I find it funny people actually think that code written in ASM is faster than code written in C. You can make code written in ASM as fast as code generated by a decent compiler if you want to hack your way through it (manually unrolling loops, etc.), but even if you do that you are going to be roughly the same speed as code generated by a compiler if you are lucky.
Of course, this is talking about real programs, not the 10 line fibs that most of you saying ASM code is faster than compiled are probably writing. Also, this is using real-world ASM coders and C compilers. Yes, there is still reasons to use ASM, and you can write ASM code that is faster than code generated by a compiler, but not programs.