[jerf]

You don't need one faster. You need one as fast. These options generally exist. Rust seems to have crept its way right up to "fast as C"; it isn't really a distinct event, but https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/... (it tends to better on the lower ones so scroll a bit). There are some other more exotic options.

C isn't the undisputed speed king any more. It hasn't necessarily been "roundly trounced", there isn't enough slack in its performance for that most likely, but it is not the undisputed speed king. It turns out the corners it cuts are just corners being cut; they aren't actually necessary for performance, and in some cases they can actually inhibit performance. See the well-known aliasing issues with C optimizations for an example. In general I expect Rust performance advantages to actually get larger as the programs scale up in size and Rust affords a style that involves less copying just to be safe; benchmarks may actually undersell Rust's advantages in real code on that front. I actually wouldn't be surprised that Rust is in practice a straight-up faster language than C on non-trivial code bases being developed in normal ways; it is unfortunately a very hard assertion to test because pretty much by definition I'm talking about things much larger than a "benchmark".