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Intel C/C++ compiler vs. GNU gcc/MS Visual Studio
the_real_tigga writes "OpenMag features a benchmark review of the Intel C/C++ compiler as opposed to gcc on linux and Microsoft Visual Studio compiler on Windows XP. Not surprisingly (for me at least), icc beats them both, with dramatic performance improvements. Too bad they chose to review gcc version 2.95, and not the 3.x series, which is known to produce faster code. What is surprising, even AMD CPUs benefit from the icc-compiled code. There is another version of the article here,
and they provide a download of the used tools , so you can try it at home too!"
I have heard by word of mouth that the linux kernel depends upon bugs and quirks in gcc in order to compile and function correctly. I am not sure if this is absolutely true, but it's believable. If it is indeed true, then the linux kernel can't be compiled with the Intel compiler.
However, if it is false, then I would very much like someone to provide me with instructions (I am not L33t) on how to re-compile the kernel with the intel compiler. If it gives that much of a performance increase, even on AMD cpus (I myself have a P3-450, roomate has athlon 1ghz) then I'm there.
Anyone who says anything about it not being free as in speech can shut up now ^_^
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... Intel has the nice compiler that generate really fast code. Presumably it's getting more done per CPU cycle on average by being smarter about scheduling and not wasting so many cycles.
Intel also has this fancy new hyperthreading thing built into its newest CPUs that speeds things up by (very roughly speaking) letting one thread use another thread's wasted CPU cycles.
Does a vastly more efficient compiler make hyperthreading ineffective? Is there some sort of balance that a really great compiler would need to strike between the fastest code and the code that will work best on Intel's fancy new CPU's if the app your are going to run is multi-threaded?
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
FYI: you should be able to download the latest Platform SDK from microsoft which includes the latest build tools.
.pdb (debug info) format. That said, the interface for mspdb70.dll and mspdb60.dlls look roughly the same, so you might get away renaming dropping the 70 version into VS6.
Don't think so. There's the latest IA64 compiler, yes, but no IA32 compiler.
It doesn't have MFC/ATL, but you should be able to still use the versions from VC6 with the new compiler/linker.
I'd be surprised - they've changed the