Editing Branch (computer science) (section)

==Performance problems with branch instructions==
To achieve high performance, modern processors are [[Instruction pipeline|pipelined]]. They consist of multiple parts that each partially process an instruction, feed their results to the next stage in the pipeline, and start working on the next instruction in the program. This design expects instructions to execute in a particular unchanging sequence. Conditional branch instructions make it impossible to know this sequence.  So conditional branches can cause "stalls" in which the pipeline has to be restarted on a different part of the program.