Excel Performance - Recalc speed and any other performance benchmark

I am trying to determine whether the number of references a
VBAProject(workbook) has references to has any effect on Excel's
performance. I have not been given what the measure of 'performance'
is, so am open to suggestions. My only thought might be when using
some form of benchmarking workbook which benhcmarks excel's speed. Is
there one vavailable?

Does anyone know the answer to this question? Or if not any
benchmarking workbook I could test. My real issue is i do not know
what Excel performance means, so I am assuming, unless anyone has any
other ideas, things like load time and recalculation times.

To be clear I am not meaning external or internal references to cells,
I am meaning references to objetc libraries e.g. Microsoft Scripting
Runtime or Microsoft Windows Common Controls.