dhtml benchmark

Please open the graph merger in a new tab or window and leave it open during the tests.
Open all the browsers you want to test and then test the performance with the dhtml benchmark 01.
Copy the link urls into the graph merger, type the name of the test in the first column and merge the results.
Internet Explorer: Right-click on the "Result" link, choose "properties", copy the URL from the properties dialog.

I would suggest run the test up to about 300 objects, then click "pause" and "graph it".

dhtml benchmark 01 | dhtml benchmark 02 | graph merger

Results

The tests were made with an AMD Athlon II X4 3.2GHz, 4GB RAM, integrated ATI Radeon 3300 graphics, running under Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit.

Opera 11.50

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 - 32 Bit

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 - 64 Bit

Mozilla Firefox 5.0

Google Chrome 12

Opera 11.11

Out of competition, old browser

Opera 12 alpha b 1033

Opera 12 alpha b 1065

Stopped at 30fps

Merged results

Each browser was stopped at 300 objects.

Conclusion

While Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 5.0 perform better with a few elements, the variance of Opera's over all performance is smaller and such it offers higher frame rates with more than 100 rendered objects. Firefox and Chrome show a very jittery behavior, it seems that they prefers certain numbers of elements or have some cache problems. Firefox breaks down like Internet Explorer, whereas Chrome's performance is between Opera 11.11 and 11.50. Interestingly Internet Explorer 9 32 bit performed better than Internet Explorer 9 64 bit.

Opera 11.50 without Hardware Acceleration (HWA) starts at 200fps, delivers 97fps with 300 elements and 33fps with 995 elements.
Microsoft Internet Explorer with HWA starts at over 300fps with a few elments and delivers 33fps with 300 elements.
Mozilla Firefox 5.0 with HWA starts at 250fps and delivers 32fps with 300 elements.
Google Chrome 12 with HWA starts at 212fps, delivers 76fps with 300 elements and 33fps with 780 elements.
Opera 11.11 with the older JS engine starts at 92fps but manages to deliver about 75fps with 300 rendered objects too and renders 750 objects with 33fps (out of competition, old browser).
Opera 12 pre-alpha build 1033 without HWA starts at 252fps, delivers 102fps with 300 elements and 33fps with 1345 elements (out of competition, pre-alpha version)

Opera can render more than 995(!), Chrome more than 780 elements and Opera 11.11 still more than 740 elements at the same time before they break down to the same 33 fps rate like Internet Explorer 9 or Mozilla Firefox 5 with 300 rendered elements.