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Intel Compiler Compared To gcc

Posted by timothy on from the depends-what-you-want dept.

Screaming Lunatic writes "Here are some benchmarks comparing Intel's compiler and gcc on Linux. Gcc holds it own in a lot of cases. But Intel, not surprisingly, excels on their own hardware. With Intel offering a free (as in beer) non-commercial license for their compiler, how many people are using Intel's compiler on a regular basis?"

5 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Could this replace gcc ? by zaqattack911 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm a little ignorant when it comes to this... gcc and linux have always gone hand in hand in my mind.

    Could we see versions of linux distributed with intel compiler instead of gcc? Can the intel compiler compile the kernel?

    Clue me in!

    --noodles

    1. Re:Could this replace gcc ? by Screaming+Lunatic · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Intel does not support all gcc language extensions; while it has been used to compile the Linux kernel and other free software projects, it is not a drop-in replacement for gcc.

      I'm somewhat dissappointed with kernel hackers (and other opensource developers) with respect to this issue. The issue is that the kernel is not ANSI-C compliant, not the fact that icc isn't compliant.

      It annoys me when MS does not support standards such OpenGL or with MSVC6 or with .doc files, etc.

      I'm not trying to troll here, but standards are a Good Thing(TM). But who am I to complain, Linus' tree is Linus' tree and he is allowed to do whatever he wants with it. Although, I'd like to see a hacker pick it up and port it to ANSI-C.

  2. gcc and Intel compilers by flockofseagulls · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But Intel, not surprisingly, excels on their own hardware.

    Do you mean to imply that Intel knows something about the Pentium architecture or instruction set that the authors of gcc don't? Does the code emitted from the Intel compiler use undocumented instructions? Intel's compiler is newer than gcc and wasn't developed with the "many eyes" that have looked at gcc over the years. It looks like Intel's engineers wrote a better compiler, simple as that.

    These benchmarks give gcc a black eye, but I doubt Intel was using undocumented secrets of their chip to defeat gcc. Sometimes the open source community has to admit that not every open source project represents the state-of-the-art.

    1. Re:gcc and Intel compilers by Screaming+Lunatic · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I wasn't trying to imply anything that you are implying that I tried to imply. Intel writes an optimizing compiler. The compiler optimizes well for Intel hardware. I don't think that there are undocumented instructions or any other conspiracy theory. Intel would be stupid do that. It would give AMD more opportunity to whip them with programs compiled with msvc or gcc.

      I do believe that Intel engineers probably have a better understanding of branch prediction and cache misses on Intel hardware.

      I don't think these benchmarks give gcc a black eye at all. gcc aims to be a cross-platform compiler first, optimizing compiler second. icc aims to be an optimizing compiler first, cross-platform compiler second.

      And chill with the conspiracy theories.

    2. Re:gcc and Intel compilers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yes intels compilers work better on intel hardware. GCC works well on how many different platforms? How many different architectures does it work with? I have specific optimizations for my athlon-tbird, which are different from regular athlon optimizations. Yes, intel's compiler works better on their hardware. But GCC works quite well on just about everything. And that, in my opinion, makes it better.