title: All things equal what is the fastest way to output data to disk in C++?
body: <p>I am running simulation code that is largely bound by CPU speed.  I am not interested in pushing data in/out to a user interface, simply saving it to disk as it is computed.</p>
  
  <p>What would be the fastest solution that would reduce overhead?  iostreams? printf?  I have previously read that printf is faster.  Will this depend on my code and is it impossible to get an answer without profiling?</p>
  
  <p>This will be running in Windows and the output data needs to be in text format, tab/comma separated, with formatting/precision options for mostly floating point values.</p>