The suitability of high-order accurate, centered and upwind-biased compact difference schemes is evaluated for large eddy simulation of turbulent flow. Two turbulent flows are considered: turbulent channel flow at Re = 23000 and flow over a circular cylinder at Re = 3900. The effects of numerical dissipation on the finite differencing and aliasing errors and the subgrid-scale stress are investigated. It is shown through the simulations that compact upwind schemes are not suitable for LES, whereas the fourth order-compact centered scheme is a good candidate for LES provided that proper dealiasing of nonlinear terms is performed. The classical issue on the aliasing error and the treatment of nonlinear terms is revisited with compact difference schemes.