V8 is faster than GCC

http://wingolog.org/archives/2011/06/10/v8-is-faster-than-gcc

by wingo • 15 years ago

68 24 15 years ago

pcwalton• 15 years ago

This is a banal point. Yes, separate compilation hurts performance. But that's what link-time optimization is for. GCC and LLVM alike can both do link-time optimization.

You might as well say "gcc with -O0 is slower than V8, therefore V8 is faster than gcc".

rayiner• 15 years ago

Link-time optimization is almost never useful.

strmpnk2• 15 years ago

Obscure? It's interesting but I can't see a case where I'd be recompiling C code every time I want to run something. On the other hand, we can't just go AOT compile using V8 (AFAIK) so let's call V8 always slower?

rcfox• 15 years ago

> I can't see a case where I'd be recompiling C code every time I want to run something.

How about when you're writing a program in C?

strmpnk2• 15 years ago

Fair enough, though I'm rarely obsessed with the absolute speed of code while developing. Tools like clang have brought this experience a long way as well.

PassTheAmmo• 15 years ago

How about trying a benchmark that mimics an actual program that someone would use.

nickik• 15 years ago

Every reader of that blogpost: Oh blabla unfair, the C code of the thing would be faster if the thing had included the other thing blabla.

I think its a fun benchmark :)

d0vs• 15 years ago

What.

cloudhead• 15 years ago

I can't even begin to explain how wrong this benchmark and the author's conclusion is. I'd rather see a benchmark of apache vs a fibonacci function than read this nonsense.

nicklovescode2• 15 years ago

I just ran it, fib is roughly six times faster

krakensden• 15 years ago

recursive fib, memoized fib, or O(1) fib?

Also, given that apache should run indefinitely, I would think the preferred result would be that fib is infinitely faster.

ldng• 15 years ago

Andy Wingo knows quite well what he's doing. It's just a fun post. Read his 2/3 previous posts if you want more serious stuff on V8.

neuroelectronic• 15 years ago

No kidding.

st3fan• 15 years ago

Yay! Another useless benchmark!

hammerdr• 15 years ago

In my mind, the value of this benchmark isn't to prove that V8 is absolutely faster than C but that there is intrinsic value in doing runtime compilation instead of / on top of compile-time optimizations.

It's a demonstration of why run time optimizing compilers/runtimes may one day become faster than compile time optimizing compilers.

V8 is faster than GCC

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