The new beta (1693) runs terribly in my laptop, performance is degraded to the point GE is barely usable. Laptop gets a huge performance hit even when GE is done downloading the screen images (100%) and is minimized to the taskbar. Runs much worse than the last version, which I deleted (is there somewhere I can download the las 3.xx version?).
As others have said, I think this has to do with cache management, cause even with GE offline, screen updates take forever to load.

System specs:
CPU: Intel Celeron M 1.5 ghz
Video: ATI Mobility RadeonX600, Intel 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset, 128 mb ram, 1280x768x32
System RAM: DDR2 512MB, 38GB free HD space