it.php

<?php
$mc = new MongoClient("localhost");
$collection = $mc->selectCollection("test", "data");

$collection->drop();
for ($i = 0; $i < 500; $i++) {
    $collection->insert(array("document" => $i));
}

$collection->findOne();

$cursor = $collection->find();

$counter = 0;
$t1 = microtime(true);
try {
	while($cursor->hasNext()) {
        /* This just increments the cursor position */
		$cursor->next();

        /* This returns the actual document */
        $doc = $cursor->current();
        ++$counter;
	}
} catch(Exception $e) {
	echo "That went wrong!: ", $e->getMessage();
}

// Kill references to the cursor if the data wasn't fully read
$cursor = NULL;

$t2 = microtime(true);

var_dump($t2-$t1);
printf("Took %.7f to iterate %d times over a cursor\n", $t2-$t1, $counter);

Output

$ php -n -c php.ini it.php # PHP/5.3.27 ⮀ MongoDB/2.4.6
float(0.0030438899993896)
Took 0.0030439 to iterate 500 times over a cursor