Just checking based on size of the first page of a few based on a T1 (1.44mbps) rate.

vgchartz.com T1 1.44Mbps 19.05 seconds Bytes: 536753

www.ign.com T1 1.44Mbps 1.29 seconds   bytes: 54466

www.metacritic.com T1 1.44Mbps 9.24 seconds  196665

www.youtube.com T1 1.44Mbps 2.23 seconds 81003

Based on these numbers, it looks like you are getting about T1 speed from vgchartz and other sites, and not the 5mbps you thought you were getting.

vgchartz is a bit heavy with more graphics compared to the other sites, but it's probably your bandwidth that is making it slow when it's not slow for others.  That said, it would be nice if there was a "light-weight" version of the site that turned off most of the graphics and other stuff for those without high speed connections.

I just cleared my cache, and checked...  Took 6 seconds for the home page of vgchartz.com (no ads block, all fash and java enabled, etc).  Normally it's faster (about 2-3) if I don't clear my cache.  I have a 7mbps DSL. 

Ok yeh your right those numbers were not from a 5 Mbps connection speed I checked it and it was going really slow for some reason, I reset the modem and it's working fine now. I did another test for VG Chartz and it now takes around 15 seconds.

^In other words not much quicker.

I fond jlauro's T1 thing for IGN odd.... IGN has always taken ages for me (one of few sites I visit that takes longer than VGC) yet you say the front page doesn't have much stuff on it.... could it be the re-direct I get to IGN UK causing that? (perhaps IGN UK is bigger.... how do you check how many bytes a website is?)

I used this site: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Hmmm, I just redid IGN and have different results.
T1 1.44Mbps 48.35 seconds 2255357 bytes

Which does sound more typical.

Yesterday their front page was only pulling up a few images. This morning it has tons of embed stuff. Perhaps they change their layout based on time of day or load or somethig?

We have to remember some websites contain more...just like google has the less load time b/c its just a search engine...versus this site with plenty of content and lots of ppl checking it out constantly...