Analysis of the Influence of the Compiler on Multicore Performance

Abstract

The possibility of connecting several nodes in a network of processors has popularized parallel programming in the scientific community, but its use has been limited by the difficulty of message-passing programming. With the arrival of multicore processors, parallel programming has regained popularity. The use of an OpenMP compiler optimized for the multicore system in question is a good option, but it is possible to have access in a system to more than one compiler and different compilers can appropriately optimize different parts of the code. In this paper we study theoretically and experimentally the influence of the compiler on performance of routines. We conclude that a poly-compiling approach that decides the best compiler for each situation is necessary.