GCC 4.9 vs. LLVM Clang 3.5 On Intel's Haswell-E Platform Under Linux

With my Intel Core i7 5960X Haswell-E Linux review out there, one of the quick to be requested extra tests is benchmarking the i7-5960X 16-thread processor with LLVM/Clang against GCC. Here's some initial data comparing the compilers for this $1000+ processor.

From the Core i7 5960X system with Gigabyte X99-UD4-CF motherboard, 16GB DDR4 memory, and 128GB SSD, Ubuntu 14.10 was running on the system with its stock Linux 3.16 kernel. For this quick, one-page testing of the i7-5960X compilers I used the packaged GCC 4.9.1 amnd LLVM Clang 3.5.0 compilers found within the Ubuntu 14.10 package archive.

A variety of C/C++ benchmarks were used with compiling the benchmarks under each compiler while maintaining the same CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS. Those wanting to see the results can find them by clicking on 1409114-PTS-COREI75928 for these OpenBenchmarking.org-hosted Linux compiler benchmarks by the Phoronix Test Suite.

Those with other Linux hardware test requests can post in our forums or let me know on Twitter. Test priority from feedback is given to Phoronix Premium subscribers.