$ time perl -e ''

real    0m0.003s
user    0m0.000s
sys 0m0.000s

$ time php -r ''

real    0m0.023s
user    0m0.020s
sys 0m0.000s


##</code><code>##

note: this varian loop have same result

$ time perl -e 'for($i=0;$i<=1000;$i++){for($j=0;$j<=1000;$j++){for($k=0;$k<=100;$k++){}}}'

real    0m7.867s
user    0m7.860s
sys 0m0.000s

$ time php -r 'for($i=0;$i<=1000;$i++){for($j=0;$j<=1000;$j++){for($k=0;$k<=100;$k++){}}}'

real    0m1.717s
user    0m1.712s
sys 0m0.000s


##</code><code>##

note: if we not include startup time at above code, 
at 100k PHP and Perl have almost similiar performance

$ time perl -e 'for($i=0;$i<=100000;$i++){}'

real    0m0.010s
user    0m0.008s
sys 0m0.000s

$ time php -r 'for($i=0;$i<=100000;$i++){}'

real    0m0.030s
user    0m0.016s
sys 0m0.012s