Usenet Newsreader Benchmark - Results

some results from news server benchmarks


Welcome to the results page for the usemark benchmark. This page hosts the results of some news servers that I have had personal experience with. Currently, measurement are included that compare giganews, supernews, and newsguy. To download usemark and benchmark your own servers, click the link below.

Click HERE to go to the usemark download page, where you can download the benchmark program

Standard Disclaimer: There are a great many factors that may influence the performance of a particular newsreader session, including all of the following:

Server Performance
This is the one we're most interested in -- is the news server faster than other competing servers. Different news servers have different connections to the internet, different server hardware, and different amounts of load.

Internet Connection
The internet connection between your home computer and the Internet has potentially the most impact on your newsreader performance. If you have a slow dialup, then you will necessarily get worse performance than a DSL or cable modem.

Routing
Your computer, and the news server may be located in different parts of the country. For example, your house may be on the west coast and the server is on the east coast. Thus, the route that the packets take between your computer and the news server may impact the connection.

Okay, on to the performance numbers. All of these measurements were performed using the usemark benchmark. Usemark was configured with 25 trials and to use an average of 512 KB messages. The newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.mp3 was used. My connection to the Internet is a Comcast.net cable modem located on the west coast. The test was performaned at approximately 10:00pm pacific time.

Service Server Name Throughput (KB/second) Latency (seconds) Raw Data
Comcast (backed by giganews) newsgroups.comcast.net
222
1.106
link
Supernews news.supernews.com
201
1.718
link
Newsguy enews.newsguy.com
495
0.753
link

The comcast/giganews and newsguy measurements were pretty much equivalent. Comcast/giganews had a slight edge over newsguy in throughput, but lagged a little in latency. There's enough variability in the measurements that we really can't declare a winner between the two. What really suprised me was supernews, which had a whopping 495 KB/s in throughput and a low latency of 0.753. I'd expected comcast to outperform the others because comcast is also my ISP.

Again, I want to stress -- your mileage may vary -- depending on your internet connection, geographic location, and a host of other variables, you might find that you receive better or worse performance than what's listed above. I'd be interested to hear your results, and you're welcome to email them to me at webmaster@newsgroupdownloaders.com.

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