Intel C++ compiler as an alternative to Microsoft's?

Question

Is anyone here using the Intel C++ compiler instead of Microsoft\'s Visual c++ compiler?

I would be very interested to hear your experience about integration, performan

Answer 1

I've had only one experience with this compiler, compiling STLPort. It took MSVC around 5 minutes to compile it and ICC was compiling for more than an hour. It seems that their template compilation is very slow. Other than this I've heard only good things about it.

Here's something interesting:

Intel's compiler can produce different versions of pieces of code, with each version being optimised for a specific processor and/or instruction set (SSE2, SSE3, etc.). The system detects which CPU it's running on and chooses the optimal code path accordingly; the CPU dispatcher, as it's called.

"However, the Intel CPU dispatcher does not only check which instruction set is supported by the CPU, it also checks the vendor ID string," Fog details, "If the vendor string says 'GenuineIntel' then it uses the optimal code path. If the CPU is not from Intel then, in most cases, it will run the slowest possible version of the code, even if the CPU is fully compatible with a better version."

OSnews article here