This page compares the compilation time of the GCC (the GNU Compiler Collection free compiler) compiler on two recent Linux/Debian/Sid destop machines. It may help developers to choose a desktop, especially if they have to work on the GCC compiler itself.
The two desktops compared are my office desktop and my own home self-built machine (The curious reader might guess which is which by knowing that I do like listening to russian classic music).
| what | #1 | #2 | notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| hostname | glinka | is003339 | |
| Linux distribution | Debian/Sid/AMD64 (x86_64) | Debian/Sid/AMD64 (x86_64) | both systems updated on may 23 2006 |
| Linux kernel | 2.6.16.17+basile0 SMP | 2.6.16.17+basile SMP | self compiled recent kernels with builtin support for disk and Ext3 filesystem |
| desktop model | self-assembled, ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard, |
DELL Optiplex GX620 | |
| chipset | Nforce4 SLI | Intel 945 | |
| processor | AMD64 X2 4400 dual-core | Pentium 4 D 960 bi-threaded | |
| clock frequency | 2211 MHz | 3591 MHz | from /proc/cpuinfo/ |
| bogomips | 4427 | 7188 | useless figure |
| on-chip cache | 1024 Kbytes x 2 core (=2Mb total) | 2048 Kbytes | |
| RAM | 2 Gigabytes | 1 Gigabyte | |
| hard disk | SATA 150Gb 10000RPM Western Digital Raptor WDC WD1500ADFD |
SATA 160Gb 7200RPM Seagate Barracuda ST3160828AS |
|
| graphic card | ATI X550 | ATI X600 | |
| C compiler | gcc 4.0.4 | gcc 4.0.4 | Debian compiler used for first compilation. The gcc build process include a second self-re-compilation |
| date of installation | mid-may 2006 | march 2006 | First power-up and Debian installation |
| approximate cost | 1100 € | 1000 € | French cost of CPU box without screen, VAT included |
The compiled GCC version is the snapshot obtained by GCC Subversion repository. The (common to both tested systems) revision number is 114014, so to get the same source code just type:
svn co -r114014 svn://gcc.gnu.org/svn/gcc/trunk gcc
The configuration of the built GCC is done by making a fresh
directory _GccObj with the same parent as the gcc
directory obtained by the above command, i.e.
cd gcc mkdir ../_GccObj cd ../_GccObj
And then by configuring with
../gcc/configure --program-suffix=_snap --disable-multilib --verbose --enable-languages=c,c++
The --disable-multilib option builds only a 64 bits native compiler, without any 32 bits legacy. Only C & C++ compilers are built (no Ada or Java or Fortran).
Both machines got a batch job (on a lightly loaded setting) doing after the above configure command
cd _GccObj time make -j2
| what | #1 | #2 | notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| hostname | glinka | is003339 | as above |
| time | real 39m2.591s = 2342.591 user 64m9.474s = 3849.474 sys 3m27.659s = 207.659 |
real 53m53.320s = 3233.320 user 89m11.238s = 5351.238 sys 4m32.723s = 272.723 |
(time in seconds) output of the time make
-j2 command; the CPU user time is nearly twice as big as the
real clock time because of the -j2 make option and the
dual-core or bi-threaded CPUs. |
| time ratio | real 1.0 user 1.0 sys 1.0 |
real 1.32 user 1.39 sys 1.3133 |
normalized time to best |
The Dual Core AMD64 glinka seems significantly faster
than the Intel Pentium D is003339 (both
running in 64 bits mode) and for GCC hackers it is
worthwhile to have a powerful machine (it might
even have sense to use the distcc compiler front-end
to distribute the compilation load; this requires a good networking
connection).