GCC worth using on Windows to replace MSVC?

Question

I currently develop in C++ on Windows, using Visual Studio 2010. After the official announcement of C++11, I have begun to use some of its features that are already available in

Answer 1

I want to add some information because the field may have changed since the question was asked.

The main problem for switching away from MSVC was the lack of a good IDE that flawlessly integrates with MinGW . Visual Studio is a very powerful tool and was the only player on Windows for quite some time. However, Jetbrains released a preview version of their new C++ IDE CLion some days ago.

The main benefit comes when working on cross platform applications. In this case, a GCC based tool chain can make life much easier. Moreover, CLion narrowly integrates with CMake, which is also a big plus compared to Visual Studio. Therefore, in my opinion, it is worth to consider switching to MinGW now.