MySQL backed CMS versus file backed - performance differences

[bluedoor]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum because I finally thought of a question for which I really want community input.

Basically:
Will I take a performance hit for using a CMS that stores content in MySQL tables? If so, how big must a site become before this begins to be an issue?

Specifically:
I'm developing a CMS that uses MySQL. As I have it now, each page load does the following with respect to MySQL:
1) Loads server-wide variables from a small table
2) Loads default template variables from a small table
3) Calls page-specific template variables from a small table
4) Loads the content for the page

The template is loaded from a file and PHP goes to work on all the parsing.

Would all this MySQL action ever slow my site down? How efficient is a CMS in general compared to traditional means?

Thanks all

[fenway]

Personally, I think DB-stored content is just fantastic... yes, at some point, you'll take a performance hit, but then you can always add caching.