On modern Intel servers what is the typical gain on the Stream Benchmark by switching compilers from gcc to intel (icc)?
CURATOR: JPessin1
It will of course depend on system specifics, it would be best to run your own tests on the system of interest.
Optimizing Memory Bandwidth on Stream Triad,
or the authors instructions STREAM Benchmark Reference Information
That said, according to the Stream author himself:
STREAM performance should have only an extremely small dependence on the compiler version (for Intel compilers). There are certainly no noticeable changes across 13, 14, and 15, and the performance differences that exist are mostly very subtle 2nd-order (or smaller) effects. There is a big difference in performance between the Intel compilers and gcc, but that is because gcc does not support the generation of streaming stores.
https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-c-compiler/topic/599289
COMMENT-JP: @aculich Now that I’ve added an answer this looks to me like one of the grey SE questions where folks disagree on whether it belongs … Thoughts?
COMMENT-AC: @jpessin1 For the purposes of our Q&A site, I think it is worthwhile to include this question because it represents something that is not easily googleable… it takes some work to understand the question, read the intel forum thread, and find the answer to the question buried there, so it is adding value.