Best C/C++ Compiler?

MythicaL

Can someone recommend one for me? There's too many

cjohnsto

gcc - free, fairly good, also get to compile lots of other languages (one of the most commonly used)
Microsoft's latest compiler - the compiler is free (if you can find it) but all of the worth of Visual studio is in the IDE/documentation etc. The compiler is a good compiler but i've never used it on the command line.
Most of the others have specific uses like icc.

MythicaL

Ok thanks, I'll check them out

Matth

http://www.bloodshed.net/

Bloodshed DEV-C++ - a full Mingw/GCC system - free & ready to go!

logos1

intel's c++ compiler is the best.. no doubt. it's a highly optimizing compiler.. in terms of binary performance, microsoft's visual c optimizing compiler (not the free one.. or the standard edition) is the only real competition. msvc can compile the code faster than all other compilers in it's class.. but still remains behind intel in terms of performance (much of the performance differences is due to the loop unrolling capabilities of icc.. while gcc has it implemented, it doesn't even come close to touching icc in terms of overhead, binary size, and perf boosts. if you're on a windows based system, then there is no open source license.. for linux based systems, intel open sourced all their devel products.. so you can get that off intel's site.
regardless of whether you have an amd or intel, icc is the best.
i will make one note tho.. if what you're compiling is designed for a smp system, gcc really comes alive.. haven't seen the figures so i can't say how it pins up against icc tho.

Wunderchu