Is 8.1 on P4 faster with gcc-3.2 compiled binaries?

Hi, I heard gcc-2.95.?? does not have a capability of utilizing Pentium 4's new instruction set. But gcc-3.2 does. I am very much interested in speed comparison of some applications especially latex processing on Pentium 4 machines. Linux on Pentium 4 has been so miserable. For example, what I have been experiencing so far is that P4 under 2GHz is generally slower than Pentium 3 at 1GHz. Did it now change after SuSE-8.1? Thanks. Hugh