Intel releases new 10.0 compiler

Intel today has announced availability of the newest Intel 10.0 compilers for C++ and Fortran developers which boasts huge optimizations across a wide range of applications along with some basic auditing of code security. I spoke with Intel's James Reinders to get a better understanding of the product line and how the new compiler optimizations improve performance.

The performance gains not only make the compiler a more compelling product, it also has ramifications in the heated CPU benchmark wars where single digit percentage points can make a difference. Intel has the luxury of optimizing their compilers for Intel processors while AMD has to rely more on their partners to deliver optimum performance. Among the gains made are single-core, multi-core, parallelization, OpenMP, MKL (Math Kernel Library), Scientific, and Multimedia processing. But Intel is careful to show benchmarks that show better performance on AMD processors using the Intel compiler versus non-Intel compilers.

[Update 8/19/2007 - Spec.org's John Henning has informed me that I should have marked these slides "estimate".  That is my mistake.]

[Update 5:00 PM - Note that these SPEC scores are certified by SPEC.org.  [Update 8/19/2007 - Spec.org's John Henning has informed me that "SPEC does not 'certify' any scores; it accepts results for publication after review."]  According to Intel, even higher scores were submitted on 5/9/2007 so there will soon be even better scores published on SPEC.org which will be the fastest SPEC scores.]

Product specs and pricing: As usual, Intel's C++ compiler for the Windows platform is an add-on for Microsoft Visual Studio but the new 10.0 Fortran compiler is now a standalone product because it comes bundled with a customized version of Visual Studio. Pricing information has also been allowed.

Professional pricing: