I’m not sure why, but IPython’s %timeit command returns the initial low timings, while running the python -mtimeit cmd directly in the terminal returns:
python -mtimeit -s"import numpy as np; test = np.random.rand(3,3)" "test + 1"
500000 loops, best of 5: 894 nsec per loop

python -mtimeit -s "import torch; test = torch.rand((3, 3))" "test + 1"
50000 loops, best of 5: 4.9 usec per loop

so comparable to what others are seeing.
I’m not sure, which command to trust more and maybe someone knows, what’t the best way to time on the CPU.