Do Images Load Faster in HTML or CSS?

Answer 1

One argument for css images being faster is that web applications that make use of many small images can combine them into one large tiled image and use css to clip the source image file according to the bounds of the contained subimage. Reducing the number of round trips to the server to fetch additional images can greatly increase the load times of such applications. In fact, google uses this idea in many of it's own applications such as gmail, though it can be an arduous task to manage manually.