We have been looking at g++ versions 3.2.3 and 4.2.4. With 4.2.4, the performance improvements on some of our code base is significant.
I've tried searching the gcc buzilla database to find hints as to what bugs may have had such a dramatic improvement but I didn't find any individual bug that stood out as being a candidate.
Are the improvements the result of many small changes that have slowly had an affect? Or was there say a top 5 set of improvements that may have made a difference?
For some background, our code base does make good use of STL containers and algorithms, as well as C++ features such as the 'inline' keyword.