Fastest hash for non-cryptographic uses?

fcn     time  generated hash
crc32:  0.03163  798740135
md5:    0.0731   0dbab6d0c841278d33be207f14eeab8b
sha1:   0.07331  417a9e5c9ac7c52e32727cfd25da99eca9339a80
xor:    0.65218  119
xor2:   0.29301  134217728
add:    0.57841  1105

And the code used to generate this is:

 $loops = 100000;
 $str = "ana are mere";

 echo "<pre>";

 $tss = microtime(true);
 for($i=0; $i<$loops; $i++){
  $x = crc32($str);
 }
 $tse = microtime(true);
 echo "\ncrc32: \t" . round($tse-$tss, 5) . " \t" . $x;

 $tss = microtime(true);
 for($i=0; $i<$loops; $i++){
  $x = md5($str);
 }
 $tse = microtime(true);
 echo "\nmd5: \t".round($tse-$tss, 5) . " \t" . $x;

 $tss = microtime(true);
 for($i=0; $i<$loops; $i++){
  $x = sha1($str);
 }
 $tse = microtime(true);
 echo "\nsha1: \t".round($tse-$tss, 5) . " \t" . $x;

 $tss = microtime(true);
 for($i=0; $i<$loops; $i++){
  $l = strlen($str);
  $x = 0x77;
  for($j=0;$j<$l;$j++){
   $x = $x xor ord($str[$j]);
  }
 }
 $tse = microtime(true);
 echo "\nxor: \t".round($tse-$tss, 5) . " \t" . $x;

 $tss = microtime(true);
 for($i=0; $i<$loops; $i++){
  $l = strlen($str);
  $x = 0x08;
  for($j=0;$j<$l;$j++){
   $x = ($x<<2) xor $str[$j];
  }
 }
 $tse = microtime(true);
 echo "\nxor2: \t".round($tse-$tss, 5) . " \t" . $x;

 $tss = microtime(true);
 for($i=0; $i<$loops; $i++){
  $l = strlen($str);
  $x = 0;
  for($j=0;$j<$l;$j++){
   $x = $x + ord($str[$j]);
  }
 }
 $tse = microtime(true);
 echo "\nadd: \t".round($tse-$tss, 5) . " \t" . $x;

CRC32 is pretty fast and there's a function for it: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.crc32.php

But you should be aware that CRC32 will have more collisions than MD5 or even SHA-1 hashes, simply because of the reduced length (32 bits compared to 128 bits respectively 160 bits). But if you just want to check whether a stored string is corrupted, you'll be fine with CRC32.

There's a speed comparison on the xxHash repository. This is what it shows, on January 12, 2021.

It seems xxHash is by far the fastest one, while many others beat older hashes, like CRC32, MD5 and SHA.