The memory efficiency tests are not changed. In this metric, we open a Web browser with one tab, record memory usage, open 39 additional tabs, and re-record the memory usage total. We then close the additional 39 tabs and record again. We wait one minute and record the usage one more time. The first figure is subtracted from the last in order to see how much "bloat" remains after decreasing the workload (closing tabs).

Chrome takes the lead in Windows 7, with just 76 MB more after closing all 39 additional tabs. IE9 takes second place at 113 MB over the single-tab total. IE10 is close behind in third place at just 121 MB, while Firefox places fourth. Opera still clings onto nearly half of a gigabyte of data from the 39 closed tabs, putting it in last place. In Windows 8, IE10 and Chrome essentially share the lead, followed by Firefox and Opera.
The charts below contain the four individual memory readings.
The next test is actually performed during the memory efficiency testing cycle...
- Possibly The Last "Top Four"
- Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera
- Test Setup And Benchmark Suite
- Startup Time
- Page Load Time
- JavaScript And DOM Performance
- HTML5 Performance
- Hardware Acceleration Performance
- Memory Efficiency
- Page Load Reliability And Security
- Standards Conformance
- Windows WBGP Winner's Circle




i personally am still on ff10, memory is really the reason i use fire fox, along with chrome. i would love to see how older versions stack up to newer ones.
2. " Opera jumps on-board the Chromium bandwagon" is false. Opera is using Webkit rendering engine for rendering. We dont know what the Javascript engine and JIT compiler is going to be.
3. On page4, in "the average wait time" , you are taking the Geometric Mean. I think that using values less than 1 in a geometric mean is skewing the results. Can you take a Arithmetic Mean, and check please ?
4. Memory usage reporting of IE9 and IE10 is completely bogus. For some workloads, in TaskManager, IE10 is seen using about 300MB memory, while it is actually using around 3GB RAM !
5. I am completely mystified why quite a few browsers do better in JS benchmarks on Windows8 . I can understand getting better scores in WebGL or HW acceleration tests (because of potential better Dx) , but JavaScript execution does not use Dx. Any ideas ?
i personally am still on ff10, memory is really the reason i use fire fox, along with chrome. i would love to see how older versions stack up to newer ones.
1. Yup
2. The press release mentioned "Chromium", so I'm assuming WebKit/V8.
3. Yes, you're right! The last timers went by milliseconds, so that wasn't an issue - the replacement charts should appear soon. Good catch!
4. It seems pretty reasonable to me, basically mirrors Chrome in this regard.
5. Nope
#2, incorrect, they have said they're going with Chromium's V8.
@alidan
Mozilla saw the err of their ways and got after memory. The most recent version of Firefox should beat version 10 in both memory and performance. The last benchmarks I saw had it beating all the other browsers in memory usage as well. (In this article you can see a snapshot of this in the "40 tabs" graphic. Like many techies, this is more what my browsing looks like.)
#2 : I must have forgotten the release. Thanks for the correction.
#4 : I am not saying that IE10 uses excessive memory. I am saying that the total memory used by all the ieexplorer processes in the task manager is incorrect. For some image heavy pages, total memory usage of IE as reported by task manager is about 300MB, but total system memory usage gets around 3GB!. So if you close IE10, system memory goes from 90% full to 50% full.
The composite hardware acceleration scores is most likely the main reason why IE9/10 is so far behind Firefox and Chrome on performane. Yet, from what I can tell, this composite score is heavily influenced by the WebGL scores, which is exclusive to Chrome and Firefox.
In that respect, MS has at some point stated that they do not even wish to support WebGL, as it represents a significant security risk, as it gives the browser close access to the computer hardware.
Long story short, your methods of calculating performance scores heavily favors Chrome and Firefox as they are the only ones to implement support for WebGL.
Additionally, I wish you would make it more clear how you arrive at your composite scores and of course the final Performance Index. How do you add numbers that are so varied in nature, without some method of normalizing the numbers?
I heard that Futuremark Peacekeeper is unreliable, it used to miscalculate it's own benchmarks and it's still a black box so it may still be buggy. Do you know anything specific about it?
There is a reason why he uses the default install settings, and he explained this before in the former WBGP. The number of enthusiasts are far smaller than the 1-bit users, thus the default. Also, most enthusiasts actually know what is to be expected from the mods/tweaks, but normal users hardly know anything about browsers (if they even know the term: internet browser).
Because if it switches to webkit, all of it's test results will be identical to Chrome's, or it will hardly differ.
@alidan: FF17 ESR would be more safe than FF10, and even better with memory.
Edit: I hate how it keeps deleting the links.
Same for my Android phone.