First, let me start by saying that based on the evidence so far: It is. Significantly.
A number of the changes to the Dynamics NAV 2013 architecture contribute to the performance boosts that many of the test have shown. To outline some of the changes:
•Middle tier is 64 bit
•We are no longer using cursors but MARS
•Ability to auto-update sift fields when looping, rather than repeating the process for each call. SETAUTOCALCFIELDS reduces the amount of statements issued
•Pages containing flowfields now issue ‘SmartSQL’ queries, basically one source table query with outer joins for each flowfield query, again reducing the ‘chattiness’
and calculating sift values in one server roundtrip
•Global cache
•REPEATABLEREAD is default isolation level
•Locking changes in posting routines, locking at later point and reducing overall blocking time