed to
        CPU 1.13GHZ / RAM: 768MB.

Convert is still running horribly slow. I just ran some command-line 
ImageMagick tests after the upgrade on 2 different servers and my Linux 
desktop using this command:

% convert cat1500.jpg -thumbnail '100x100>' -background white -gravity 
center -extent 100x100 cat_thumb.jpg

cat1500.jpg is a 1.5MB jpg right out of my slr. 

On the VPS server, the command takes about 18 seconds.  On the ordinary 
shared hosting server it runs in about 1/2 second.  On my local Linux 
pc, it also completes in under one second, perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 second.

I can appreciate that it might slower slower on the VPS server because 
of how the server shares resources, but the difference I am seeing is 
minimally a factor of 18, probably 36+.

Can this be? What else is in the mix that can be checked?  The version 
of imagemagick is even newer on the VPS account:

/VPS/TEST% convert -version

Version: ImageMagick 6.4.8 2010-02-03 Q16 OpenMP http://www.imagemagick.org
Copyright: Copyright (C) 1999-2009 ImageMagick Studio LLC

/SHARED/TEST% convert-version

Version: ImageMagick 6.3.9 12/10/08 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org
Copyright: Copyright (C) 1999-2008 ImageMagick Studio LLC

Q: Are there any known issues with the 6.4.8 version of ImageMagick that 
might account for the problem?  Any other ideas?

-Bob
Can anyone on the list do a similar test on a VPS server they run.  The 
input image is a standard 1500KB jpg.
-Bob