Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 beta browser, launched last week, isn't only leaner and cleaner in its interface but also boasts of faster Web page rendering (apart from GPU acceleration).
We decided to put IE9 beta's claim to the test by pitting it against
the competition: Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera
Web browsers.For the sake of this browser speed test, we downloaded and installed the latest beta build versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera Web browsers. IE9 beta (build 9.0.7930.16406), Firefox 4 beta 6 (4.0b6), Chrome 7 (build 7.0.517.8 beta), Apple Safari 5.0.2 (build 7533.18.5), and Opera 10.70 (build 9050) all formed the basis of our beta browser speed test.
We tested the browsers on the following PC configuration: An Intel Core i3-550 3.2-GHz processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB 7200 rpm hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 5670 (1GB) graphics, Windows 7 Ultimate operating system, and the Dell UltraSharp U2711 monitor (2560x1440 pixel resolution).
GPU Acceleration: First off we ran the FishIE Tank visual demo from Microsoft.com to get an indicative score of IE9, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera browser's GPU acceleration capabilities. Obiously, since it's a Microsoft's browser GPU acceleration demo, it runs best on Internet Explorer 9 beta and fast -- while the other browsers don't even come close to matching it in terms of speed. We ran the FishIE Tank test on all five beta web browsers with 1000 fishes in full-screen mode (2560x1440).
IE9 beta took the honors here with an average fps of 47 frames, while Firefox 4 beta 6 came in second with 24 fps.
HTML5 Test: Part of the "next-gen" tag attributed to popular Web browsers today has a lot to do with their HTML5 compatibility. Internet Explorer 9 beta, Firefox 4 beta 6 (Gecko), Chrome 7 beta (WebKit), Safari 5.0.2 (WebKit), and Opera 10.70 (Presto) beta all have improved HTML5 support from previous versions. In our beta browser speed test, Google Chrome 7 beta raced ahead of the pack with a score of 231, while Mozilla Firefox 4 beta 6 came second with 204 points -- IE9 beta came in last with 96 points.
Acid3: Prominently referred by many browser speed test and comparison stories, Acid3 tests a browser's capability to follow select Web standards elements. Many browsers today -- Opera, Safari, Chrome -- have managed to ace the Acid3 score of 100/100. That story continues with the latest beta builds of Opera, Safari, and Chrome Web browsers. Mozilla Firefox 4 beta 6 managed 97/100 while Internet Explorer 9 beta scored 95/100 on Acid3 -- a slight improvement over IE9's technical preview.
JSBenchmark: JSBenchmark is a quick benchmarking utility used to evaluate and compare Javascript engines of Web browsers. In our beta browser speed test, Google Chrome 7 beta again trumped the others with a JSBenchmark score of 827.33, Opera 10.70 beta came in second with 649.33 JSBenchmark points. Mozilla Firefox 4 beta 6 managed the lowest JSBenchmark score of 456.33 points.
Final Thoughts: So out of the four browser beta speed tests, IE9 beta managed to get ahead of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera in only one test -- GPU acceleration. It plays catch up on all other fronts with the competition. Google's latest Chrome 7 beta shows a lot of promise as it finished on top in 3 out of 4 browser speed tests, making it the fastest browser within these tests. Firefox, Opera and Safari Web browsers, from the evidence, have work to do to give Google Chrome a run for its money.
Note: We tried to do the browser speed test by downloading the latest version of the five most popular Web browsers -- Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera -- available as of yesterday. We would also like to point out that for the comprehensivity of the article, we had to feature Apple Safari's 5.0.2 even though it isn't technically a beta build of the browser.
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