From my understanding branches are about conditional jump instructions. Here are some of them:
JZ, JE - Jump if Zero, Jump if Equal
JNZ, JNE - Jump if Not Zero, Jump if Not Equal
JC - Jump if Carry
JNC - Jump if No Carry
JO - Jump if Overflow
JNO - Jump if No Overflow
JS - Jump if Signed (Negative)
JNS - Jump if Not Signed (Positive or Zero)
JP, JPE - Jump if Parity, Jump if Parity is Even
JNP, JPO - Jump if Not Parity, Jump if Parity is Odd
The article's claim is that branchless code avoids branch-prediction, and therefore optimizes better on speculative CPUs for certain workloads. Jump instructions obviously incur branch-prediction; my question is is CMOV incurs branch prediction, also? Certainly the internal micro-ops behind the instructions will still need to make a prediction or stall?
