Does having 'Show Category Counts' on or off really make a difference in speed?

I remember back in ZC 1.2.x it made a great difference in speed having 'Show Category Counts' off and opposed to having them on.

And so, I've had this turned off ever since until today that I did a major update to all my products.

It seemed to me it didn't really make any noticeable difference in speed whether I had Category Counts on or off.

I'm using ZC 1.3.7 and I have just over 16,000 products and most of the time my site loads in about one second.

Can some tell me whether the speed/optimization issue was fixed in some of the later versions and whether it really makes difference having this setting on or off?

Thanks.

The appropriate setting for your site will depend on your own experience. The performance will be a combination of server speed, server utilization, number of categories and subcategories and products, sales/specials, etc.

In the v1.3 series, a number of database improvements were made, which you appear to be benefitting from.
In v1.4, there are even more improvements.

In short ... if you want them on, turn them on. If it's too slow, you may have to reconsider turning them off. Best to test at several times of the day to determine impact of server busy-ness (ie: for other sites sharing the same server and database host).

For some folks, it makes a huge difference. For others, it's moot.