database access bandwidth: PHP vs. Revolution

[Josh Mellicker]

Forgive the noob question:

At first glance it appears that accessing a database with Rev "hits"  
the database for every column in every record in the repeat loop.

Whereas it seems that a SELECT query executed from, say, PHP, puts  
all the data returned into an array in one query, then the data can  
be extracted from the array in memory as needed.

Does Rev put a greater load on the database than a single PHP SELECT  
query?

(Or does is the PHP SELECT query kind of like a loop that has to  
"hit" every column of every record anyway?)