Chromium is using 2 cores and Opera isn’t running full speed on Sunspider JS benchmark. That is the outcome of a simple test running TOP while taking the sunspider benchmark on a quadcore (AMD 630) Ubuntu 64 machine with the three main browsers: Chromium, Firefox and Opera. Opera 11.11 is surprisingly never using more then 80% CPU while Firefox 4 is using 100% and Chromium 12 150%. A quadcore can take 400%, when all 4 CPU cycles are fully utilized. Opera is the slowest performer on the benchmark, no surprise and Firefox is somehow disabling graphical output: nearly no load on X-server, and no visual graphical output, while Opera and in a lesser extent Chromium show a lot of flickering and flashing. Opera is also putting a bigger load on Compiz, the compositing window manager for Linux, AKA 3d eye candy. But Opera, as said before, is also giving more visual feedback about downloading files and stuff with an animated icon in the addressbar.
Sunspider benchmark results
Firefox 4: Total: 355.6ms +/- 2.6% Chromium 12: Total: 348.2ms +/- 4.9% Opera 11.11: Total: 413.2ms +/- 3.3%
TOP results
Firefox 4 Tasks: 277 total, 2 running, 273 sleeping, 1 stopped, 1 zombie Cpu(s): 27.1%us, 3.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 69.0%id, 0.3%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 5093632k total, 5016508k used, 77124k free, 220824k buffers Swap: 9055228k total, 0k used, 9055228k free, 2074600k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 7063 user 20 0 923m 325m 41m R 101 6.5 2:46.61 firefox-bin 2193 root 20 0 235m 131m 32m S 12 2.6 12:11.16 Xorg 3119 user 20 0 374m 62m 20m S 8 1.3 5:13.44 compiz Chromium 12 Tasks: 280 total, 3 running, 273 sleeping, 3 stopped, 1 zombie Cpu(s): 44.0%us, 9.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 46.3%id, 0.8%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 5093632k total, 4856072k used, 237560k free, 217760k buffers Swap: 9055228k total, 0k used, 9055228k free, 2011968k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 7317 user 20 0 880m 81m 26m R 102 1.6 1:20.46 chromium-browse 2193 root 20 0 243m 138m 40m S 44 2.8 13:07.53 Xorg 7295 user 20 0 519m 51m 31m R 41 1.0 0:37.04 chromium-browse 3119 user 20 0 374m 62m 20m S 11 1.3 5:33.46 compiz Opera 11.11 Tasks: 280 total, 4 running, 272 sleeping, 3 stopped, 1 zombie Cpu(s): 23.3%us, 11.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 64.1%id, 1.2%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.2%si, 0.0%st Mem: 5093632k total, 4849588k used, 244044k free, 217972k buffers Swap: 9055228k total, 0k used, 9055228k free, 2004908k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 6051 user 20 0 863m 428m 29m S 81 8.6 13:51.12 opera 2193 root 20 0 236m 131m 32m R 47 2.6 13:22.27 Xorg 3119 user 20 0 374m 62m 20m R 18 1.3 5:38.20 compiz
Conclusion
Seems that Opera isn’t going full throttle on benchmarks. I wonder why that is. Chromium is the only browser that is using multiple cores, but it isn’t actually much faster than Firefox. Another interesting thing is that Chromium feels the snappier browser but actually is stressing your PC more.
Tags: Javascript