"The GCC team has released Version 4.3.0 of its GNU Compiler Collection. [...] The C++ standard library (libstdc++) has been given new classes for parallel data processing [...] The developers have also incorporated parts of the future ISO C++ standard..."

"The GNU Compiler Collection version 4.4.0 has been released. GCC 4.4.0 is a major release, containing substantial new functionality
not available in GCC 4.3.x or previous GCC releases..."

"The GNU Compiler Collection version 4.5.1 has been released..."

"The GNU Compiler Collection version 4.3.3 has been released. GCC 4.3.3 is a bug-fix release containing fixes for regressions and serious bugs in GCC 4.3.2. This release is available from the FTP servers listed at: ..."

Version 2.6 of LLVM, the Low-Level Virtual Machine, has been released.

"The GCC development team have announced the availability of a first release candidate for version 4.4 of their GNU Compiler Collection..."

GCC 4.4.0 was released nearly a year ago, but it looks like its one-year anniversary may pass without a new major release of the GNU Compiler Collection.

In the last few years, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has undergone a major transition from GCC version 3 to version 4. With GCC 4 comes a new optimization framework (and new intermediate code representation), new target and language support, and a variety of new attributes and options.

Last week GCC 4.5.0 entered the world with improvements. Over the weekend we decided to benchmark this major update to the GNU Compiler Collection to see how its performance compares to that of GCC 4.3 and 4.4.