Firefox5, Opera 11.5 Compared (pt1 - VISTA)

source: technovore 

It's been only 3 months since the release of IE9 and Firefox 4 and yet here we are again. This time, with two new browsers, Firefox 5 and Opera 11.50, both with new rendering engines. I've split things into three parts. This first part is on Windows Vista browsers, the second on browsers under Windows7, and the third will focus on Ubuntu 10.10 browsers.

Previous tests

June 2010        July 2010        September 2010        March 2011

Introduction

As always, we're using the Q6600 test rig (HP a6535c). The specs are,

• Intel Core2Quad Q6600 Cpu (2.4 Ghz quad core)
• 6Gb DDR2-6400 Ram
• nVidia GeForce 9500GS graphics card
• Windows Vista home Premium (64bit)

and the following browsers were tested

• Firefox 3.6.13 *
• Firefox 3.6.18
• Firefox 4.0 *
• Firefox 5
• Chrome 13.0.782.32
• SR Iron 10.0.650.0 *
• Opera 10.63 *
• Opera 11.11
• Opera 11.50
• Internet Explorer 9 *
• Safari 5.0.5

* Identical builds to the previous test.

Peacekeeper

We start with the (now standard) Peacekeeper test. First, the nice Peacekeeper graph, which orders them by score. The surprise is that SRWare Iron takes the top-spot. In fact, it was such a surprise, I re-ran the tests after I was finished, and came back the same.

Of course, these scores don't give the whole picture, for that we need to see it broken down. Also, they don't include the canvas test in the final score, which does alter things slightly. Accordingly, here's the breakdown of the scores, with the browsers grouped together.

SunSpider

Here are the sunspider (0.9.1) results, again, ordered by browser manufacturer. To be honest, there's very little to chose here between the Chrome, Opera, and modern Firefox browsers. IE9 still seems to be extremely optimised for this benchmark, so should be taken with a pinch of salt. Safari does seem to be lagging behind here now though.

HTML5 & Acid3

All three new versions (chrome 13, Firefox5, and Opera 11.5) have increased their HTML5 comparability. Chrome still leads the way, while Opera and Firefox are tied.

Meanwhile, there's no change at all in the Acid3 test. Each new browser scored the same as the last tested version,

Tomorrow, Windows7 browsers tested.

Raw Data

Browser	Peacekeeper	SunSpider	HTML5 (Base+bonus)	Acid3
Firefox 3.6.13	2393	997.2	155+4	94
Firefox 3.6.18	2424	949.5	179+4	94
Firefox 4.0	3361	318.6	269+9	97
Firefox 5	3773	329.1	286+9	100
Chrome 13.0.782.32	8051	301.2	329+13	100
SRWare Iron 10.0.650.0	8437	317.0	322+9	100
Opera 10.63	6303	322.6	231+7	100
Opera 11.11	6611	328.7	278+7	100
Opera 11.50	6660	317.9	286+7	100
Internet Explorer 9	3782	269.5	141+5	95
Safari 5.0.5	4354	387.1	253+7	100