Web Browser Grand Prix: Chrome 20, Opera 12, Firefox 13

By Adam Overa
published

How do the latest Windows 7-based Web browsers stack up? Chrome and Firefox each have three wins under this operating system; can one become our champion? Or will Opera clean house here, as it did under Windows XP? We set up a new test system to find out.

Test System Specs And Software Setup

Hardware Setup

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Test System Specs
Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3 GHz (quad-core)
MotherboardGigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 (F10 BIOS)
Memory8 GB Crucial DDR3 @ 1333 MT/s (2 x 4 GB)
GraphicsAsus Radeon HD 7770 1 GB GDDR5 (PCIe 2.0 x16)
StorageSeagate Barracuda 7200.12 500 GB SATA 3Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 16 MB Cache
OpticalAsus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS
Power SupplyCorsair TX750W (750 W max)
CaseZalman MS-1000 HS2
CPU CoolerScythe Mugen 2 Revision B
KeyboardLogitech Wireless Keyboard K320
MouseLogitech Wireless Trackball M570

The WBGP Test Installation

The following table contains the system specs of the local Web server used for our Startup and Page Load Time tests, as well as JSGameBench.

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Local Web Server Specs
Operating SystemUbuntu 12.04 LTS Server Edition "Precise Pangolin" (32-bit)
ProcessorIntel Pentium 4 @ 2.41 GHz
MotherboardBiostar P4M80-M4
Memory768 MB DDR @ 333 MHz
GraphicsNvidia GeForce FX 5500 128 MB DDR (AGP)
StorageWestern Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJD, 160 GB EIDE, 7200 RPM
Optical 1Hitachi-LG DVD GDR-8163B
Optical 2Hitachi-LG CD-RW GCE-8483B
Extra PackagesApache2, MySQL Client, MySQL Server, PHP5, PHP-GD, PHP5-MySQL, PHPMyAdmin, SSH, Node.js, NPM

The table below holds additional information on the test network.

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Network Specs
ISP ServiceCox Preferred (18 Mb/s down, 2 Mb/s up)
ModemMotorola SURFboard SBS101U
RouterLinksys WRT54G2 V1

Motorola SURFboard SBS101U

Linksys WRT54G2

Software Setup

Both test installations were freshly installed and fully updated as of midnight on June 15th, 2012. Power management and automatic updates were disabled before testing.

All the software we installed, including the exact version number of the browsers tested, is listed in the table below.

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SoftwareVersion
Chrome20.0.1132.43m
Firefox13.0.1
Internet Explorer9.0.8112.16421
Opera12.00 (build 1467)
Safari5.1.7 (7534.57.2)
Adobe Flash11.3.300.257
AMD Catalyst8.961-120405a-137813C-ATI
Microsoft Silverlight5.5.10411.0
Oracle Java7.0.50
Adam Overa
111 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mayankleoboy1
    1.what the benchmarks dont show is that in Firefox , if a tab has a heavy page with a lot of CPU intensive workload, the complete browser UI starts stuttering. That means the browser UI is on the same thread as the page loading.

    2. in the 40 tab test, try working in a tab during the loading of the 40 tabs. you will find lots of difference between browsers. FF hangs, Opera and Chrome remain fluid.

    3. how about a test where a browser is using 1GB+ RAM and you are trying to open/close tabs. Then see the UI responsiveness. most browsers can easily handle 800MB RAM. but which browser easily handles 1.2GB+ RAM ?
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    IE9 does so good on HTML5 HWA accelerated benchmarks because its able to offload more of the processing to the GPU.
    i tested this and found that during a HTML5 benchmark, IE9 had the least CPU usage, and most GPU usage amongst all the browsers.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    How many firefox users dont use ADblockPlus ? very very less.Also ABP developer is a regular contributor to the Firefox source code.
    maybe you should do a few memory benchmarks with ABP installed just to realistically judge what 99.99% of FF users go through.
    Reply
  • ben850
    WTF Chrome is already on 20?? It ninja updated to 19 just a few days ago..
    Reply
  • lethalsam
    i won't ever use a browser a browser WITHOUT AD BLOCK Plus. (ABP)

    ABP works wonderful on Firefox, i RARELY see any ad. While I have used ABP on Chrome BUT its doesn't block half the ads.
    I know its Not Google's fault, its just that ABP developers are putting more effort with Firefox.

    So for me, Firefox > Chrome.
    Reply
  • adamovera
    @mayankleoboy1: 1+2) Interesting, I'll be looking for that next time 3) That would require a different workload for each browser.
    IE9 does so good on HTML5 HWA accelerated benchmarks because its able to offload more of the processing to the GPU. i tested this and found that during a HTML5 benchmark, IE9 had the least CPU usage, and most GPU usage amongst all the browsers.Really interesting, what utility do you use for measuring GPU usage?
    How many firefox users dont use ADblockPlus ? very very less.Also ABP developer is a regular contributor to the Firefox source code.maybe you should do a few memory benchmarks with ABP installed just to realistically judge what 99.99% of FF users go through.I'd estimate ABP usage on FF at around 5% or less based on ABP and FF usage statistics. Besides, that would give FF an unfair advantage.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    Really interesting, what utility do you use for measuring GPU usage?

    MSI afterburner for GPU. windows task manager for CPU.

    @mayankleoboy1: 1+2) Interesting, I'll be looking for that next time

    i sent a mail regarding this to Chris. but maybe i sent it too late for this article...
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    if you open multiple tabs together in chrome, it can use each CPU core for each tab. so if you have a quad core, and you open 4+ tabs together, the CPU usage will be 100% (using all 4 cores) during the tab loading time.
    but if you run 4 instance of dromaeo in 4 tabs, the CPU usage is still 25% (using only 1 core).
    so chrome is not completely multiprocessing.

    in IE10 beta, if you run 4 instances of dromaeo benchmark in 4 tabs, it uses all the for cores. so we can expect better multiprocessing from IE10 and win8 :)
    Reply
  • adamovera
    @mayankleoboy1: I got that email yesterday or the day before, this article was completed a few days before that. Sorry, my inbox usually gets a few pages deep after a doing long benchmark-heavy article.
    Is Dromaeo (the DOM portion) working in Chrome for you? I could not get it to finish in Chrome or Safari on any of my Windows machines.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    i ran the javascript benchmark that ran fine. Didnt run the DOM benches.

    BTW, i run chrome dev version. so that could make a difference.
    Reply