diff --git a/benchmark/buffers/buffer-base64-encode.js b/benchmark/buffers/buffer-base64-encode.js
index f2b8e9a4821..3dcc13b6b67 100644
--- a/benchmark/buffers/buffer-base64-encode.js
+++ b/benchmark/buffers/buffer-base64-encode.js
@@ -28,9 +28,8 @@ function main(conf) {
   var b = Buffer(N);
   var s = '';
   for (var i = 0; i < 256; ++i) s += String.fromCharCode(i);
-
-  bench.start();
   for (var i = 0; i < N; i += 256) b.write(s, i, 256, 'ascii');
+  bench.start();
   for (var i = 0; i < 32; ++i) b.toString('base64');
   bench.end(64);
 }