How meaninful is the ping response time?

I recently noticed that the short times reported by the ping command appear on the screen for much longer times. For example the response time of 176 ms apears on the screen after 5.37 seconds. Even if I multiply 176 ms by the number of the sent packets, 5, the result is less then a second. This behavior is independent of the software i use to send the ping command. I do not believe that my PC needs 4 seconds to display few letters and digits. Where is the problem then?
Therefore I could ask if the the ping response times are meaningful for the speed of the connection between two machines (as it should)?

 

i beleive the delay you are seeing is due to the DNS lookup of the name.

Try pinging an IP address like ping 1.2.3.4 and see how long it takes.