Note that Intel added CMOV when they were already on out-of-order CPUs. The link doesn't show what the context of the discussion is, but its intended applicati

Note that Intel added CMOV when they were already on out-of-order CPUs. The link doesn't show what the context of the discussion is, but its intended application is the case where Linus says it does work: " - if you KNOW the branch is totally unpredictable, cmov is often good for performance." You see this kind of data dependent branches in eg. compression code where the unpredictability is inherent.