C# .NET versus C++ g++ fastest programs Always look at the source code. These are only the fastest programs. Do some of them use manually vectorized SIMD? Look at the other programs. They may seem more-like a fair comparison to you. spectral-norm source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 0.82 34,720 764 2.98 91% 88% 89% 98% C++ g++ 0.72 1,216 1044 2.86 100% 100% 99% 100% n-body source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 4.86 32,760 1742 4.96 0% 1% 100% 2% C++ g++ 4.09 1,800 1808 4.13 100% 0% 0% 0% regex-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 1.43 320,400 1869 2.67 33% 39% 85% 31% C++ g++ 1.08 203,816 1315 3.38 78% 99% 65% 73% pidigits source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 0.83 31,700 1168 1.02 1% 2% 21% 98% C++ g++ 0.60 4,944 986 2.38 100% 100% 98% 100% fasta source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 1.16 96,136 1691 4.31 96% 95% 92% 89% C++ g++ 0.78 2,468 2751 1.62 8% 99% 99% 3% k-nucleotide source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 3.28 182,680 2044 11.09 87% 83% 73% 94% C++ g++ 1.95 156,372 1631 5.95 73% 70% 92% 70% fannkuch-redux source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 8.40 30,788 1225 33.30 100% 99% 99% 99% C++ g++ 4.91 1,912 1482 19.45 100% 99% 97% 100% binary-trees source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 2.35 807,172 753 7.82 83% 88% 84% 78% C++ g++ 1.04 154,824 1122 3.74 88% 100% 88% 86% reverse-complement source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 1.48 959,848 1310 4.18 30% 63% 93% 96% C++ g++ 0.63 499,704 2093 0.64 0% 100% 2% 0% mandelbrot source secs mem gz busy cpu load C# .NET 3.14 64,716 1974 12.28 99% 97% 97% 97% C++ g++ 0.84 34,604 3542 3.28 98% 99% 98% 95% C# .NET .NET SDK 5.0.100 Host Version: 5.0.0; Commit: cf258a14b7 <ServerGarbageCollection>true C++ g++ g++ (Ubuntu 10.2.0-13ubuntu1) 10.2.0 all C# .NET programs & measurements all C++ g++ programs & measurements