Benchmark: Math.pow vs ** vs *, square only

Tests:

pow
var tmp = Math.pow(6, 22);
**
var tmp = 6 ** 2;
*
var tmp = 6 * 6;

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
pow
**
*

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 2 years ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/121.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 121 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
pow	16736924.0 Ops/sec
**	182088656.0 Ops/sec
*	172997888.0 Ops/sec

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

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

Let's dive into the world of JavaScript microbenchmarks on MeasureThat.net.

**Benchmark Overview**

The provided benchmark measures the performance difference between three ways to calculate the square of a number: using `Math.pow()`, exponentiation (`**`), and multiplication (`*`). The goal is to determine which method is the most efficient.

**Options Compared**

There are two main options compared:

1. **`Math.pow()`**: This function takes two arguments, the base and the exponent, and returns the result of raising the base to the power of the exponent.
2. **Exponentiation (`**`)**: This operator is a shorthand for calculating the power of a number. It's used by some JavaScript engines to optimize performance.
3. **Multiplication (`*`)**: This operator can be used to calculate the square of a number, but it's not as efficient as `Math.pow()` or exponentiation.

**Pros and Cons**

Here are the pros and cons of each approach:

1. **`Math.pow()`**:
	* Pros: Well-defined, widely supported, and relatively fast.
	* Cons: May have overheard performance due to its explicit function call.
2. **Exponentiation (`**`)**:
	* Pros: Optimized for performance in some JavaScript engines, concise syntax.
	* Cons: Not universally supported, may not be available in older browsers or environments.
3. **Multiplication (`*`)**:
	* Pros: Simple, easy to understand.
	* Cons: May have significant overhead due to the repeated multiplication of 6 with itself.

**Library**

None of the test cases rely on any external libraries.

**Special JS Feature/Syntax**

The `**` exponentiation operator is a special feature in JavaScript that's only available in ECMAScript 2015 and later. It's not supported in older browsers or environments, which might explain why Chrome 121 performs better than other browsers.

**Other Alternatives**

If you need to calculate the square of a number, other alternatives could be:

1. `Math.sqrt()` followed by multiplication (e.g., `6 * Math.sqrt(6)`).
2. Using the `^` operator for exponentiation (e.g., `6 ^ 2`).

However, these approaches are likely to be less efficient than `Math.pow()` or exponentiation.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, the MeasureThat.net benchmark measures the performance difference between three ways to calculate the square of a number: using `Math.pow()`, exponentiation (`**`), and multiplication (`*`). The results indicate that exponentiation is the fastest method in Chrome 121, likely due to its optimization. However, this might not be the case in other browsers or environments.

Related benchmarks:

Math.pow vs ** vs *, square only (version: 0)

Comparing performance of: pow vs ** vs *

Created: 2 years ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

pow

**

*

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

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