I played a bit with your link. It depends on the compiler. x86_64 clang trunk indeed compiles the original first and your fixed second form to the exact same

I played a bit with your link. It depends on the compiler. x86_64 clang trunk indeed compiles the original first and your fixed second form to the exact same code. I tried a couple of msvc and gcc versions and they did not but they all made them both branchless.