No, he means the SSE predication instructions. The comparison instructions let you build a mask vector, and instructions like blendv use that mask vector to on

No, he means the SSE predication instructions. The comparison instructions let you build a mask vector, and instructions like blendv use that mask vector to only impact a subset of elements. It's been a common feature on many RISC and VLIW cpu's over the years. It is in no way unique to GPU's.