JavaScript speed race: reloaded

After the recent public beta release of Safari 4, it is time to do another round of JavaScript performance testing (see the last one I did). Here I compare the unstable/development releases of different web browsers, when running SunSpider benchmark (runs/minute) and V8 benchmark (raw score). The test machine is Lenovo T61 laptop armed with Intel Core2 Duo 2 GHz, 2 GB RAM running Windows XP Professional SP2. The results follow (longer is better):

Google Chrome 2.0 is the unstable version from the developer channel, where Chrome 1.0 is the stable one. Opera 10.0 Alpha unfortunately still does not include Carakan, the brand-new fast JavaScript engine from Opera. Firefox 3.1 is tested with TraceMonkey enabled, i.e. via javascript.options.jit.chrome set to true in about:config. Konqueror 4.2 is installed from the KDE Windows project (MSVC 2005 built), the latest stable version because its latest unstable still points to 4.1.96. For safety reason, Internet Explorer 8 runs inside Xenocode browser sandbox as the sandboxing overhead was found to be negligible. The laptop's power manager tool is set to give maximum performance, thus forcing the laptop to always runs at its maximum speed.

on CrossOver Chromium (a way for Chrome on Linux)

CrossOver Chromium is a nice and easy approach to run the famous Google Chrome browser under Linux (while waiting for the official Linux version and if you don't want to mess around with Wine). I tried it on my OpenSUSE machine, it works pretty well. There are minor glitches, like maximized window could not be restored anymore (because Chrome skips normal window management), a status bar that does not appear and disappear properly, the omnibox rendering problem, and similar other small annoyances. But all in all, for 11 days of work, it is an amazing achievement.

Checking its JavaScript performance using SunSpider, it is only up to 40% slower. However, it still feels smooth and fast. Definitely worth a try.

JavaScript speed race

Just for fun, I tested JavaScript performance of several web browsers, using the well-known SunSpider benchmark tool. The test machine is a fairly old Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo notebook with AMD Turion64 1.8 GHz processor and 1 GB RAM, running Microsoft Windows XP SP2.

The result is not surprising. Internet Explorer is notoriously slow but there is hope with IE8. Mozilla developers have done a great job optimizing Firefox. WebKit with SquirrelFish (and surely the upcoming Safari 4) really shines in speed.