A Linux Compiler Deathmatch: GCC, LLVM, DragonEgg, Open64, Etc...

Written by Michael Larabel in Software on 31 January 2011 at 01:09 AM EST. Page 5 of 5. 76 Comments.

There was not a huge difference in the speed of the resulting 7-Zip binaries with the five different compilers, but the vanilla GCC releases were trying to inch ahead.

LLVM-GCC 4.2.1 lagged behind GCC 4.4.5/4.5.1 with the FLAC audio encoding performance using the newly built binaries.

LLVM-GCC 4.2.1 also struggled badly with the GraphicsMagick benchmarks.

Overall these results are not too surprising compared to our previous Linux compiler benchmarks. Though with the addition of the Open64 compiler we see that in a number of benchmarks its able to produce incredibly fast binaries that are dramatically faster than those produced by GCC. We'll be monitoring Open64 more closely, but for now be sure to also see the original compiler deathmatch thread with those separate test results, including of compiler tuning options.

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Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.