database or includes?

Hi, I'm building a site, the template has a identifypage.php section. That identifies the page and then does one of the following (I want to find out which is faster): a) includes a text file that defines about 20 variables (title, metatags, content, ...) for the page. b) or it selects all those from 1 row in the database. My question: comparing including those vars to getting them from a dbase? I can see if I get them from a dbase the site may slow down when hit heavily... Any ideas on what's the best way to go? Would there be any significant difference? I estimate this site getting semi-popular (e.g. up to maybe 20.000 pageviews a day but more like 2000) Peter