Do I really need to update my GCC for building Bitcoin?

Hey guys, I'm just starting with Bitcoin and wanna build it on my own machine. I checked the docs and saw that I need newer versions of some tools like Autoconf, Automake, Clang, and GCC. My setup is CentOS7 and my gcc is only 4.8. Do I really have to upgrade all these tools? Seems like a lot of hassle for a newbie, right? Thanks!

For sure you need to upgrade. Bitcoin Core relies on features from C++17 and C++20 that older compilers simply can't handle. Trust me, it's mandatory if you want to build without issues.