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Browser benchmarks: IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari

Kai Schmerer ZDNet Germany

Published: 23 May 2008

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Test setup

To test the performance of browsers when handling Web 2.0 technologies, we used the iBench 5.0 test suite and SunSpider, a Javascript benchmark.

iBench evaluates browser performance by measuring how fast HTML, XML and JavaScript is handled. The web pages are held on a local web server. SunSpider, which (unlike iBench) is available online, concentrates solely on JavaScript performance. Tests are grouped into nine categories, including 3D, bit operations, cryptography and string processing; there are several tests within each group. The benchmark runs each test multiple times and calculates an error range.

Obviously the speed of the hardware platform is a crucial variable. In our browser tests under Windows Vista and Mac OS 10.5.2 Leopard, we used the following components:

MotherboardGigabyte GA-X38T-DQ6
Memory4x 1GB Aeneon Xtune DDR3-1333
ProcessorIntel Core 2 Extreme Q9650 (3.6GHz)
Hard disk
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB ST3750640AS
Graphics card
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

 

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