Benchmarks of code generated by different versions of g ++
I am working on a runtime system for an application domain which is very performance sensitive. We work hard to maintain backward compatibility with older versions of the compiler, including avoiding the later implemented language constructs and synthesizing them for older versions.
However, I am concerned that these efforts are hurting our users by allowing them to continue using compiler releases that cost them tremendous performance. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a real comparison of runtime performance across releases. If anyone has links to reports on this issue, please post them.
I'd love to see tests that cover a wide range of releases (if you can go back to 3.2, which is surprising) and applications / tests
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Slightly dated, but still shows how much GCC has been achieved: This benchmark shows that GCC 4.4 with this new register allocator (IRA) and focus on optimization made it almost as powerful as ICC (which is considered the most aggressive optimizer).
I highly recommend using GCC 4.4 [.1].
If you are on Windows and using MinGW 3.4.x, you should upgrade NOW as this particular port is quite buggy and generates terrible code.
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