No, and the difference explains most disappointment with speed settings.
Print time is extruded volume divided by achievable flow, plus a fixed overhead per layer. Flow is layer height × line width × head speed. Speed is one term of three, and it is the only one that has a ceiling attached to it.
Watch the three terms compete
Take a 60 mm cube at 20% infill:
- 0.2 mm layers, 60 mm/s — 5.4 mm³/s, 3.95 hours
- 0.2 mm layers, 120 mm/s — doubling speed alone
- 0.3 mm layers, 0.6 mm nozzle, 60 mm/s — 12.24 mm³/s, 1.93 hours
The third row is running at the same head speed as the first and finishes in half the time, because it moved the other two terms instead.
The ceiling is what makes speed a bad lever
A hotend melts a limited volume per second. Ask a stock 0.4 mm setup for 27 mm³/s by commanding 300 mm/s and it will deliver about 12, running at an effective 133 mm/s. The setting becomes fiction, and the printer does not tell you.
Layer height and line width raise flow without touching the head's velocity, so they buy time below the ceiling rather than pushing against it. That is the structural reason nozzle size outperforms speed.
Where speed genuinely wins
On low-flow work. A miniature at 0.1 mm layers through a 0.25 mm nozzle asks for 1.4 mm³/s, nowhere near any ceiling, so speed is the only lever available and it works — right up until acceleration limits take over on small features.
The general rule: the finer the print, the more speed helps; the coarser the print, the more nozzle size helps. Most people apply it backwards.
What speed costs
Ringing, corner bulging and poorer layer bonding, in roughly that order. Layer height coarsening costs visible layer lines, and a bigger nozzle costs fine detail. All three are real; they are simply different currencies, and choosing which to spend is what a print profile actually is.
Push the speed slider in the print time estimator and watch where it stops helping. What that speed does to surface quality is the print speed guide's subject.