# Yes, Math.pow() is slower than straight-up mulitplication! 😱

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/yes-math-pow-is-slower-than-straight-up-mulitplication/672465>\
**Category:** web dev\
**Created:** [January 4, 2025, 11:10pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/yes-math-pow-is-slower-than-straight-up-mulitplication/672465 "2025-01-04T23:10:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kirupa](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/kirupa/32/11616_2.png) [@kirupa](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kirupa)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2025, 11:10pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/yes-math-pow-is-slower-than-straight-up-mulitplication/672465/1 "2025-01-04T23:10:16Z")

</div>

If you happened to be in the middle of watching **The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug** and were suddenly shaken by the unmistakable urge to figure out if `Math.pow()` is faster than just multiplying the values together, here are the results:

 ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/e/c/ecea32a24c60d72675146ec79252f8cb307717e4.png)

The code I used for this very unofficial benchmark is:

```auto
// Let's run a benchmark comparing Math.pow vs multiplication
const iterations = 10000000;
const x = 2;

console.log("Running performance test...");

// Test Math.pow
const startPow = performance.now();
for (let i = 0; i < iterations; i++) {
  Math.pow(x, 4);
}
const endPow = performance.now();
const powTime = endPow - startPow;

// Test multiplication
const startMult = performance.now();
for (let i = 0; i < iterations; i++) {
  x * x * x * x;
}
const endMult = performance.now();
const multTime = endMult - startMult;

console.log(`Math.pow time: ${powTime.toFixed(2)}ms`);
console.log(`Multiplication time: ${multTime.toFixed(2)}ms`);
console.log(`Math.pow is ${(powTime / multTime).toFixed(2)}x slower than multiplication`);

```

I am multiplying a number to the 4th power, but the results were similar even when I was squaring or cubing the values.

**The net result of this is:** If your app’s biggest performance problem is in your use of `Math.pow()`, then do update your code to remove them. For 99.999% of the rest of us, consider this fun trivial knowledge with no actionable real work.

Cheers,  
Kirupa 🌩