[SOLVED] Is it more efficient to print a large image less times, or a small image more times?

Is it more efficient to print a large image less times, or a small image more times?

Say I want to print an image multiple times, and in groups. So the the desired result would be something like this:

:) :) :)
  text
:) :) :)
  more text
:) :) :)

Is it more efficient to create one large image like :) :) :) out of the smaller image, or to just print the smaller image :) a bunch of time?

This is a Rails application. The small image is about 3 kB, and the large image is about 12 kB.

Solution

In this case the smaller image has some advantages:

Less bandwith and network time.
Smaller image to keep on memory caché o retrieve from disk.

A slightly harder work may be done by the client but most times this will be unapreciable. You usually want to avoid work on the server where you may have lots of request by minute.

Any way, I won't be too worried by this. The last Jquery lib is 240KB. The client will have much more load from excuting javascripts.