Why is StringBuilder slower than string concatenation?

Question

Why is StringBuilder slower when compared to + concatenation? StringBuilder was meant to avoid extra object creation, but why does it penalize performance?

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        int max = 1000000;
        for (int times = 0; times < 5; times++)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("\ntime: {0}", (times+1).ToString());
            Stopwatch sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
            for (int i = 0; i < max; i++)
            {
                string msg = "Your total is ";
                msg += "$500 ";
                msg += DateTime.Now;
            }
            sw.Stop();
            Console.WriteLine("String +\t: {0}ms", ((int)sw.ElapsedMilliseconds).ToString().PadLeft(6));

            sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
            for (int j = 0; j < max; j++)
            {
                StringBuilder msg = new StringBuilder();
                msg.Append("Your total is ");
                msg.Append("$500 ");
                msg.Append(DateTime.Now);
            }
            sw.Stop();
            Console.WriteLine("StringBuilder\t: {0}ms", ((int)sw.ElapsedMilliseconds).ToString().PadLeft(6));
        }
        Console.Read();
    }

EDIT: Moving out of scope variables as suggested:

Answer 1

You are creating a new instance of StringBuilder with every iteration, and that incurs some overhead. Since you are not using it for what it's actually meant to do (ie: build large strings which would otherwise require many string concatenation operations), it's not surprising to see worse performance than concatenation.

A more common comparison / usage of StringBuilder is something like:

string msg = "";
for (int i = 0; i < max; i++)
{
    msg += "Your total is ";
    msg += "$500 ";
    msg += DateTime.Now;
}

StringBuilder msg_sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int j = 0; j < max; j++)
{
    msg_sb.Append("Your total is ");
    msg_sb.Append("$500 ");
    msg_sb.Append(DateTime.Now);
}

With this, you'll observe a significant performance difference between StringBuilder and concatenation. And by "significant" I mean orders of magnitude, not the ~ 10% difference you are observing in your examples.

Since StringBuilder doesn't have to build tons of intermediary strings that will just get thrown away, you get much better performance. That's what it's meant for. For smaller strings, you are better off using string concatenation for simplicity and clarity.