For the vast majority of code there is a branch anyway because the comparison result is used in an conditional statement. This means a good inlining compiler pr

For the vast majority of code there is a branch anyway because the comparison result is used in an conditional statement. This means a good inlining compiler probably generates one branch for the comparison plus conditional. i.e. this is why measuring the whole is so important in isolation it is slower but in more complicated code it is likely to be faster.