i would say it’s a little more demanding. i just upgraded to 6.5 and I have a pretty big Cubase 5.5.3 project. When opening it in Cubase 6.5, the Asio meter was maxed out and a lot of audio drop outs were occuring, whereas the same project plays fine in Cubase 5 with the Asio meter pretty high, but not maxed out. So yes it’s more demanding a least with my setup.