Category: Benchmark metrics

Tracking device evolution with WebXPRT ‘15

on October 20, 2016

The XPRT Spotlight on the Apple iPhone 7 Plus gives us a great opportunity to look at the progression of WebXPRT 2015 scores for the iPhone line and see how hardware and software advances are often reflected in benchmark scores over time. This week, we’ll see how the evolution of Apple’s mobile CPU architecture has boosted web-browsing performance. In a future post, we’ll see the impact of iOS development.

As we’ve discussed in the past, multiple factors can influence benchmark results. While we’re currently using the iPhone as a test case, the same principles apply to all types of devices. We should also note that WebXPRT is an excellent gauge of expected web-browsing performance during real-world tasks, which is different than pure CPU performance in isolation.

When looking at WebXPRT ’15 scores in our database, we see that iPhone web-browsing performance has more than doubled in the last three years. In 2013, an iPhone 5s with an Apple A7 chip earned an overall WebXPRT ’15 score of 100. Today, a new iPhone 7 Plus with an A10 Fusion chip reports a score somewhere close to 210. The chart below shows the WebXPRT ’15 scores for a range of iPhones, with each iPhone’s CPU noted in parentheses.

Moving forward from the A7 chip in the iPhone 5s to the A8 chip in the iPhone 6 and the A9 chip in the iPhone 6s and SE, we see consistent score increases. The biggest jump, at over 48%, appears in the transition from the A8 to the A9 chip, implying that folks upgrading from an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus to anything newer would notice a huge difference in web performance.

In general, folks upgrading from an A9-based phone (6S, 6S Plus, or SE) to an A10-based phone (7 and 7 Plus) could expect an increase in web performance of over 6.5%.

The scores we list represent the median of a range of scores for each device in our database. These scores come from our own testing, as well as from device reviews from media outlets such as AnandTech, Notebookcheck, and Tom’s Hardware. It’s worth noting that the highest A9 score in our database (AnandTech’s iPhone SE score of 205) overlaps with the lowest A10 Fusion score (Tom’s Hardware of Germany’s iPhone 7 score of 203), so while the improvement in median scores is clear, performance will vary according to individual phones and other factors.

Soon, we’ll revisit our iPhone test case to see how software updates can boost device performance without any changes in hardware. For more details on the newest iPhones, visit the Spotlight comparison page to see how iPhone 7 and 7 Plus specs and WebXPRT scores stack up.

Justin

Posted in Apple, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, Performance benchmarking, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2015 |

Doing things a little differently

By Eric Hale

on September 8, 2016

I enjoyed watching the Apple Event live yesterday. There were some very impressive announcements. (And a few which were not so impressive – the Breathe app would get on my nerves really fast!)

One thing that I was very impressed by was the ability of the iPhone 7 Plus camera to create depth-of-field effects. Some of the photos demonstrated how the phone used machine learning to identify people in the shot and keep them in focus while blurring the background, creating a shallow depth of field. This causes the subjects in a photo to really stand out. The way we take photos is not the only thing that’s changing. There was a mention of machine learning being part of Apple’s QuickType keyboard, to help with “contextual prediction.”

This is only one product announcement, but it’s a reminder that we need to be constantly examining every part of the XPRTs. Recently, we talked a bit about how people will be using their devices in new ways in the coming months, and we need to be developing tests for these new applications. However, we must also stay focused on keeping existing tests fresh. People will keep taking photos, but today’s photo editing tests may not be relevant a year or two from now.

Were there any announcements yesterday that got you excited? Let us know!

Eric

Posted in Apple, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, Future of performance evaluation, Machine learning, Phones, What makes a good benchmark? |

Apples to apples?

By Eric Hale

on August 25, 2016

PCMag published a great review of the Opera browser this week. In addition to looking at the many features Opera offers, the review included performance data from multiple benchmarks, which look at areas such as hardware graphics acceleration, WebGL performance, memory consumption, and battery life.

Three of the benchmarks have a significant, though not exclusive, focus on JavaScript performance: Google Octane 2.0, JetStream 1.1, and WebXPRT 2015. The three benchmarks did not rank the browsers the same way, and in the past, we‘ve discussed some of the reasons why this happens. In addition to the difference in tests, there are also sometimes differences in approaches that are worth considering.

For example, consider the test descriptions for JetStream 1.1. You’ll immediately notice that the tests are much lower-level tests than the ones in WebXPRT. However, consider these phrases from a few of the test descriptions:

code-first-load “…This test attempts to defeat the browser’s caching capabilities…”
splay-latency “Tests the worst-case performance…”
zlib “…modified to restrict code caching opportunities…”

While the XPRTs test typical performance for higher level applications, the tests in JetStream are tweaked to stress devices in very specific ways, some of which are not typical. The information these tests provide can be very useful for engineers and developers, but may not be as meaningful to the typical user.

I have to stress that both approaches are valid, but they are doing somewhat different things. There’s a cliché about comparing apples to apples, but not all apples are the same. If you’re making a pie, a Granny Smith would be a good choice, but for snacking, you might be better off with a Red Delicious. Knowing a benchmark’s purpose will help you find the results that are most meaningful to you.

Eric

Posted in Benchmark metrics, Browser-based benchmarks, JavaScript, Performance benchmarking, WebGL, WebXPRT, What makes a good benchmark? |

Getting it right

By Eric Hale

on June 2, 2016

Back in April Bill announced that we are working on a cross-platform benchmark. We asked for your thoughts and comments, and you’ve been great! We really appreciate all the great ideas.

We’ve been using code from MobileXPRT and TouchXPRT as the basis for some experiments. In his post, Bill talked about the difficulty of porting applications. However, even though we have expertise in porting applications, it’s proving more difficult than we originally thought. Benchmarks are held to a higher standard than most applications. It’s not enough for the code to run reliably and efficiently, it must compare the different platforms fairly.

One thing we know for sure: getting it right is going to take a while. However, we owe it to you to make sure that the benchmark is reliable and fair on all platforms it supports. We will, of course, keep you informed as things progress.

In the meantime, keep sending your ideas!
Eric

Posted in Android, Application-based benchmarks, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, iOS, MobileXPRT, Performance benchmarking, TouchXPRT, WebXPRT, Windows 10 |

Looking ahead

By Eric Hale

on April 21, 2016

It’s only been a couple of weeks since we announced a cross-platform XPRT. It’s still early days, but we’ve already started getting ideas from vendors and media—from both people within the community and those who have not yet joined. We’re incorporating these ideas into our investigations, and plan to be sending a design document for the community to critique in a few weeks.

However, we are always looking ahead and Bill’s trip to IDF16 got us thinking about future benchmarks. Virtual reality is obviously going to be big. Bill said that he thinks he saw more things using the Oculus Rift than there are Oculus Rifts in the world! The Internet of Things has been ramping up for a while now, and shows no sign of slowing down. Computer vision is another emerging area, one with many possible applications. There are a lot of exciting possibilities!

As always, we want to know what you think. What upcoming technologies are you excited about? What would like to see in these benchmarks? Please let us know!

Eric

Posted in Android, Benchmark metrics, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Cross-platform benchmarks, Future of performance evaluation, IDF, iOS, MobileXPRT, Virtual reality, Windows 10 |

One benchmark to test them all

By Bill Catchings

on April 7, 2016

It’s no secret that the XPRTs are a great way to get device results you can count on. Tens of thousands of people over six continents have used the XPRTs to help them make smart buying choices, and over a thousand media outlets have quoted XPRT results when reporting on the hottest tech. WebXPRT has always been the “go to” XPRT, because you can use it to test the widest range of devices. WebXPRT runs in the browser, however, so browser performance influences the results.

For a long time, our members and others have asked for a tool that would let you compare application performance on any type of device. People want a cross-platform XPRT that runs on devices the same way apps do.

We’re excited to announce that we’re going to create just that tool! Specifically, we’re going to create a version of MobileXPRT that runs on Android, iOS, and Windows.

This will not be easy. At one point in my career, I was in charge of a group that ported applications between platforms, and I learned from hands-on experience that doing that job well is very difficult. It’s not enough to simply make the application run; it also has to run efficiently on each type of system. MobileXPRT works at the application level, so we’ll have to deal with the many differences in the operating system architectures and APIs. We’ll have to make sure the code runs well on all three target OSes.

We’re willing to do all this work because the need for such a tool has never been greater. More and more devices hit the market all the time, and choosing the ones you want is tougher than ever. iPhone or Android phone? Windows tablet, Android tablet, or iPad?

The coming MobileXPRT will let buyers around the world answer those questions.

We’re not going to do this work in isolation. We will reach out to the OS vendors, because we want their input, comments, and help. We’ll make the source available to them, and we welcome their critiques and guidance in creating the best possible version for each OS.

Of course, we very much want your input, too. Do you have any thoughts about what you’d like to see in a cross-platform XPRT? If so, let us know!

Bill

Last week in the XPRTs
We published the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight on the Apple iPhone SE.
We added one new MobileXPRT ’15 result.
We added seven new WebXPRT ’15 results.

Category: Benchmark metrics

Tracking device evolution with WebXPRT ‘15

Doing things a little differently

Apples to apples?

Getting it right

Looking ahead

One benchmark to test them all

Check out the other XPRTs: