Google's own benchmark shows that the new version 2 runs 30% faster than Chrome 1.0. You can test yourself.
[youtube]rubd9bqjS64[tube]
As for anyone who's been confused by the version numbers, read this:
Version numbers are not important and you don't even need to know that the browser has been updated: since it always runs the most current version, the new features are enabled gradually as they're developed, like in a web application. "A note on version numbers: we're referring to this as Chrome 2, but that's mainly a metric to help us keep track of changes internally. We don't give too much weight to version numbers and will continue to roll out useful updates as often as possible."