Model fetch performance

So I have this minimal model

class Potd extends \Phalcon\Mvc\Model
{
    /**
     * @var int $id
     */
    public $id;
}

and this code:

$items = Potd::find([
     'mode' => 2,
     'order' => 'date', // DESC
]);
echo count($items);

It works ok, but it take about 150 ms.l, while this plain code:

$st = $this->di->get('db')->prepare('SELECT * FROM potd WHERE mode = :mode ORDER BY :order');
$st->execute(['mode' => 2, 'order' => 'date']);
$res = $st->fetchAll();
$items = [];
foreach ($res as $item) {
    $model = new Potd();
    $model->id = $item['id'];
    $items[] = $model;
}

echo count($items);

runs in about 35 ms.

Actually, Phalcon is only 16% faster than gigantic symfony2 with doctrine in this particular task. Here is apache benchmark results ab -c 20 -n 1000 localhost:

Phalcon: 23.29 RPS

Symfony2: 19.80 RPS

Plain PDO: 131.18 RPS

I understand that Phalcon is a framework and it should be slower than plain php, but 5 times slower? Also, I don't know what exactly going on inside find, but it looks pretty simple for me: construct query, fetch items, fill objects. So, the question: am I doing something wrong?