Frames are a bit trickier than tables when you're speeding up your site. Frames, by their very nature, take a bit more time for the browser to load. Especially the first time the frameset is loaded.
Why can frames be slow?
For every frameset, the browser has to request and download n+1 Web pages, where
n is the number of frames in the frameset. The browser first requests the frameset
page, which then tells it to load all the frames. These frames are requested
from the Web server and delivered to the site.
Unfortunately, there is not a lot to be done about the inherent speed of frames. If you use a framed site, then make sure that each frame in the frameset is small and loads quickly. Keep the images small and use small amounts of text.
First Page > The Size of Your Pages > Page 1, 2, 3
