Firefox performance on 6-core hyper-threaded CPU

[Antnee]

Hi guys,

I have a question for any of you that use Firefox on modern CPUs that have many cores and hyper-threading type systems:

I'm currently running an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ with 6GB RAM and I run a LOT of tabs at a time (I work as a web/database developer). At the moment, my FF10 instance is running at 1.3GB and core usage for this process often bounces up to 100% (ie 50% total). Admittedly I use a lot of plugins like Firebug that are performance hogs, but hear me out....

Anyway, I have an i7-3930k upgrade due next week, along with 32GB RAM. In general I know that this will be a HUGE improvement over my current PC, but since Firefox still doesn't appear to be able to properly take advantage of highly multi-threaded CPUs, I'm wondering what switching to a 6-core hyper-threaded machine will do to my FF performance.

I know some people will already be itching to say "use Chrome", "use Safari" or "use Opera" (OK, maybe not so much the last two) and the honest truth is that I do use all of them (kinda have to, you know? IE too) but I find FF is the best for productivity. Chrome's debugging tools aren't as good, for a start.

Anyway, browser preference aside, how do you guys find FF performance on machines with CPUs more like the one that should be turning up next week?

Cheers all

 

[Antnee]

Good to know. Not comfortable with SSDs just yet (that's a whole other story) but I'm definitely going to go that way one day soon.

I tried the MineField FF beta a while back but extension compatibility was awful. Has that improved now? If so then I'll definitely give something like Waterfox (which I'd never heard of, admittedly) a shot. Cheers

 

[Antnee]

It is, and FF10 has finally got a built in inspector which is long overdue, but it's not Firebug. As power-hungry as Firebug is, it's also essential for 90% of all full-time devs

 

[Antnee]

Trying Waterfox at the moment. Unfortunately v10 isn't yet available according to their website, but yes, it does appear to be faster so far. Also, oddly, my memory usage seems a lot lower after a similar amount of time using it as when I was using FF10 this morning. CPU usage is definitely better so far.

Maybe FF10 has reintroduced the legendary FF memory leaks that they've been claiming to have resolved for a few versions now?

 

[Antnee]

Firefox can only utilise one CPU core (plus an additional one for any plugins which are running, e.g. Flash). It won't really be any quicker on a 6-core machine than on a 2-core machine..

Exactly, this is why I'm asking. I know my current PC is OLD, but I also know that some high core-count CPUs sacrificed clock-speed per core in order to offer more threads (I'm thinking like the UltraSPARC-T1 here). I'm assuming that each individual core (or should I say, thread) on the i7-3930k is considerably more powerful than each core on my X2-6000? If not, then my FF will still be problematic.

I do agree completely that IE and Chrome have MUCH better support for multiple threads etc, but Chrome crashes more often than a 17-year old who just passed his test and runs his car on remoulds. It also doesn't have the necessary plugins that I use for work. I do use Chrome, and to a lesser extent Opera, Safari and IE, but FF is my primary browser and needs to be for the time being.

BTW, Waterfox instance now up to 1.4GB and the CPU usage keeps hitting maximum. It does however feel a little faster. Not sure if that's my imagination or not. I suspect a lot of this is down to multiple Google Apps loaded in tabs (spreadsheets, GMail etc) and Plesk control panels for our servers. However, I've been using FF like this for a long time and it just seems to be getting worse!

 

[Antnee]

Good to know. I've also tried some tips I've found online for limiting the maximum RAM that FF can utilise, but that failed miserably. It's great that it holds the history of every tab that I've opened, even after closing the window, reopening and restoring tabs, but it would be lovely to find a way to say "only hold the last 10 pages" maybe. No solution I've tried seems to actually work. It's quite frustrating!