Continuing the tradition of my previous post about Safari, I thought I would revisit Firefox’s performance on the SunSpider benchmark.
Clearly, Firefox has also made drastic strides in its Javascript engine, which is an entirely new piece donated by Adobe (and is the same engine, or so I understand, which powers the Actionscript interpreter of Flash). These results put the new Firefox 3 beta at four times the speed of the latest 2.x series. The newly released Safari/Webkit build narrowly outperforms the latest test build of Firefox, but clearly there’s a lot of progress being made (and perhaps more before its final release).
The tests were done on a Windows XP SP2 machine; it has a Pentium 4 and 2GB of RAM.
| Benchmark | Firefox 3.0 beta4 (ms) | Firefox 2.0.0.12 (ms) |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 6102.8 | 23493.8 |
| 3d: cube | 301.0 | 812.6 |
| 3d: morph | 245.8 | 1562.2 |
| 3d: raytrace | 295.2 | 491.0 |
| access: binary-trees | 95.6 | 243.6 |
| access: fannkuch | 412.2 | 571.8 |
| access: nbody | 282.2 | 721.6 |
| access: nsieve | 102.4 | 337.4 |
| bitops: 3bit-bits-in-byte | 120.4 | 362.4 |
| bitops: bits-in-byte | 143.0 | 381.2 |
| bitops: bitwise-and | 267.2 | 3406.2 |
| bitops: nsieve-bits | 251.6 | 559.4 |
| control: recursive | 89.0 | 153.2 |
| crypto: aes | 148.8 | 356.2 |
| crypto: md5 | 171.4 | 393.8 |
| crypto: sha1 | 180.6 | 400.0 |
| date: format-tofte | 329.6 | 1294.0 |
| date: format-xparb | 230.4 | 3475.0 |
| math: cordic | 321.0 | 940.8 |
| math: partial-sums | 310.4 | 546.6 |
| math: spectral-norm | 183.8 | 381.4 |
| regexp: dna | 295.6 | 1400.4 |
| string: base64 | 157.8 | 928.2 |
| string: fasta | 280.0 | 640.8 |
| string: tagcloud | 249.6 | 1025.0 |
| string: unpack-code | 412.2 | 1512.2 |
| string: validate-input | 208.0 | 596.8 |
Firefox 2.0.0.12
============================================
RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)
--------------------------------------------
Total: 23493.8ms +/- 6.3%
--------------------------------------------
3d: 2865.8ms +/- 1.3%
cube: 812.6ms +/- 3.0%
morph: 1562.2ms +/- 2.0%
raytrace: 491.0ms +/- 4.5%
access: 1874.4ms +/- 3.0%
binary-trees: 243.6ms +/- 14.6%
fannkuch: 571.8ms +/- 1.8%
nbody: 721.6ms +/- 2.2%
nsieve: 337.4ms +/- 3.2%
bitops: 4709.2ms +/- 1.3%
3bit-bits-in-byte: 362.4ms +/- 7.0%
bits-in-byte: 381.2ms +/- 2.8%
bitwise-and: 3406.2ms +/- 0.9%
nsieve-bits: 559.4ms +/- 1.5%
controlflow: 153.2ms +/- 13.9%
recursive: 153.2ms +/- 13.9%
crypto: 1150.0ms +/- 2.8%
aes: 356.2ms +/- 6.0%
md5: 393.8ms +/- 5.3%
sha1: 400.0ms +/- 5.5%
date: 4769.0ms +/- 0.9%
format-tofte: 1294.0ms +/- 1.3%
format-xparb: 3475.0ms +/- 1.0%
math: 1868.8ms +/- 3.0%
cordic: 940.8ms +/- 4.8%
partial-sums: 546.6ms +/- 2.4%
spectral-norm: 381.4ms +/- 8.5%
regexp: 1400.4ms +/- 81.1%
dna: 1400.4ms +/- 81.1%
string: 4703.0ms +/- 9.4%
base64: 928.2ms +/- 2.3%
fasta: 640.8ms +/- 3.1%
tagcloud: 1025.0ms +/- 46.6%
unpack-code: 1512.2ms +/- 10.5%
validate-input: 596.8ms +/- 6.7%
Firefox 3.0b4
============================================
RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)
--------------------------------------------
Total: 6102.8ms +/- 2.3%
--------------------------------------------
3d: 842.0ms +/- 4.8%
cube: 301.0ms +/- 5.3%
morph: 245.8ms +/- 1.7%
raytrace: 295.2ms +/- 10.5%
access: 910.4ms +/- 2.9%
binary-trees: 95.6ms +/- 2.4%
fannkuch: 412.2ms +/- 5.6%
nbody: 282.2ms +/- 3.2%
nsieve: 120.4ms +/- 8.5%
bitops: 782.2ms +/- 5.8%
3bit-bits-in-byte: 120.4ms +/- 22.1%
bits-in-byte: 143.0ms +/- 21.1%
bitwise-and: 267.2ms +/- 4.3%
nsieve-bits: 251.6ms +/- 3.1%
controlflow: 89.0ms +/- 1.7%
recursive: 89.0ms +/- 1.7%
crypto: 500.8ms +/- 5.5%
aes: 148.8ms +/- 17.2%
md5: 171.4ms +/- 2.0%
sha1: 180.6ms +/- 1.9%
date: 560.0ms +/- 4.2%
format-tofte: 329.6ms +/- 6.8%
format-xparb: 230.4ms +/- 2.1%
math: 815.2ms +/- 5.5%
cordic: 321.0ms +/- 1.1%
partial-sums: 310.4ms +/- 9.2%
spectral-norm: 183.8ms +/- 16.1%
regexp: 295.6ms +/- 6.4%
dna: 295.6ms +/- 6.4%
string: 1307.6ms +/- 3.7%
base64: 157.8ms +/- 16.5%
fasta: 280.0ms +/- 9.8%
tagcloud: 249.6ms +/- 3.9%
unpack-code: 412.2ms +/- 7.9%
validate-input: 208.0ms +/- 4.5%