What is the fastest most efficient way to find and replace things in cells?

How many cells are we talking here?

I just did a find and replace on 385,600 cells, making 158,711 replacements, and it took about 4 seconds.

Another on 1,156,800 cells, finding 53,645 replacements, in 2 seconds.

A third on 2,313,600 cells, finding 257,227 replacements, in 6 seconds....



I think find and replace is about as fast as you are going to get. My times might be faster because of the hardware I am using, (8gb ram, 64 bit office, and a core i5)