WBGP VIII Test Setup
Hardware Setup
| Test System Specs | |
|---|---|
| Operating System 1 | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) |
| Operating System 2 | Apple Mac OS X Lion (64-bit) |
| Model | Apple MacBook Air 11.6-inch (late 2011) |
| Processor | Intel Core i7 @ 1.8 GHz (dual-core) |
| Memory | 4 GB DDR3 @ 1333 MT/s |
| Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB DDR3 SDRAM |
| Storage | 128 GB SSD |
Software Setup
Our test installations are freshly installed and fully updated as of midnight on December 20th. Power management and automatic updating is disabled before testing. The Web browsers and additional software, along with the exact version numbers tested, are listed in the table below.
| Software | Version |
|---|---|
| Chrome | 16.0.912.63 m |
| Firefox | 9.0.1 |
| Internet Explorer | 9.0.8112.16421 |
| Opera | 11.60 (build 1185) |
| Safari | 5.1.2 (7534.5.2.7) |
| Adobe Flash | 11.1.102.55 (64-bit) |
| Microsoft Silverlight | 5.0.61118.0 |
| Oracle Java | 6.0.30 |
Network Setup
The following table contains the system specs of the local Web server used for our startup time tests, the page load time tests, and JSGameBench.
| Local Web Server Specs | |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Edition "Lucid Lynx" (32-bit) |
| Processor | AMD Athlon @ 1150 MHz |
| Motherboard | Soyo Dragon Platinum |
| Memory | 512 MB DDR |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon 9550, 256 MB GDDR |
| Storage | 40 GB Western Digital HDD WD400BB |
| Optical | Samsung DVD-ROM SD-616T |
| Extra Packages | Apache2, MySQL Client, MySQL Server, PHP5, PHP-GD, PHP5-MySQL, PHPMyAdmin, SSH |
The table below holds additional information on the test network.
| Network Specs | |
|---|---|
| ISP Service | Cox Premium (28 Mb/s down, 5 Mb/s up) |
| Modem | Motorola SURFboard SBS101U |
| Router | Linksys WRT54G2 V1 |
While we typically use a hard-wired Ethernet connection, due to the MacBook Air being the test system, we're debuting the use of Wi-Fi in the Web Browser Grand Prix.
Test Setup
We restart the computer and allow it to idle for a few minutes before benchmarking the next browser. Other than the conformance benchmarks, all of our final scores are an average of several iterations. More iterations are run on tests that have short durations, lower scales, and/or higher variance.
All tests are placed into one of four groups: core, observation, dated, and quarantine. Core tests are considered current. These tests are usually trusted industry standards or our own creations, and they make up the core of the WBGP suite. Tests that are either generally unknown, mostly untested, or just too bleeding-edge are placed under observation. Tests classified as dated are either outdated, losing relevance, or otherwise need replacing. We are actively seeking community feedback and contributions regarding alternatives to these benchmarks. The final group is for quarantined benchmarks. Benchmarks find their way into quarantine by delivering dubious results or by being gamed. Whenever benchmarks that test the same thing yield conflicting results, more weight is given to tests with a better rating when creating the analysis tables.
The table below lists all 53 of the tests currently in our suite (along with a version number and link, where applicable), number of iterations performed, and current rating:
| Tom's Hardware Web Browser Grand Prix Test Suite v8.0 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Test Name | Iterations | Rating |
| Performance Tests (44) | ||
| Cold Startup Time: Single Tab | 3 | Core |
| Cold Startup Time: Eight Tabs | 3 | Core |
| Hot Startup Time: Single Tab | 3 | Core |
| Hot Startup Time: Eight Tabs | 3 | Core |
| Uncached Page Load Times (9 Test Pages) | 5 | Core |
| Cached Page Load Times (9 Test Pages) | 5 | Core |
| Kraken v1.1 | 2 | Core |
| Google Kraken v1.1 Mod | 2 | Observation |
| SunSpider v0.9.1 | 2 | Observation |
| Google SunSpider v0.91 Mod | 2 | Observation |
| FutureMark Peacekeeper 2.0 | 2 | Core |
| Dromaeo DOM | 2 | Core |
| Maze Solver | 5 | Core |
| GUIMark2 Flash Vector Charting | 3 | Core |
| GUIMark2 Flash Bitmap Gaming | 3 | Core |
| GUIMark2 Flash Text Columns | 3 | Core |
| Flash Benchmark 2008 v1.09.1 | 2 | Core |
| GUIMark Java | 3 | Dated |
| Encog Silverlight | 3 | Dated |
| Facebook JSGameBench v4.1 | 2 | Core |
| GUIMark 2 HTML5 Vector Charting (1 pixel variant) | 3 | Core |
| GUIMark 2 HTML5 Bitmap Gaming | 3 | Core |
| GUIMark 2 HTML5 Text Columns | 3 | Core |
| Asteroids HTML5 Canvas 2D And JavaScript | 2 | Core |
| Psychedelic Browsing | 2 | Observation |
| Hardware Acceleration Stress Test | 2 | Dated |
| Mozilla WebGL FishIE | 5 | Observation |
| WebGL Solar System | 5 | Observation |
| Efficiency Benchmarks (5) | ||
| Memory Usage: Single Tab | 3 | Core |
| Memory Usage: 40 Tabs | 3 | Core |
| Memory Management: -39 Tabs | 3 | Core |
| Memory Management: -39 Tabs (extra 2 minutes) | 3 | Core |
| Reliability Benchmarks (1) | ||
| Proper Page Loads | 3 | Core |
| Conformance Benchmarks (3) | ||
| Ecma test262 | 1 | Core |
| Peacekeeper 2.0 HTML5 Capabilities | 1 | Core |
| HTML5Test.com | 1 | Core |
Legend
Throughout this article there are a ton of charts, many of which house data from both Windows 7 and Mac OS X. The data in these charts is sorted by the Windows 7 score, with the best performer on top and the worst at the bottom. Windows 7 scores are represented by blue bars and OS X scores are in green. If an OS X browser outperforms all of the Windows 7 browsers, we'll indicate this occurrence by changing the color of the winning OS X browser from green to red.
Now, let's fire off the starting pistol and let the race begin!