performance problem with batch update

hi
using mysql 4.1 i wish to update records using batch update but for a batch of 100, records and table having only 5000 records execution time is approx 2.4 sec i want to know whether this time is fine or i can further reduce it with some performance tunning ... the table which i am using is having 19 columns the update is on a single column ....
one more thing when i use the batch update for deletion batch size 100 along with update simultaneously the execution time increased for both...
could any one please suggest me some tips to improve the performance.. so that it works with more records ...

thanks in advance...

re: performance problem with batch update

First of all, update performance depends on how You choose the records to be updated. `where` clause with the indexed column will help I guess, especially when number of records will grow.