arcgis desktop - Fastest way to count the number of features in a feature class?

With the introduction of the Data Access module in arcpy (30x faster search cursors), I want to know if counting features matching sql criteria is faster than the traditional MakeTableView + GetCount methodology?

Answer

I have tested solution from answer above and on my real world data the difference is negligible. Opposite to results in other answer, my times for arcpy.MakeTableView_management and arcpy.da.SearchCursor within ArcMap are same same.

I have tested variations with and without query, please see the code for query version, and final measured results below:

@staticmethod
def query_features(feature_class, query):

    # Method 1
    time.sleep(5)  # Let the cpu/ram calm before proceeding!
    start_time = time.clock()
    count = len(list(i for i in arcpy.da.SearchCursor(feature_class, ["OBJECTID"], query)))
    end_time = time.clock()

    arcpy.AddMessage("Method 1 finished in {} seconds".format((end_time - start_time)))
    arcpy.AddMessage("{} features".format(count))

    # Method 2
    time.sleep(5)  # Let the cpu/ram calm before proceeding!
    start_time = time.clock()
    arcpy.MakeTableView_management(feature_class, "myTableView", query)
    count = int(arcpy.GetCount_management("myTableView").getOutput(0))

    end_time = time.clock()

    arcpy.AddMessage("Method 2 in {} seconds".format((end_time - start_time)))
    arcpy.AddMessage("{} features".format(count))

The results below:

    No query:
    Method 1 finished in 5.3616442 seconds
    804140 features
    Method 2 in 4.2843138 seconds
    804140 features


    Many results query:
    Method 1 finished in 12.7124766 seconds
    518852 features
    Method 2 in 12.1396602 seconds
    518852 features

    Few results query:
    Method 1 finished in 11.1421476 seconds
    8 features
    Method 2 in 11.2232503 seconds

    8 features