SO fiddle
Test Fiddle mainly for SO Questions
by Nick Craver
HTML
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.4/themes/overcast/jquery-ui.css">
<p id="p1"><span>Test</span></p>
JavaScript
var loops = 100000;
console.time('.find()');
for(var i=0; i<loops; i++)
$('#p1').find('span');
console.timeEnd('.find()');
console.time('selector');
for(var i=0; i<loops; i++)
$('#p1 span');
console.timeEnd('selector');