Rohit (@.) on 6/23/10 wrote:
---------------------------
>David Kanter (dkanter@realworldtech.com) on 6/23/10 wrote:
>---------------------------
>>Rohit (@.) on 6/22/10 wrote:
>>---------------------------
>>>Why did you not test it with GCC. On linux it shouldn't be >too bad either.
>>
>>Carlie didn't really recommend using GCC and frankly I expect ICC to be quite a bit better for this sort of code.
>>
>>David
>

IMO Sun has done its fair share of misleading benchmarking, however this entry is relatively interesting.

http://blogs.sun.com/BestPerf/entry/free_compiler_wins_nehalem_race

Without autopar, and with base flags only, it handily outperforms gcc on specfp2006 on Nehalem.

http://blogs.sun.com/jhenning/entry/sun_studio_trounces_intel_compiler

Showed it beating icc in a similar configuration, although both using peak flags in that case.

I have a theory that on a rather large and popular (commercial) enterprise software package (so primarily integer), sun cc does significantly better than gcc as well (though not as large gap as these FP tests). I'm handwaving a bit based on reported benchmark numbers from various sources, so my anecdote doesn't carry much weight unfortunately.