VMware Player vs. Workstation

I am currently using VMware Workstation 5.5 to do my Windows development on my Ubuntu laptop, the problem is I need to buy VMware Workstation to keep on using it and I do not really have $189 to spent on it, especially since I am only using it run Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

I considered using the VMware Player instead but could not find any meaningful benchmarks or comparisons so I decided to download SiSoft Sandra 2005 and do some tests myself and I am very impressed with the Player's speed.

I am not allowed to publish any benchmarks but suffice to say that I will be using the free VMware player to do my development on from now on and not the VMware workstation anymore.