Benchmark: array vs Float64Array sort

Script Preparation code:

var a = [...Array(10000)].map(_ => Math.random());
var ta = (new Float64Array(10000)).map(_ => Math.random());

Tests:

array sort
a.sort();
typedArray sort
ta.sort();

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
array sort
typedArray sort

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 6 months ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 141 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
array sort	1818.5 Ops/sec
typedArray sort	40637.7 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

**Overview of the Benchmark**

The provided benchmark tests the performance difference between sorting an untyped JavaScript array (`a`) and a typed array (`Float64Array`, `ta`). A typed array is a binary data type that provides more efficient memory management and improved performance compared to an untyped array.

**Comparison Options**

Two options are being compared:

1. **Untyped Array (a) Sort**: The first option compares the performance of sorting an untyped JavaScript array (`a`).
2. **TypedArray Sort (ta)**: The second option compares the performance of sorting a typed array (`Float64Array`, `ta`).

**Pros and Cons of Each Approach**

* **Untyped Array (a) Sort**:
	+ Pros: Easy to create and manipulate, no special setup required.
	+ Cons: Less efficient than typed arrays due to dynamic memory allocation and type checking.
* **TypedArray Sort (ta)**:
	+ Pros: More efficient due to better memory management, improved performance, and reduced type checking overhead.
	+ Cons: Requires creating a typed array instance before sorting.

**Library Used**

The `Float64Array` is a JavaScript built-in class that represents an array of 64-bit floating-point numbers. Its purpose is to provide more efficient storage and manipulation of large numerical arrays compared to untyped arrays.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

There are no special JavaScript features or syntax being used in this benchmark beyond the use of typed arrays.

**Other Alternatives**

Alternative approaches to sorting an array could include:

* Using a library like Lodash or Array.prototype.sort() with options (e.g., `sort()` with `{ unstable: true }` for stability).
* Using a parallel processing framework like Web Workers to sort multiple arrays concurrently.
* Implementing a custom sorting algorithm, such as quicksort or mergesort.

Keep in mind that these alternatives may not directly compare to the typed array approach being tested here.

Related benchmarks:

array vs Float64Array sort (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: array sort vs typedArray sort

Created: 4 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

array sort

typedArray sort

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model llama3.2:3b, generated one year ago):