[db2012]

Originally Posted by webizen

you need to run 'top -c' on server to see what process occupies the most cpu cycle. For magento, it usually should be php and/or db. you need opcode cache to offload php and improve first byte time. varnish is for content/static cache, which will not help much here.

for gzip compression, pls provide specific example showing the problem.

I'm currently running memcached to offload op-cache. Also, for a concrete example refer to www.discobath.com . There, you can see that one javascript is being compressed, while the other is left uncompressed.