I'm wondering if others are experiencing this as well.  Am I hallucinating, or is 2016.05 actually performing better? 
 
For example, pre 2016.05 my Core 1 in the Performance reader had been slightly higher than the other cores.  Now it's always on par with the rest.
 
In addition, everything seems snappier.
 
Did the bakers flip some bits and in addition to adding some color, did they add some zip?  Just wondering if anyone else is seeing something similar.

i have read this in other threads, i haven't used sonar much since around kingston and basically moved to another daw as my main daw for various other reasons. after updating to the latest release and taking it for a spin i also thought that performance had improved and that the load seemed to be spread more evenly across cores as you say, although the first still always higher. but then i had read this before actually trying it for myself, so i wondered if i was actually seeing it or things were being 'colored' because of what i had previously read placebo effect type of thing
 
it would be good to get some official word as to whether or not something was done that would directly affect performance in a positive way in the latest release.

Performance of 05.16 does seem a little better on my system.  

electrons move much faster on a dark grey background...

Observer effect. They move faster since they can't be observed on the dark background :)
Against which build is the performance change being compared - 05 vs 04 or earlier?

well for me anything between say kingston and manchester, never updated past manchester until this latest release, and kingston was the last one i really done anything with before . . .  well . . . doing it somewhere else

I don't know if this is the platform for this question, but I will ask ( since I see Noel here ).
Downloaded 2016.05 all is well save one thing. Sonar won't accept my Konplete Audio 6 drivers for the interface.
I can usemy interface in Bitwig which I have on the same laptop. I even system restored and the interface works well in Sonar without the update. But once 2016.05 is installed it prompts that my drivers are incompatible and my interface turns into a paperweight. Any suggestions? Please advise.

iirc around that time there were others posting about possible performance issues. i do know that when i installed the early release version for this latest release the first thing i noticed was it seemed more snappy. then again i also think my car runs better and rides smoother after a good clean out and wash , so it might be just perception, the new skin/theme and all (which is very nice i must say) but going by the performance meter it does seem to be obviously more evenly spread across the cores than it did, still number 1 is higher, but from what i understand that is how things are. doesn't really matter i suppose, but it would be good to know if it is real or imagined.

I've been keeping steadily updated with each rolling update. They've all been fine, and had their individual improvements.

I'm commenting because between 2016.04 and after I just updated to 05 on the exact same songs I was working on this week I noticed faster screen refreshes and overall a feeling of it being faster. It was like an A/B comparison.

I don't think I'm imagining how it seems the cores usage is balancing better now, especially less load on core 1.

Oh well, Noel isn't confirming so maybe it's just me. But I see / feel something is better in a good way.

I don't notice anything better performance-wise, and I push my system into the red 7 days a week. Runs well, as it has been for the last good few builds.