I'm on the market for a new bike. Something raceable, but I do a lot of climbing, so I'll be going with compact cranks, which is what I had on my previous primary bike. Old bikes had older 9-speed Ultegra, with non-Shimano cranksets. I'm not a master of bike adjustment, but I did a fair bit of tinkering with the shifting (especially front shifting), but was usually not able to completely resolve chain rub issues - which I think may have been due to some flex in the cranks, since the rub only occurs during part of the pedal stroke.

So now I'm looking at some new bike options, most of which feature Ultegra shifting components, but proprietary/third-party cranksets. For example, Fuji's Altamira 2.0 uses Fuji's own Oval brand, while various levels of the Specialized Tarmac use either FSA Gossamer Pro or FSA SL-K light. I'm not a weight weenie - slight differences in weight aren't much of a selling point for me. But I do value smooth shifting and noise-free riding. How much performance difference should I expect between these cranksets, and the ones that are actually part of the Shimano gruppos? What's the best way to evaluate this performance on test rides?