The vocabulary in the slides is odd (any memory is called stack, anything 64 bits is called SSE) and there are some questionable statements. Taking a gcc dev point of view, the main information I got form those slides is interest in PR 59521 and some small margin of progress on copying constant strings.
If anything, the section on static branch prediction advertises that one should use __builtin_expect more ;-)
I am not the author of the talk. I can say he checked the contents of this thread and had a few colourful things to say about it, but did not disagree with my recollection of what he said. As I mentioned before, he's a long time attendee and presenter at ACCU. I am inclined to believe whatever he claims, he knows his stuff. Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/