C is designed and optimized to be very close to the hardware, in fact it's called high-level assembler. You can access specific hardware features directly. C++

C is designed and optimized to be very close to the hardware, in fact it's called high-level assembler. You can access specific hardware features directly. C++ is the OO version of C (yes I know this is an oversimplification). Other languages, like for example Java creates a logical layer (known as the java virtual machine or JVM) which adds more complexity and makes it harder to tweak your code to fit the particular hardware.