A Review of GCC 4.0

ChaoticCoyote writes " I've just posted a short review of GCC 4.0, which compares it against GCC 3.4.3 on Opteron and Pentium 4 systems, using LAME, POV-Ray, the Linux kernel, and SciMark2 as benchmarks. My conclusion: Is GCC 4.0 better than its predecessors? In terms of raw numbers, the answer is a definite "no". I've tried GCC 4.0 on other programs, with similar results to the tests above, and I won't be recompiling my Gentoo systems with GCC 4.0 in the near future. The GCC 3.4 series still has life in it, and the GCC folk have committed to maintaining it. A 3.4.4 update is pending as I write this. That said, no one should expect a "point-oh-point-oh" release to deliver the full potential of a product, particularly when it comes to a software system with the complexity of GCC. Version 4.0.0 is laying a foundation for the future, and should be seen as a technological step forward with new internal architectures and the addition of Fortran 95. If you compile a great deal of C++, you'll want to investigate GCC 4.0. Keep an eye on 4.0. Like a baby, we won't really appreciate its value until it's matured a bit. "

Comments

Re:The performance of compiled code

[Minwee]

Unfortunately, including a faster computer with every copy of the code you distribute may be prohibitively expensive.

Re:The performance of compiled code

[kfg]

And in both groups you will find people who believe that execution speed is the measurement of code quality.

KFG

Re:Expected

[Rei]

I think the problem is that, if I'm not mistaken, he's testing all C code except Povray. The biggest reported improvements in 4.0 were for g++, so using such a small C++ sample base (Povray - one purpose, one set of design principles, few authors) seems bound to produce inaccurate benchmarking.

Further, on his most reasonable C benchmark (the Linux kernel), he only records compile time and binary size, but no performance. I call it the most reasonable benchmark because it has thousands of contributors and covers a wide range of code purposes and individual coding habits - and yet, performance is omitted.

In short, I wouldn't trust this benchmark. Probably the best benchmark would be to build a whole Gentoo system with both, with identical configurations, and check build times and performances ;)

Re:The performance of compiled code

[BlurredWeasel]

I run gentoo (not for performance, but mainly because I am familiar with it, and it is easy), and you know what...I don't bug hunt. And adding -fomitframepointer or whatever the hell the option is (its in my flags somewhere) doesn't cost me anything, makes my system say (made up stat) 5% faster and I am happy. It makes no sense why you should deride me (read: gentooers) as an idiot. We're just end users, and if we can get a little bit of performance for free, well why not.