Swift 1.2: Faster Executables

Swift 1.2 was announced a couple of weeks ago. Now, you can download it together with Xcode 6.3 beta 2 from the developer portal.

As I read about the new features for Swift 1.2 in the Swift blog for Apple Developers, one highlight feature captured my attention. It reads:

Faster executables - Debug builds produces binaries that run considerably faster, and new optimizations deliver even better Release build performance.

So, faster debug builds, great. But I’m more interested in Release build optimization. Can Swift execute faster than C?