ESP32 beats STM32F407 and is 48 times faster than the Mega 2560?

Other Hardware 3rd Party Boards
1 
Mega 2560.... (16Mhz):......1'326'856 us
UNO.......... (16MHz):........861'460 us
Arduino DUE.. (84MHz):........445'766 us
STM32F103C... (72MHz):........153'107 us
ESP8266..... (160MHz):........103'134 us
STM32F407V.. (168MHz):.........34'576 us
ESP32....... (240MHz):.........27'347 us

sketch:

//#define led 13    // DUE/Mega/UNO
//#define led PE0   // STM32F407V generic
//#define led PC13  // STM32F103C generic
//#define led 2     // ESP32/ESP8266


uint32_t micros1 = 0;

// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
  // initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
  pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(115200);
  Serial.println("Start");
}

long i = 0;

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {

  micros1 = micros();

  for (i = 0; i < 100000; i++) {
    digitalWrite(led, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
    digitalWrite(led, LOW);    // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
  }

  Serial.println(micros() - micros1);

  delay(1000);                       // wait for a second
}

It's really unfortunate the ESP32 to have a few general purpose pins.

2

I wouldn't even imagine such a big difference. Thanks :slight_smile:

3

Nice test !

SAMD21 @48MHZ (Zero, MKR, M0) : 339'355

That is faster than the Due, but the digitalWrite() is very short and optimized code for the SAMD21.

4

Cool!

5

digitalWrite() is far from optimized....I get 42 ' 910 us on a DUE for your 100000 iterations if I toggle led pin with:

PIOB->PIO_ODSR ^= PIO_ODSR_P27; instead of a super slow digitalWrtite()

and 23 ' 638 us if I toggle led pin with:

PIOB->PIO_SODR = PIO_SODR_P27; // set pin
PIOB->PIO_CODR = PIO_CODR_P27; // clear pin

Cool bro !

6

the digitalWrite() is very short and optimized code for the SAMD21.

Not really. (Somewhat disappointingly, it's about as much slower than "direct port IO" as the AVR code (~40x) https://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=133497)
Adafruit Metro M4 (SAMD51 @ 120MHz): 91795
The Mega2560 time (slowness) surprises me, and the ESP32 is surprisingly fast.

7

Wow, this benchmark is wrong in so many levels.....

You are comparing potatoes to bananas – if You want real speed use direct port manipulation with ALL boards and You still will not get "real" data due to some boards being more optimized with IDE/language than others.

Watch from 2 min mark:
Port manipulation

8

Well, why don't you make a good Arduino benchmark then :wink:
Without direct port manipulation, but with balanced calculations of 32-bit float, calculations with 8, 16, 32 and 64-bit integers, and with common arduino functions. It should run on Arduino Uno.

For a quick test, the BigNumber for Pi would be nice :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Koepel:
Well, why don't you make a good Arduino benchmark then :wink:
Without direct port manipulation, but with balanced calculations of 32-bit float, calculations with 8, 16, 32 and 64-bit integers, and with common arduino functions. It should run on Arduino Uno.

For a quick test, the BigNumber for Pi would be nice :stuck_out_tongue:

I think You missed the point, I think original intentions was to compare I/O speed, not calculation speed. There are plenty calculations benchmarks already. And to make proper I/O benchmark will require digging in all these boards datasheets, finding correct registers... Much time I rather spend on doing something else. My goal was to show that this benchmark is far from actual capabilities of these boards.

Tho here is STM32 Port manipulation code, feel free to do proper benchmark:

GPIOB_BASE->BSRR = 0b00000000000000000000001000000000;   // PB9 HIGH
GPIOB_BASE->BSRR = 0b00000010000000000000000000000000;   // PB9 LOW

Running code above, but changed to port manipulation I'm getting 38911 on STM32F103C, almost 4 times faster, I hope this proves my point.

10

3Dgeo:
You are comparing potatoes to bananas – if You want real speed use direct port manipulation with ALL boards and You still will not get "real" data due to some boards being more optimized with IDE/language than others.

Direct port manipulation will always be the fastest but reduces code portability. For most users the Arduino built in I/O commands is all they need.

I have not yet tried the tests posted here on the esp8266 or ESP32

11

The original benchmark is fine. It compares the speed of the stock digitalWrite() across multiple boards.
That does make it a "library benchmark" rather than CPU benchmark, but it's still valid (more valid than just comparing clock rates, for example.)

It'd be nice if digitalWrite() were more consistent internally (on some boards, it will turn off PWM if a prior analogWrite() has been done. On other boards it doesn't (and I'm not sure what happens.))

Note that the ESP32 boards seem to locate digitalWrite() in RAM, which is typically faster than running it from flash.

PS: do not try to disassemble ESP32 code with the ESP8266 version of objdump!

12

I once published a benchmark feat. low and high level tests, and GPIO r/w for an AVR both by registers and by digitalRead/Write:

https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=431169.msg4144804#msg4144804

test design:
0 int_Add 50,000,000 int +,- plus counter
1 int_Mult 10,000,000 int ,/ plus counter
2 fp32_ops 2,500,000 fp32 mult, transc. plus counter
3 fp64_ops 2,500,000 fp64 mult, transc. plus counter (if N/A: 32bit)
4 randomize 2,500,000 Mersenne PRNG (+ * & ^ << >>)
5 matrx_algb 150,000 2D Matrix algebra (mult, det)
6 arr_sort 1500 shellsort of random array[500]
7 GPIO toggle 6,000,000 toggle GPIO r/w plus counter
8 Graphics 108 textlines + 10*8 shapes + 20 clrscr

.

Benchmarks:

Arduino MEGA + ILI9225 + Karlson UTFT + Arduino GPIO-r/w
0 90244 int_Add
1 237402 int_Mult
2 163613 fp32_ops(float)
3 163613 fp32_ops(float=double)
4 158567 randomize
5 46085 matrx_algb
6 23052 arr_sort
7 41569 GPIO toggle
8 62109 Graphics
runtime ges.: 986254
benchmark: 51

Arduino MEGA + ILI9225 + Karlson UTFT + Register bitRead/Write
0 90238 int_Add
1 237387 int_Mult
2 163602 fp32_ops (float)
3 163602 fp32_ops (float=double)
4 158557 randomize
5 45396 matrx_algb
6 23051 arr_sort
7 4528 GPIO_toggle bit r/w
8 62106 Graphics
runtime ges.: 948467
benchmark: 53

Arduino MEGA + adafruit_ILI9341 Hardware-SPI Arduino GPIO r/w
0 90244 int_Add
1 237401 int_Mult
2 163612 fp32_ops (float)
3 163612 fp32_ops (float=double)
4 158725 randomize
5 46079 matrx_algb
6 23051 arr_sort
7 41947 GPIO toggle
8 6915 Graphics
runtime ges.: 931586
benchmark: 54

Arduino MEGA + adafruit_ILI9341 Hardware-SPI GPIO register r/w
0 90244 int_Add
1 237401 int_Mult
2 163612 fp32_ops (float)
3 163612 fp32_ops (float=double)
4 158725 randomize
5 46079 matrx_algb
6 23051 arr_sort
7 4528 GPIO toggle register r/w
8 6915 Graphics
runtime ges.: 894167
benchmark: 56

Arduino/Adafruit M0 + adafruit_ILI9341 Hardware-SPI
0 7746 int_Add
1 15795 int_Mult
2 89054 fp32_ops
3 199888 fp64_ops(double)
4 17675 randomize
5 18650 matrx_algb
6 6328 arr_sort
7 9944 GPIO_toggle
8 6752 Graphics
runtime ges.: 371832
benchmark: 134

Arduino DUE + adafruit_ILI9341 Hardware-SPI
0 4111 int_Add
1 1389 int_Mult
2 29124 fp32_ops(float)
3 57225 fp64_ops(double)
4 3853 randomize
5 4669 matrx_algb
6 2832 arr_sort
7 11859 GPIO_toggle
8 6142 Graphics
runtime ges.: 121204
benchmark: 413

Arduino/Adafruit M4 120MHz + adafruit_HX8357 Hardware-SPI
0 2253 int_Add
1 872 int_Mult
2 2773 fp32_ops (float)
3 24455 fp64_ops (double)
4 1680 randomize
5 1962 matrx_algb
6 1553 arr_sort
7 2395 GPIO_toggle
8 4600 Graphics
runtime ges.: 39864
benchmark: 1254

Arduino/Adafruit ESP32 + adafruit_HX8357 Hardware-SPI
0 2308 int_Add
1 592 int_Mult
2 1318 fp32_ops
3 14528 fp64_ops
4 825 randomize
5 1101 matrx_algb
6 687 arr_sort
7 972 GPIO_toggle
8 3053 Graphics
runtime ges.: 25384
benchmark: 1969

Raspberry Pi:

Raspi 2 (v1): 4x 900MHz, GPU 400MHz, no CPU overclock, full-HD, openVG:
0 384 int_Add
1 439 int_Mult
2 346 fp32_ops(float)
3 441 fp64_ops(double)
4 399 randomize
5 173 matrx_algb
6 508 arr_sort
7 823 GPIO_toggle
8 2632 graphics
runtime ges.: 6145
benchmark: 8137

13

as to GPIO r/w,

on a Mega2560 it's
41569 ms (Arduino digitalRead/Write)
4528 ms (Register bit r/w)

M0 SAMD21: 9944 ms (digitalRead/Write)
Arduino Due: 11859 ms (digitalRead/Write)
Adafruit M4 120MHz: 2395 ms (digitalRead/Write)
Adafruit ESP32: 972 ms (digitalRead/Write)

14

Very well guys!

Congratulations on the additional information and explanations!

Information is always welcome!

Because datasheets are usually just summaries, and not everyone can understand them so easily.

Thank you!