EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

So far, GCC is the best and well-known compiler in open source world. It's domination can't be beaten by many of it's rivals, even though lots of efforts has ben worked on to beat GCC. One of the reason is that because it's very mature and it has a great track of record in the past, for both backward compatibility and also stability.

But that doesn't mean that GCC is the best compiler for performance purpose, as PathScale is said to announce that they will make their product EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite as an open source program.

For those who doesn't know about EKOPatch 4 Compiler Suite, here's some hint taken from their official web when they release version 4 last January:

KOPath 4 is a major revision of the leading compiler suite for high performance computing.

PathScale Inc, developer of innovative software and hardware solutions to accelerate the performance and efficiency of Linux® clusters, is now shipping EKOPath 4 for C, C++, and Fortran (77/90/95/2003.). This new version is available immediately at no additional cost to customers with a current support entitlement. A 15-day free trial version is available to qualified new customers by sending a request to sales@pathscale.com. "The PathScale EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite completely replaces our C++ stack from the ground up," explained Fred Chow Chief Scientist of PathScale. "Developers writing C++ applications will realize immediate performance benefits by switching over to EKOPath 4. Amongst other things, this new release shows we take C++ seriously as more HPC applications migrate to C++."

The new version of the EKOPath Compiler Suite introduces several key functional enhancements including a completely new C++ STL, C++ runtime, exception handling, faster compile times and native 64bit packages. In addition, PathScale EKOPath compilers now support the Intel Nehalem architecture. This enables programmers to standardize on a single compiler suite for AMD64 and Intel 64 computing applications. The PathScale EKOPath suite now includes an advanced assembler PathAS. Maintained and developed by PathScale, this enables the assembler to be more tightly coupled with the rest of the tool chain.

In real-world application testing performed by beta users, EKOPath 4 continues to excel in robustness and extend its performance lead over alternative compiler products. This makes PathScale the clear choice for compiling 64-bit Linux applications and delivering maximum performance.

Phoronix has been working on benchmarks using the open source EKOPath 4 Compiler codename dirndl and post it on their website. As you can see, the results are magificent. They outscored GCC in most aspect of benchmarking, making it more suitable for performance purposes.