Performance difference Rust and C++ - performance

Question

I am currently learning Rust, and as a first exercise I wanted to implement a function that computes the nth fibonacci number:
fn main() {
for i in 0..48 {
println!("{}: {}", i, fibonacci(i));
}
}
fn fibonacci(n: u32) -> u32 {
match n {
0 => 0,
1 => 1,
_ => fibonacci(n - 1) + fibonacci(n - 2),
}
}
I run it as:
$ time cargo run --release
real 0m15.380s
user 0m15.362s
sys 0m0.014s
As an exercise, I also implemented the same algorithm in C++. I was expecting a similar performance, but the C++ code runs in 80% of the time:
#include<iostream>
unsigned int fibonacci(unsigned int n);
int main (int argc, char* argv[]) {
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < 48; ++i) {
std::cout << i << ": " << fibonacci(i) << '\n';
}
return 0;
}
unsigned int fibonacci(unsigned int n) {
if(n == 0) {
return 0;
} else if (n == 1) {
return 1;
} else {
return fibonacci(n - 1) + fibonacci(n - 2);
}
}
Compiled as:
$ g++ test.cpp -o test.exe -O2
And running:
$ time ./test.exe
real 0m12.127s
user 0m12.124s
sys 0m0.000s
Why do I see such a difference in performance? I am not interested in calculating the fibonacci faster in Rust (with a different algorithm); I am only interested on where the difference comes from. This is just an exercise in my progress as I learn Rust.

Answer 1

TL;DR: It's not Rust vs C++, it's LLVM (Clang) vs GCC.
Different optimizers optimize the code differently, and in this case GCC produces larger but faster code.
This can be verified using godbolt.
Here is Rust, compiled with both GCC (via rustgcc-master):
example::fibonacci:
push r15
push r14
push r13
push r12
push rbp
xor ebp, ebp
push rbx
mov ebx, edi
sub rsp, 24
.L2:
test ebx, ebx
je .L1
cmp ebx, 1
je .L4
lea r12d, -1[rbx]
xor r13d, r13d
.L19:
cmp r12d, 1
je .L6
lea r14d, -1[r12]
xor r15d, r15d
.L16:
cmp r14d, 1
je .L8
lea edx, -1[r14]
xor ecx, ecx
.L13:
cmp edx, 1
je .L10
lea edi, -1[rdx]
mov DWORD PTR 12[rsp], ecx
mov DWORD PTR 8[rsp], edx
call example::fibonacci.localalias
mov ecx, DWORD PTR 12[rsp]
mov edx, DWORD PTR 8[rsp]
add ecx, eax
sub edx, 2
jne .L13
.L14:
add r15d, ecx
sub r14d, 2
je .L17
jmp .L16
.L4:
add ebp, 1
.L1:
add rsp, 24
mov eax, ebp
pop rbx
pop rbp
pop r12
pop r13
pop r14
pop r15
ret
.L6:
add r13d, 1
.L20:
sub ebx, 2
add ebp, r13d
jmp .L2
.L8:
add r15d, 1
.L17:
add r13d, r15d
sub r12d, 2
je .L20
jmp .L19
.L10:
add ecx, 1
jmp .L14
And with LLVM (via rustc):
example::fibonacci:
push rbp
push r14
push rbx
mov ebx, edi
xor ebp, ebp
mov r14, qword ptr [rip + example::fibonacci#GOTPCREL]
cmp ebx, 2
jb .LBB0_3
.LBB0_2:
lea edi, [rbx - 1]
call r14
add ebp, eax
add ebx, -2
cmp ebx, 2
jae .LBB0_2
.LBB0_3:
add ebx, ebp
mov eax, ebx
pop rbx
pop r14
pop rbp
ret
We can see that LLVM produces a naive version -- calling the function in each iteration of the loop -- while GCC partially unrolls the recursion by inlining some calls. This results in a smaller number of calls in the case of GCC, and at about 5ns of overhead per function call, it's significant enough.
We can do the same exercise with the C++ version using LLVM via Clang and GCC and note that the result is pretty much similar.
So, as announced, it's a LLVM vs GCC difference, not a language one.
Incidentally, the fact that optimizers may produce such widely different results is a reason why I am quite excited at the progress of the rustc_codegen_gcc initiative (dubbed rustgcc-master on godbolt) which aims at pluging a GCC backend into the rustc frontend: once complete anyone will be able to switch to the better optimizer for their own workload.